drawer, which served as a Catalogue of Prices, and by this oracle
Biddy arranged all the shop transaction. Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's
great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself quiet unequal to the
working out of the problem, what relation she was to Mr. Wopsle. She
was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been brought up by
hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of her
extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always
wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up
at heel. This description must be received with a week-day
limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of
Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it
had been a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched
by every letter. After that, I fell among those thieves, the nine
figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise
themselves and baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a
purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher, on the very
smallest scale.

One night, I was sitting in the chimney-corner with my slate,
expending great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I
think it must have been a fully year after our hunt upon the
marshes, for it was a long time after, and it was winter and a hard
frost. With an alphabet on the hearth at my feet for reference, I
contrived in an hour or two to print and smear this epistle:

"MI DEER JO i OPE U R KR WITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2
TEEDGE U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO
WOT LARX AN BLEVE ME INF XN PIP."