Page:Bleak House.djvu/782

 I kissed him, and dried my eyes. “I know now!” said I. “I have seen this in your face a long while.”

“No; have you really, my dear?” said he. “What a Dame Durden it is to read a face!”

He was so quaintly cheerful that I could not long be otherwise, and was almost ashamed of having been otherwise at all. When I went to bed, I cried. I am bound to confess that I cried; but I hope it was with pleasure, though I am not quite sure it was with pleasure. I repeated every word of the letter twice over.

A most beautiful summer morning succeeded; and after breakfast we went out arm in arm, to see the house of which I was to give my mighty housekeeping opinion. We entered a flower-garden by a gate in a side wall, of which he had the key; and the first thing I saw, was, that the beds and flowers were all laid out according to the manner of my beds and flowers at home.

“You see, my dear,” observed my guardian, standing still, with a delighted face, to watch my looks; “knowing there could be no better plan, I borrowed yours.”

We went on by a pretty little orchard, where the cherries were nestling among the green leaves, and the shadows of the apple-trees were sporting on the grass, to the house itself,—a cottage, quite a rustic cottage of doll's rooms; but such a lovely place, so tranquil and so beautiful, with such a rich and smiling country spread around it; with water sparkling away into the distance, here all overhung with summer-growth, there turning a humming mill; at its nearest point glancing through a meadow by the cheerful town, where cricket-players were assembling in bright groups, and a flag was flying from a white tent that rippled in the sweet west wind. And still, as we went through the pretty rooms, out at the little rustic verandah doors, and underneath the tiny wooden colonnades, garlanded with woodbine, jasmine, and honeysuckle, I saw, in the papering on the walls, in the colors of the furniture, in the arrangement of all the pretty objects, my little tastes and fancies, my little methods and inventions which they used to laugh at while they praised them, my odd ways everywhere.

I could not say enough in admiration of what was all so beautiful, but one secret doubt arose in my mind, when I saw this. I thought, O would he be the happier for it! Would it not have been better for his peace that I should not have been so brought before him? Because, although I was not what he thought me, still he loved me very dearly, and it might remind him mournfully of what he believed he had lost. I did not wish him to forget me,—perhaps he might not have done so, without these aids to his memory,—but my way was easier than his, and I could have reconciled myself even to that, so that he had been the happier for it.

“And now, little woman,” said my guardian, whom I had never seen so proud and joyful as in showing me these things, and watching my appreciation of them, “now, last of all, for the name of this house.”

“What is it called, dear guardian?”

“My child,” said he, “come and see.”

He took me to the porch, which he had hitherto avoided, and said, pausing before we went out:

“My dear child, don't you guess the name?”