Page:Bleak House.djvu/61

 office candles in tin candlesticks which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), “you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.

As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very gratifying.

“It is gratifying,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “It involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are ; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds ; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that you never turned your thoughts to Africa?”

This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me, that I was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate

“The finest climate in the world !” said Mrs. Jellyby.

“Indeed, ma&rsquo;am ?”

“Certainly. With precaution,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “You may go into Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa.”

I said, “No doubt.” — I meant as to Holborn.

“If you would like,” said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers towards us, “to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject (which have been extensively circulated), while I finish a letter I am now dictating—to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis”

The girl at the table left off biting her pen, and made a return to our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.

“—I shall then have finished for the present,” proceeded Mrs. Jellyby, with a sweet smile ; “though my work is never done. Where are you, Caddy ?”

“ ‘Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs’ ” said Caddy.

“ ‘—And begs,’ ” said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, “ ‘to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project.’ — No, Peepy ! Not on any account !”

Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen down stairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaister on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most—the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, “Go along, you naughty Peepy !” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.

However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor Peepy as he was going out, and to take him up to nurse. He looked very much astonished at it, and at Ada's kissing him ; but soon fell fast asleep in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet. I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in detail, though I derived