Page:Bleak House.djvu/51

 “Going before the Chancellor ?” I said, startled for a moment.

“Only a matter of form, miss,” returned the young gentleman. “Mr. Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake of some refreshment ;” there were biscuits and a decanter of wine on a small table ; “and look over the paper ;” which the young gentleman gave me as he spoke. He then stirred the fire, and left me.

Everything was so strange—the stranger for its being night in the day-time, and the candles burning with a white flame, and looking raw and cold—that I read the words in the newspaper without knowing what they meant, and found myself reading the same words repeatedly. As it was of no use going on in that way, I put the paper down, took a peep at my bonnet in the glass to see if it was neat, and looked at the room which was not half lighted, and at the shabby dusty tables, and at the piles of writings, and at a bookcase full of the most inexpressive-looking books that ever had anything to say for themselves. Then I went on, thinking, thinking, thinking ; and the fire went on, burning, burning, burning ; and the candles went on flickering and glittering, and there were no snuffers—until the young gentleman by-and-by brought a very dirty pair ; for two hours.

At last Mr. Kenge came. He was not altered ; but he was surprised to see how altered I was, and appeared quite pleased. “As you are going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor's private room, Miss Summerson,” he said, “we thought it well that you should be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord Chancellor, I dare say ?”

“No, sir,” I said, " I don't think I shall." Really not seeing, on consideration, why I should be.

So Mr. Kenge gave me his arm, and we went round the corner, under a colonnade, and in at a side door. And so we came, along a passage, into a comfortable sort of room, where a young lady and a young gentleman were standing near a great, loud-roaring fire. A screen was interposed between them and it, and they were leaning on the screen, talking.

They both looked up when I came in, and I saw in the young lady, with the fire shining upon her, such a beautiful girl ! With such rich golden hair, such soft blue eyes, and such a bright, innocent, trusting face !

“Miss Ada,” said Mr. Kenge, “this is Miss Summerson.”

She came to meet me with a smile of welcome and her hand extended, but seemed to change her mind in a moment, and kissed me. In short, she had such a natural, captivating, winning manner, that in a few minutes we were sitting in the window-seat, with the light of the fire upon us, talking together, as free and happy as could be.

What a load off my mind ! It was so delightful to know that she could confide in me, and like me ! It was so good of her, and so encouraging to me !

The young gentleman was her distant cousin, she told me, and his name Richard Carstone. He was a handsome youth, with an ingenuous face, and a most engaging laugh ; and after she had called him up to where we sat, he stood by us, in the light of the fire too, talking gaily, like a light-hearted boy. He was very young; not more than nineteen then, if quite so much, but nearly two years older than she was. They were both orphans, and (what was very unexpected and curious to me) had never met before that day. Our all three coming together for the first