BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la sumar

CHAPTER IX  

Signs and Tokens 

I don't know how it is I seem to be always writing about myself.  I  mean all the time to write about other people, and I try to think  about myself as little as possible, and I am sure, when I find  myself coming into the story again, I am really vexed and say,  "Dear, dear, you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn't!"  but it is all of no use.  I hope any one who may read what I write  will understand that if these pages contain a great deal about me,  I can only suppose it must be because I have really something to do  with them and can't be kept out.  My darling and I read together, and worked, and practised, and  found so much employment for our time that the winter days flew by  us like bright-winged birds.  Generally in the afternoons, and  always in the evenings, Richard gave us his company.  Although he  was one of the most restless creatures in the world, he certainly  was very fond of our society.  He was very, very, very fond of Ada.  I mean it, and I had better  say it at once.  I had never seen any young people falling in love  before, but I found them out quite soon.  I could not say so, of  course, or show that I knew anything about it.  On the contrary, I  was so demure and used to seem so unconscious that sometimes I  considered within myself while I was sitting at work whether I was  not growing quite deceitful.  But there was no help for it.  All I had to do was to be quiet, and  I was as quiet as a mouse.  They were as quiet as mice too, so far  as any words were concerned, but the innocent manner in which they  relied more and more upon me as they took more and more to one  another was so charming that I had great difficulty in not showing  how it interested me. 

"Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman," Richard  would say, coming up to meet me in the garden early, with his  pleasant laugh and perhaps the least tinge of a blush, "that I  can't get on without her.  Before I begin my harum-scarum day-- grinding away at those books and instruments and then galloping up  hill and down dale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it  does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our  comfortable friend, that here I am again!" 

"You know, Dame Durden, dear," Ada would say at night, with her  head upon my shoulder and the firelight shining in her thoughtful  eyes, "I don't want to talk when we come upstairs here.  Only to  sit a little while thinking, with your dear face for company, and  to hear the wind and remember the poor sailors at sea--" 

Ah!  Perhaps Richard was going to be a sailor.  We had talked it  over very often now, and there was some talk of gratifying the  inclination of his childhood for the sea.  Mr. Jarndyce had written  to a relation of the family, a great Sir Leicester Dedlock, for his  interest in Richard's favour, generally; and Sir Leicester had  replied in a gracious manner that he would be happy to advance the  prospects of the young gentleman if it should ever prove to be  within his power, which was not at all probable, and that my Lady  sent her compliments to the young gentleman (to whom she perfectly  remembered that she was allied by remote consanguinity) and trusted  that he would ever do his duty in any honourable profession to  which he might devote himself. 

"So I apprehend it's pretty clear," said Richard to me, "that I  shall have to work my own way.  Never mind!  Plenty of people have  had to do that before now, and have done it.  I only wish I had the  command of a clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off  the Chancellor and keep him on short allowance until he gave  judgment in our cause.  He'd find himself growing thin, if he  didn't look sharp!"  With a buoyancy and hopefulness and a gaiety that hardly ever  flagged, Richard had a carelessness in his character that quite  perplexed me, principally because he mistook it, in such a very odd  way, for prudence.  It entered into all his calculations about  money in a singular manner which I don't think I can better explain  than by reverting for a moment to our loan to Mr. Skimpole.  Mr. Jarndyce had ascertained the amount, either from Mr. Skimpole  himself or from Coavinses, and had placed the money in my hands  with instructions to me to retain my own part of it and hand the  rest to Richard.  The number of little acts of thoughtless  expenditure which Richard justified by the recovery of his ten  pounds, and the number of times he talked to me as if he had saved  or realized that amount, would form a sum in simple addition. 

"My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not?" he said to me when he wanted,  without the least consideration, to bestow five pounds on the  brickmaker. 

"I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses'  business." 

"How was that?" said I. 

"Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid  of and never expected to see any more.  You don't deny that?" 

"No," said I. 

"Very well!  Then I came into possession of ten pounds--" 

"The same ten pounds," I hinted.  "That has nothing to do with it!" returned Richard. 

"I have got  ten pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can  afford to spend it without being particular." 

In exactly the same way, when he was persuaded out of the sacrifice  of these five pounds by being convinced that it would do no good,  he carried that sum to his credit and drew upon it.  "Let me see!" he would say. 

"I saved five pounds out of the  brickmaker's affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back  in a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have  saved one.  And it's a very good thing to save one, let me tell  you: a penny saved is a penny got!" 

I believe Richard's was as frank and generous a nature as there  possibly can be.  He was ardent and brave, and in the midst of all  his wild restlessness, was so gentle that I knew him like a brother  in a few weeks.  His gentleness was natural to him and would have  shown itself abundantly even without Ada's influence; but with it,  he became one of the most winning of companions, always so ready to  be interested and always so happy, sanguine, and light-hearted.  I  am sure that I, sitting with them, and walking with them, and  talking with them, and noticing from day to day how they went on,  falling deeper and deeper in love, and saying nothing about it, and  each shyly thinking that this love was the greatest of secrets,  perhaps not yet suspected even by the other--I am sure that I was  scarcely less enchanted than they were and scarcely less pleased  with the pretty dream.  We were going on in this way, when one morning at breakfast Mr.  Jarndyce received a letter, and looking at the superscription,  said, "From Boythorn?  Aye, aye!" and opened and read it with  evident pleasure, announcing to us in a parenthesis when he was  about half-way through, that Boythorn was "coming down" on a visit. 

 Now who was Boythorn, we all thought.  And I dare say we all  thought too--I am sure I did, for one--would Boythorn at all  interfere with what was going forward? 

"I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn," said Mr.  Jarndyce, tapping the letter as he laid it on the table, "more than  five and forty years ago.  He was then the most impetuous boy in  the world, and he is now the most impetuous man.  He was then the  loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man.  He was  then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now  the heartiest and sturdiest man.  He is a tremendous fellow." 

"In stature, sir?" asked Richard. 

"Pretty well, Rick, in that respect," said Mr. Jarndyce; "being  some ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his  head thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared,  his hands like a clean blacksmith's, and his lungs!  There's no  simile for his lungs.  Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the  beams of the house shake." 

As Mr. Jarndyce sat enjoying the image of his friend Boythorn, we  observed the favourable omen that there was not the least  indication of any change in the wind. 

"But it's the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the  passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick--and Ada, and  little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor--that I  speak of," he pursued. 

"His language is as sounding as his voice.   He is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree.   In his condemnation he is all ferocity.  You might suppose him to  be an ogre from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation  of one with some people.  There!  I tell you no more of him  beforehand.  You must not be surprised to see him take me under his  protection, for he has never forgotten that I was a low boy at  school and that our friendship began in his knocking two of my head  tyrant's teeth out (he says six) before breakfast.  Boythorn and  his man," to me, "will be here this afternoon, my dear." 

I took care that the necessary preparations were made for Mr.  Boythorn's reception, and we looked forward to his arrival with  some curiosity.  The afternoon wore away, however, and he did not  appear.  The dinner-hour arrived, and still he did not appear.  The  dinner was put back an hour, and we were sitting round the fire  with no light but the blaze when the hall-door suddenly burst open  and the hall resounded with these words, uttered with the greatest  vehemence and in a stentorian tone: "We have been misdirected,  Jarndyce, by a most abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the  turning to the right instead of to the left.  He is the most  intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth.  His father must  have been a most consummate villain, ever to have such a son.  I  would have had that fellow shot without the least remorse!" 

"Did he do it on purpose?" Mr. Jarndyce inquired. 

"I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his  whole existence in misdirecting travellers!" returned the other.   

"By my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld  when he was telling me to take the turning to the right.  And yet I  stood before that fellow face to face and didn't knock his brains  out!" 

"Teeth, you mean?" said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, really making the  whole house vibrate. 

"What, you have not forgotten it yet!  Ha,  ha, ha!  And that was another most consummate vagabond!  By my  soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the  blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a  scarecrow in a field of scoundrels.  If I were to meet that most  unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like  a rotten tree!"  "I have no doubt of it," said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"Now, will you come  upstairs?" 

"By my soul, Jarndyce," returned his guest, who seemed to refer to  his watch, "if you had been married, I would have turned back at  the garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the  Himalaya Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at  this unseasonable hour." 

"Not quite so far, I hope?" said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"By my life and honour, yes!" cried the visitor. 

"I wouldn't be  guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house  waiting all this time for any earthly consideration.  I would  infinitely rather destroy myself--infinitely rather!" 

Talking thus, they went upstairs, and presently we heard him in his  bedroom thundering "Ha, ha, ha!" and again "Ha, ha, ha!" until the  flattest echo in the neighbourhood seemed to catch the contagion  and to laugh as enjoyingly as he did or as we did when we heard him  laugh.  We all conceived a prepossession in his favour, for there was a  sterling quality in this laugh, and in his vigorous, healthy voice,  and in the roundness and fullness with which he uttered every word  he spoke, and in the very fury of his superlatives, which seemed to  go off like blank cannons and hurt nothing.  But we were hardly  prepared to have it so confirmed by his appearance when Mr.  Jarndyce presented him.  He was not only a very handsome old  gentleman--upright and stalwart as he had been described to us-- with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a  figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so  continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that  might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement  emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was  such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his  face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness,  and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed  himself exactly as he was--incapable, as Richard said, of anything  on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns  because he carried no small arms whatever--that really I could not  help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner,  whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led by Mr.  Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his  head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!" 

"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr.  Jarndyce. 

"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the  other. 

"He IS the most wonderful creature!  I wouldn't take ten  thousand guineas for that bird.  I have left an annuity for his  sole support in case he should outlive me.  He is, in sense and  attachment, a phenomenon.  And his father before him was one of the  most astonishing birds that ever lived!" 

The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so  tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his  forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room,  alighted on his master's head.  To hear Mr. Boythorn presently  expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this  fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to  have a good illustration of his character, I thought. 

"By my soul, Jarndyce," he said, very gently holding up a bit of  bread to the canary to peck at, "if I were in your place I would  seize every master in Chancery by the throat tomorrow morning and  shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones  rattled in his skin.  I would have a settlement out of somebody, by  fair means or by foul.  If you would empower me to do it, I would  do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!"  (All this time the  very small canary was eating out of his hand.) 

"I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at  present," returned Mr. Jarndyce, laughing, "that it would be  greatly advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and  the whole bar." 

"There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the  face of the earth!" said Mr. Boythorn. 

"Nothing but a mine below  it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and  precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it  also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the  Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to  atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it  in the least!" 

It was impossible not to laugh at the energetic gravity with which  he recommended this strong measure of reform.  When we laughed, he  threw up his head and shook his broad chest, and again the whole  country seemed to echo to his "Ha, ha, ha!"  It had not the least  effect in disturbing the bird, whose sense of security was complete  and who hopped about the table with its quick head now on this side  and now on that, turning its bright sudden eye on its master as if  he were no more than another bird.  "But how do you and your neighbour get on about the disputed right  of way?" said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"You are not free from the toils of  the law yourself!" 

"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have  brought actions against HIM for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn.   

"By heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing.  It is morally  impossible that his name can be Sir Leicester.  It must be Sir  Lucifer." 

"Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian  laughingly to Ada and Richard. 

"I would beg Miss Clare's pardon and Mr. Carstone's pardon,"  resumed our visitor, "if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair  face of the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite  unnecessary and that they keep their distant relation at a  comfortable distance." 

"Or he keeps us," suggested Richard. 

"By my soul," exclaimed Mr. Boythorn, suddenly firing another  volley, "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather  was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull,  ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station  of life but a walking-stick's!  The whole of that family are the  most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads!  But it's no  matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets  melted into one and living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within  another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving.  The fellow, by  his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me 'Sir Leicester  Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compliments to Mr. Lawrence  Boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green  pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of Mr.  Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester's right of way, being in fact a  portion of the park of chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds  it convenient to close up the same.'  I write to the fellow, 'Mr.  Lawrence Boythorn presents his compliments to Sir Leicester  Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS attention to the fact that he  totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock's positions on  every possible subject and has to add, in reference to closing up  the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake  to do it.' 

The fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye  to construct a gateway.  I play upon that execrable scoundrel with  a fire-engine until the breath is nearly driven out of his body.   The fellow erects a gate in the night.  I chop it down and burn it  in the morning.  He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence and  pass and repass.  I catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas  at their legs, play upon them with the engine--resolve to free  mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those  lurking ruffians.  He brings actions for trespass; I bring actions  for trespass.  He brings actions for assault and battery; I defend  them and continue to assault and batter.  Ha, ha, ha!"  To hear him say all this with unimaginable energy, one might have  thought him the angriest of mankind.  To see him at the very same  time, looking at the bird now perched upon his thumb and softly  smoothing its feathers with his forefinger, one might have thought  him the gentlest.  To hear him laugh and see the broad good nature  of his face then, one might have supposed that he had not a care in  the world, or a dispute, or a dislike, but that his whole existence  was a summer joke.  "No, no," he said, "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock!   Though I willingly confess," here he softened in a moment, "that  Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I  would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a  head seven hundred years thick, may.  A man who joined his regiment  at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and  presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the  breath of life through a tight waist--and got broke for it--is not  the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive,  locked or unlocked.  Ha, ha, ha!" 

"Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?" said my  guardian. 

"Most assuredly not!" said Mr. Boythorn, clapping him on the  shoulder with an air of protection that had something serious in  it, though he laughed. 

"He will stand by the low boy, always.   Jarndyce, you may rely upon him!  But speaking of this trespass-- with apologies to Miss Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at  which I have pursued so dry a subject--is there nothing for me from  your men Kenge and Carboy?" 

"I think not, Esther?" said Mr. Jarndyce. 

"Nothing, guardian." 

"Much obliged!" said Mr. Boythorn. 

"Had no need to ask, after even  my slight experience of Miss Summerson's forethought for every one  about her." 

(They all encouraged me; they were determined to do  it.) 

"I inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course  have not yet been in town, and I thought some letters might have  been sent down here.  I dare say they will report progress to- morrow morning."  I saw him so often in the course of the evening, which passed very  pleasantly, contemplate Richard and Ada with an interest and a  satisfaction that made his fine face remarkably agreeable as he sat  at a little distance from the piano listening to the music--and he  had small occasion to tell us that he was passionately fond of  music, for his face showed it--that I asked my guardian as we sat  at the backgammon board whether Mr. Boythorn had ever been married. 

"No," said he.  "No."  "But he meant to be!" said I. 

"How did you find out that?" he returned with a smile. 

"Why,  guardian," I explained, not without reddening a little at hazarding  what was in my thoughts, "there is something so tender in his  manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and --"  Mr. Jarndyce directed his eyes to where he was sitting as I have  just described him.  I said no more.

"You are right, little woman," he answered. 

"He was all but  married once.  Long ago.  And once." 

"Did the lady die?" 

"No--but she died to him.  That time has had its influence on all  his later life.  Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart  full of romance yet?" 

"I think, guardian, I might have supposed so.  But it is easy to  say that when you have told me so." 

"He has never since been what he might have been," said Mr.  Jarndyce, "and now you see him in his age with no one near him but  his servant and his little yellow friend.  It's your throw, my  dear!"  I felt, from my guardian's manner, that beyond this point I could  not pursue the subject without changing the wind.  I therefore  forbore to ask any further questions.  I was interested, but not  curious.  I thought a little while about this old love story in the  night, when I was awakened by Mr. Boythorn's lusty snoring; and I  tried to do that very difficult thing, imagine old people young  again and invested with the graces of youth.  But I fell asleep  before I had succeeded, and dreamed of the days when I lived in my  godmother's house.  I am not sufficiently acquainted with such  subjects to know whether it is at all remarkable that I almost  always dreamed of that period of my life.  With the morning there came a letter from Messrs. Kenge and Carboy  to Mr. Boythorn informing him that one of their clerks would wait  upon him at noon. 

As it was the day of the week on which I paid the  bills, and added up my books, and made all the household affairs as  compact as possible, I remained at home while Mr. Jarndyce, Ada, and  Richard took advantage of a very fine day to make a little  excursion, Mr. Boythorn was to wait for Kenge and Carboy's clerk and  then was to go on foot to meet them on their return.  Well!  I was full of business, examining tradesmen's books, adding  up columns, paying money, filing receipts, and I dare say making a  great bustle about it when Mr. Guppy was announced and shown in.  I  had had some idea that the clerk who was to be sent down might be  the young gentleman who had met me at the coach-office, and I was  glad to see him, because he was associated with my present  happiness.  I scarcely knew him again, he was so uncommonly smart.  He had an  entirely new suit of glossy clothes on, a shining hat, lilac-kid  gloves, a neckerchief of a variety of colours, a large hot-house  flower in his button-hole, and a thick gold ring on his little  finger. 

Besides which, he quite scented the dining-room with  bear's-grease and other perfumery.  He looked at me with an  attention that quite confused me when I begged him to take a seat  until the servant should return; and as he sat there crossing and  uncrossing his legs in a corner, and I asked him if he had had a  pleasant ride, and hoped that Mr. Kenge was well, I never looked at  him, but I found him looking at me in the same scrutinizing and  curious way.  When the request was brought to him that he would go up-stairs to  Mr. Boythorn's room, I mentioned that he would find lunch prepared  for him when he came down, of which Mr. Jarndyce hoped he would  partake.  He said with some embarrassment, holding the handle of the  door, '"Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?"  I  replied yes, I should be there; and he went out with a bow and  another look.  I thought him only awkward and shy, for he was evidently much  embarrassed; and I fancied that the best thing I could do would be  to wait until I saw that he had everything he wanted and then to  leave him to himself. 

The lunch was soon brought, but it remained  for some time on the table.  The interview with Mr. Boythorn was a  long one, and a stormy one too, I should think, for although his  room was at some distance I heard his loud voice rising every now  and then like a high wind, and evidently blowing perfect broadsides  of denunciation.  At last Mr. Guppy came back, looking something the worse for the  conference. 

"My eye, miss," he said in a low voice, "he's a  Tartar!" 

"Pray take some refreshment, sir," said I.  Mr. Guppy sat down at the table and began nervously sharpening the  carving-knife on the carving-fork, still looking at me (as I felt  quite sure without looking at him) in the same unusual manner.  T

he  sharpening lasted so long that at last I felt a kind of obligation  on me to raise my eyes in order that I might break the spell under  which he seemed to labour, of not being able to leave off.  He immediately looked at the dish and began to carve. 

"What will you take yourself, miss?  You'll take a morsel of  something?"  "No, thank you," said I.

"Shan't I give you a piece of anything at all, miss?" said Mr.  Guppy, hurriedly drinking off a glass of wine. 

"Nothing, thank you," said I. 

"I have only waited to see that you  have everything you want.  Is there anything I can order for you?"

  "No, I am much obliged to you, miss, I'm sure.  I've everything that  I can require to make me comfortable--at least I--not comfortable-- I'm never that."  He drank off two more glasses of wine, one after  another.  I thought I had better go. 

"I beg your pardon, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, rising when he saw me  rise. 

"But would you allow me the favour of a minute's private  conversation?"  Not knowing what to say, I sat down again. 

"What follows is without prejudice, miss?" said Mr. Guppy, anxiously  bringing a chair towards my table. 

"I don't understand what you mean," said I, wondering. 

"It's one of our law terms, miss.  You won't make any use of it to  my detriment at Kenge and Carboy's or elsewhere.  If our  conversation shouldn't lead to anything, I am to be as I was and am  not to be prejudiced in my situation or worldly prospects.  In  short, it's in total confidence." 

"I am at a loss, sir," said I, "to imagine what you can have to  communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but  once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury." 

"Thank you, miss.  I'm sure of it--that's quite sufficient." 

All  this time Mr. Guppy was either planing his forehead with his  handkerchief or tightly rubbing the palm of his left hand with the  palm of his right. 

"If you would excuse my taking another glass of  wine, miss, I think it might assist me in getting on without a  continual choke that cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant." 

He did so, and came back again.  I took the opportunity of moving  well behind my table. 

"You wouldn't allow me to offer you one, would you miss?" said Mr.  Guppy, apparently refreshed. 

"Not any," said I. 

"Not half a glass?" said Mr. Guppy. 

"Quarter?  No!  Then, to  proceed.  My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy's,  is two pound a week.  When I first had the happiness of looking upon  you, it was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a  lengthened period. 

A rise of five has since taken place, and a  further rise of five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not  exceeding twelve months from the present date.  My mother has a  little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity, upon  which she lives in an independent though unassuming manner in the  Old Street Road.  She is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law.   She never interferes, is all for peace, and her disposition easy.   She has her failings--as who has not?--but I never knew her do it  when company was present, at which time you may freely trust her  with wines, spirits, or malt liquors.  My own abode is lodgings at  Penton Place, Pentonville.  It is lowly, but airy, open at the back,  and considered one of the 'ealthiest outlets.  Miss Summerson!  In  the mildest language, I adore you.  Would you be so kind as to allow  me (as I may say) to file a declaration--to make an offer!" 

Mr. Guppy went down on his knees.  I was well behind my table and  not much frightened.  I said, "Get up from that ridiculous position  lmmediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise  and ring the bell!" 

"Hear me out, miss!" said Mr. Guppy, folding his hands. 

"I cannot consent to hear another word, sir," I returned, "Unless  you get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table  as you ought to do if you have any sense at all."  He looked piteously, but slowly rose and did so. 

"Yet what a mockery it is, miss," he said with his hand upon his  heart and shaking his head at me in a melancholy manner over the  tray, "to be stationed behind food at such a moment.  The soul  recoils from food at such a moment, miss." 

"I beg you to conclude," said I; "you have asked me to hear you out,  and I beg you to conclude." 

"I will, miss," said Mr. Guppy. 

"As I love and honour, so likewise  I obey.  Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before  the shrine!" 

"That is quite impossible," said I, "and entirely out of the  question." 

"I am aware," said Mr. Guppy, leaning forward over the tray and  regarding me, as I again strangely felt, though my eyes were not  directed to him, with his late intent look, "I am aware that in a  worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a  poor one.  But, Miss Summerson!  Angel!  No, don't ring--I have been  brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of  general practice.  Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence,  got up cases, and seen lots of life.  Blest with your hand, what  means might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your  fortunes!  What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you?  I  know nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your  confidence, and you set me on?" 

I told him that he addressed my interest or what he supposed to be  my interest quite as unsuccessfully as he addressed my inclination,  and he would now understand that I requested him, if he pleased, to  go away immediately. 

"Cruel miss," said Mr. Guppy, "hear but another word!  I think you  must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I  waited at the Whytorseller.  I think you must have remarked that I  could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps  of the 'ackney-coach.  It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was  well meant.  Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast.  I  have walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby's house only  to look upon the bricks that once contained thee.  This out of to- day, quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was  its pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone.   If I speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my  respectful wretchedness.  Love was before it, and is before it." 

"I should be pained, Mr. Guppy," said I, rising and putting my hand  upon the bell-rope, "to do you or any one who was sincere the  injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably  expressed.  If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good  opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to  thank you.  I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not  proud.  I hope," I think I added, without very well knowing what I  said, "that you will now go away as if you had never been so  exceedingly foolish and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's  business." 

"Half a minute, miss!" cried Mr. Guppy, checking me as I was about  to ring. 

"This has been without prejudice?" 

"I will never mention it," said I, "unless you should give me future  occasion to do so." 

"A quarter of a minute, miss!  In case you should think better at  any time, however distant--THAT'S no consequence, for my feelings  can never alter--of anything I have said, particularly what might I  not do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if  removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care  of Mrs. Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be  sufficient."  I rang the bell, the servant came, and Mr. Guppy, laying his written  card upon the table and making a dejected bow, departed.  Raising my  eyes as he went out, I once more saw him looking at me after he had  passed the door.  I sat there for another hour or more, finishing my books and  payments and getting through plenty of business.  Then I arranged my  desk, and put everything away, and was so composed and cheerful that  I thought I had quite dismissed this unexpected incident.  But, when  I went upstairs to my own room, I surprised myself by beginning to  laugh about it and then surprised myself still more by beginning to  cry about it.  In short, I was in a flutter for a little while and  felt as if an old chord had been more coarsely touched than it ever  had been since the days of the dear old doll, long buried in the  garden.

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