CHAPTER XVII

Esther’s Narrative

Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though

he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities,

his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was

always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I

knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted

that he had been educated in no habits of application and

concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same

manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in

character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks,

always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful,

dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities

in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They

were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously

won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were

very bad masters. If they had been under Richard’s direction, they

would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction,

they became his enemies.

I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any

other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think

so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These

were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides

how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the

uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his

nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that

he was part of a great gaming system.

Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was

not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after

Richard.

“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well and is, I assure

you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say

of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn

to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as

the fore-topsel weather earrings. It was his naval way of mentioning

generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the

same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won’t think me

premature if I mention it?”

I said no, as Mrs. Badger’s insinuating tone seemed to require such

an answer.

“Nor Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly.

Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy.

“Why, you see, my dears,” said Mrs. Badger, “—you’ll excuse me

calling you my dears?”

We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.

“Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,”

pursued Mrs. Badger, “so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that

although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the

compliment of saying so—”

“No,” Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public

meeting. “Not at all!”

“Very well,” smiled Mrs. Badger, “we will say still young.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Badger.

“My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of

observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old

Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser

in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and

befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command. YOU never

heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would

not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts,

but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to

me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”

“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger.

“When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second,”

said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were

parts of a charade, “I still enjoyed opportunities of observing

youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a large

one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man

seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to

throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific

Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed

biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there

was science to an unlimited extent.”

“Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Badger

reverentially. “There must have been great intellectual friction

going on there under the auspices of such a man!”

“And now,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “now that I am the wife of my dear

third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which

were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new

and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I

therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a

neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he

has not chosen his profession advisedly.”

Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she

founded her supposition.

“My dear Miss Summerson,” she replied, “on Mr. Carstone’s character

and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he

would never think it worth while to mention how he really feels, but

he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive

interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided

impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a

tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr.

Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can

do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a

very little money and through years of considerable endurance and

disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the

case with Mr. Carstone.”

“Does Mr. Badger think so too?” asked Ada timidly.

“Why,” said Mr. Badger, “to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of

the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But

when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great

consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in addition to

its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by

two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men

as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The

conclusion at which I have arrived is—in short, is Mrs. Badger’s

conclusion.”

“It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking in

his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot

make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you

should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that

this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical

profession.”

“To all professions,” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said by

Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.”

“People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north

of Devon after our marriage,” said Mrs. Badger, “that he disfigured

some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of

those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor

replied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The

principle is the same, I think?”

“Precisely the same,” said Mr. Badger. “Finely expressed! The

professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness,

when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer

under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants.

The ruling passion!”

Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and

Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was

disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to

us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We

agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard;

and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious

talk with him.

So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my

darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly

right in whatever he said.

“And how do you get on, Richard?” said I. I always sat down on the

other side of him. He made quite a sister of me.

“Oh! Well enough!” said Richard.

“He can’t say better than that, Esther, can he?” cried my pet

triumphantly.

I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I

couldn’t.

“Well enough?” I repeated.

“Yes,” said Richard, “well enough. It’s rather jog-trotty and

humdrum. But it’ll do as well as anything else!”

“Oh! My dear Richard!” I remonstrated.

“What’s the matter?” said Richard.

“Do as well as anything else!”

“I don’t think there’s any harm in that, Dame Durden,” said Ada,

looking so confidingly at me across him; “because if it will do as

well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.”

“Oh, yes, I hope so,” returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair

from his forehead. “After all, it may be only a kind of probation

till our suit is—I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit.

Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it’s all right enough. Let us talk about

something else.”

Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we

had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought

it would be useless to stop there, so I began again.

“No, but Richard,” said I, “and my dear Ada! Consider how important

it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your

cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any

reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It

will be too late very soon.”

“Oh, yes! We must talk about it!” said Ada. “But I think Richard is

right.”

What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty,

and so engaging, and so fond of him!

“Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard,” said I, “and they

seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the

profession.”

“Did they though?” said Richard. “Oh! Well, that rather alters the

case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not

have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don’t

care much about it. But, oh, it don’t matter! It’ll do as well as

anything else!”

“You hear him, Ada!” said I.

“The fact is,” Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half

jocosely, “it is not quite in my way. I don’t take to it. And I get

too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger’s first and second.”

“I am sure THAT’S very natural!” cried Ada, quite delighted. “The

very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!”

“Then,” pursued Richard, “it’s monotonous, and to-day is too like

yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day.”

“But I am afraid,” said I, “this is an objection to all kinds of

application—to life itself, except under some very uncommon

circumstances.”

“Do you think so?” returned Richard, still considering. “Perhaps! Ha!

Why, then, you know,” he added, suddenly becoming gay again, “we

travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It’ll do as well as

anything else. Oh, it’s all right enough! Let us talk about something

else.”

But even Ada, with her loving face—and if it had seemed innocent and

trusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much

more did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting

heart—even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I

thought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were

sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never

meant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his

affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a

step that might influence both their lives. This made him almost

grave.

“My dear Mother Hubbard,” he said, “that’s the very thing! I have

thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself

for meaning to be so much in earnest and—somehow—not exactly being

so. I don’t know how it is; I seem to want something or other to

stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling

cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don’t settle down to constancy

in other things. It’s such uphill work, and it takes such a time!”

said Richard with an air of vexation.

“That may be,” I suggested, “because you don’t like what you have

chosen.”

“Poor fellow!” said Ada. “I am sure I don’t wonder at it!”

No. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried

again, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I

could, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while

he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him!

“You see, my precious girl,” said Richard, passing her golden curls

through and through his hand, “I was a little hasty perhaps; or I

misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don’t seem to lie in

that direction. I couldn’t tell till I tried. Now the question is

whether it’s worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems

like making a great disturbance about nothing particular.”

“My dear Richard,” said I, “how CAN you say about nothing

particular?”

“I don’t mean absolutely that,” he returned. “I mean that it MAY be

nothing particular because I may never want it.”

Both Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly

worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I

then asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial

pursuit.

“There, my dear Mrs. Shipton,” said Richard, “you touch me home. Yes,

I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me.”

“The law!” repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name.

“If I went into Kenge’s office,” said Richard, “and if I were placed

under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the—hum!—the

forbidden ground—and should be able to study it, and master it, and

to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly

conducted. I should be able to look after Ada’s interests and my own

interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and

all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour.”

I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering

after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast

a shade on Ada’s face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any

project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure

that his mind was made up now.

“My dear Minerva,” said Richard, “I am as steady as you are. I made a

mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won’t do so any more, and

I’ll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know,”

said Richard, relapsing into doubt, “if it really is worth-while,

after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!”

This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that

we had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion

afterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open

with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment’s delay, and his disposition was

naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once

(taking us with him) and made a full avowal. “Rick,” said my

guardian, after hearing him attentively, “we can retreat with honour,

and we will. But we must be careful—for our cousin’s sake, Rick, for

our cousin’s sake—that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in

the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We

will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it.”

Richard’s energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he

would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge’s

office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the

spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we

had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down

among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying

purpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held

possession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him,

but rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we

were going upstairs to bed, to say, “Cousin John, I hope you don’t

think the worse of Richard?”

“No, my love,” said he.

“Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such

a difficult case. It is not uncommon.”

“No, no, my love,” said he. “Don’t look unhappy.”

“Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!” said Ada, smiling cheerfully,

with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him

good night. “But I should be a little so if you thought at all the

worse of Richard.”

“My dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “I should think the worse of him only

if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be

more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick,

for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has

time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not

I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!”

“No, indeed, cousin John,” said Ada, “I am sure I could not—I am

sure I would not—think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I

could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!”

So quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his

shoulders—both hands now—and looking up into his face, like the

picture of truth!

“I think,” said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, “I think it

must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall

occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the

father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant

slumbers! Happy dreams!”

This was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with

something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well

remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard

when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while

since he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was

shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and

even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once

more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally

been.

Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised

him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her

clasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed

her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy

she looked.

For I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up

working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was

wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don’t know why. At least I don’t

think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don’t think it

matters.

At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I

would leave myself not a moment’s leisure to be low-spirited. For I

naturally said, “Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!” And it really

was time to say so, for I—yes, I really did see myself in the glass,

almost crying. “As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead

of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!” said I.

If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it

directly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some

ornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy

with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was

necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to

go on with it until I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and then to go to

bed.

I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in

a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop

for want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To

my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and

sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay

unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered

confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering

among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn.

Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still

for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in

again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and

started.

“Esther!”

I told him what I had come for.

“At work so late, my dear?”

“I am working late to-night,” said I, “because I couldn’t sleep and

wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look

weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?”

“None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand,” said he.

He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated,

as if that would help me to his meaning, “That I could readily

understand!”

“Remain a moment, Esther,” said he, “You were in my thoughts.”

“I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?”

He slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change

was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much

self-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, “None

that I could understand!”

“Little woman,” said my guardian, “I was thinking—that is, I have

been thinking since I have been sitting here—that you ought to know

of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing.”

“Dear guardian,” I replied, “when you spoke to me before on that

subject—”

“But since then,” he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to

say, “I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my

having anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It

is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know.”

“If you think so, guardian, it is right.”

“I think so,” he returned very gently, and kindly, and very

distinctly. “My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can

attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a

thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not

magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature.”

I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to

be, “One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words:

‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time

will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and

will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.’” I had covered my face

with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a

better kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the

blessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never,

never felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that

he was never to be thanked, and said no more.

“Nine years, my dear,” he said after thinking for a little while,

“have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in

seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it

unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as

it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer’s

idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to

justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years

old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your

remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from

her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if

the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be

left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to

consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun.”

I listened in silence and looked attentively at him.

“Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium

through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the

distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the

need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was

quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her

darkened life, and replied to the letter.”

I took his hand and kissed it.

“It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the

writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the

world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one.

I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of

his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there

were any ties of blood in such a case, the child’s aunt. That more

than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the

steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration

disclose. My dear, I have told you all.”

I held his hand for a little while in mine.

“I saw my ward oftener than she saw me,” he added, cheerily making

light of it, “and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy.

She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every

hour in every day!”

“And oftener still,” said I, “she blesses the guardian who is a

father to her!”

At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He

subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been

there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they

had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, “That I

could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!” No,

it was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day.

“Take a fatherly good night, my dear,” said he, kissing me on the

forehead, “and so to rest. These are late hours for working and

thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little

housekeeper!”

I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my

grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and

its care of me, and fell asleep.

We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take

leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to

China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a

long, long time.

I believe—at least I know—that he was not rich. All his widowed

mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his

profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very

little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at

the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness

and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was

seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly

seems to belong to anything.

I think—I mean, he told us—that he had been in practice three or

four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three

or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was

bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going

away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a

pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among

those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it

had a high opinion of him.

When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for

the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes,

but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time

ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan

ap-Kerrig—of some place that sounded like Gimlet—who was the most

illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations

were a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life

in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and

a bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his

praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it,

Mewlinnwillinwodd.

Mrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great

kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would

remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below

it. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in

India who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be

picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would

suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must

ever be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that

for a moment I half fancied, and with pain—But what an idle fancy to

suppose that she could think or care what MINE was!

Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was

too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring

the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian

for his hospitality and for the very happy hours—he called them the

very happy hours—he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he

said, would go with him wherever he went and would be always

treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another—at least,

they did—and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada’s hand—and to

mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage!

I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the

servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and

papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and

another. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by

the window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no

expectation of seeing!

“Why, Caddy, my dear,” said I, “what beautiful flowers!”

She had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand.

“Indeed, I think so, Esther,” replied Caddy. “They are the loveliest

I ever saw.”

“Prince, my dear?” said I in a whisper.

“No,” answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to

smell. “Not Prince.”

“Well, to be sure, Caddy!” said I. “You must have two lovers!”

“What? Do they look like that sort of thing?” said Caddy.

“Do they look like that sort of thing?” I repeated, pinching her

cheek.

Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for

half an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting

for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window,

every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they

looked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into

my room and put them in my dress.

“For me?” said I, surprised.

“For you,” said Caddy with a kiss. “They were left behind by

somebody.”

“Left behind?”

“At poor Miss Flite’s,” said Caddy. “Somebody who has been very good

to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these

flowers behind. No, no! Don’t take them out. Let the pretty little

things lie here,” said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand,

“because I was present myself, and I shouldn’t wonder if somebody

left them on purpose!”

“Do they look like that sort of thing?” said Ada, coming laughingly

behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. “Oh, yes, indeed

they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing.

Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!”