Page:Bleak House.djvu/752

 away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it a part of her duty to him, to be sparing of her visits at our house. My guardian's delicacy had soon perceived this, and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right.

“Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard,” said I. “When will he awake from his delusion!”

“He is not in the way to do so now, my dear,” replied my guardian. “The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me: having made me the principal representative of the great occasion of his suffering.”

I could not help adding, “So unreasonably!”

“Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot!” returned my guardian, “what shall we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an end—how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He no more gathers grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles, than older men did, in old times.”

His gentleness and consideration for Richard, whenever we spoke of him, touched me so, that I was always silent on this subject very soon.

“I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the whole Chancery battery of great guns, would be infinitely astonished by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors,” pursued my guardian. “When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be astonished too!”

He checked himself in glancing towards the window to look where the wind was, and leaned on the back of my chair instead.

“Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore, I have particularly begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month, next year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can wait.”

But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I thought, had Mr. Woodcourt.

“So he tells me,” returned my guardian. “Very good. He has made his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to be said about it. Now, I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, my dear?”

In answer to this question, which was oddly abrupt, I said I liked her very much, and thought she was more agreeable than she used to be.

“I think so too,” said my guardian. “Less pedigree? Not so much of Morgan-ap—what's his name?”

That was what I meant, I acknowledged; though he was a very harmless person, even when we had had more of him.

“Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains,” said my guardian. “I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?”

No. And yet