Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemedheavy--I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirtthat they would have made midsummer sunshine dim--I wassufficiently forewarned of the discomfort within doors at thatearly hour and sufficiently curious about London to think it a goodidea on the part of Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we shouldgo out for a walk.

　　"Ma won't be down for ever so long," she said, "and then it's achance if breakfast's ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so.

　　As to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never haswhat you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him outthe loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimesthere isn't any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I'mafraid you must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you wouldrather go to bed.""I am not at all tired, my dear," said I, "and would much prefer togo out.""If you're sure you would," returned Miss Jellyby, "I'll get mythings on."Ada said she would go too, and was soon astir. I made a proposalto Peepy, in default of being able to do anything better for him,that he should let me wash him and afterwards lay him down on mybed again. To this he submitted with the best grace possible,staring at me during the whole operation as if he never had been,and never could again be, so astonished in his life--looking verymiserable also, certainly, but making no complaint, and goingsnugly to sleep as soon as it was over. At first I was in twominds about taking such a liberty, but I soon reflected that nobodyin the house was likely to notice it.

　　What with the bustle of dispatching Peepy and the bustle of gettingmyself ready and helping Ada, I was soon quite in a glow. We foundMiss Jellyby trying to warm herself at the fire in the writing-room, which Priscilla was then lighting with a smutty parlourcandlestick, throwing the candle in to make it burn better.

　　Everything was just as we had left it last night and was evidentlyintended to remain so. Below-stairs the dinner-cloth had not beentaken away, but had been left ready for breakfast. Crumbs, dust,and waste-paper were all over the house. Some pewter pots and amilk-can hung on the area railings; the door stood open; and we metthe cook round the corner coming out of a public-house, wiping hermouth. She mentioned, as she passed us, that she had been to seewhat o'clock it was.

　　But before we met the cook, we met Richard, who was dancing up anddown Thavies Inn to warm his feet. He was agreeably surprised tosee us stirring so soon and said he would gladly share our walk.

　　So he took care of Ada, and Miss Jellyby and I went first. I maymention that Miss Jellyby had relapsed into her sulky manner andthat I really should not have thought she liked me much unless shehad told me so.

　　"Where would you wish to go?" she asked.

　　"Anywhere, my dear," I replied.

　　"Anywhere's nowhere," said Miss Jellyby, stopping perversely.

　　"Let us go somewhere at any rate," said I.

　　She then walked me on very fast.

　　"I don't care!" she said. "Now, you are my witness, MissSummerson, I say I don't care-but if he was to come to our housewith his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till hewas as old as Methuselah, I wouldn't have anything to say to him.

　　Such ASSES as he and Ma make of themselves!""My dear!" I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and thevigorous emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. "Your duty as a child--""Oh! Don't talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where's Ma'sduty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, Isuppose! Then let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it'smuch more their affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say!

　　Very well, so am I shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there'san end of it!"She walked me on faster yet.

　　"But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come,and I won't have anything to say to him. I can't bear him. Ifthere's any stuff in the world that I hate and detest, it's thestuff he and Ma talk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite ourhouse can have the patience to stay there and be a witness of suchinconsistencies and contradictions as all that sounding nonsense,and Ma's management!"I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the younggentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved thedisagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Adacoming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant torun a race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent andwalked moodily on at my side while I admired the long successionsand varieties of streets, the quantity of people already going toand fro, the number of vehicles passing and repassing, the busypreparations in the setting forth of shop windows and the sweepingout of shops, and the extraordinary creatures in rags secretlygroping among the swept-out rubbish for pins and other refuse.

　　"So, cousin," said the cheerful voice of Richard to Ada behind me.

　　"We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another wayto our place of meeting yesterday, and--by the Great Seal, here'sthe old lady again!"Truly, there she was, immediately in front of us, curtsying, andsmiling, and saying with her yesterday's air of patronage, "Thewards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!""You are out early, ma'am," said I as she curtsied to me.

　　"Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It'sretired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day,"said the old lady mincingly. "The business of the day requires agreat deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult tofollow.""Who's this, Miss Summerson?" whispered Miss Jellyby, drawing myarm tighter through her own.

　　The little old lady's hearing was remarkably quick. She answeredfor herself directly.

　　"A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attendcourt regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure ofaddressing another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce?" said theold lady, recovering herself, with her head on one side, from avery low curtsy.

　　Richard, anxious to atone for his thoughtlessness of yesterday,good-naturedly explained that Miss Jellyby was not connected withthe suit.

　　"Ha!" said the old lady. "She does not expect a judgment? Shewill still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is thegarden of Lincoln's Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bowerin the summer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass thegreater part of the long vacation here. In contemplation. Youfind the long vacation exceedingly long, don't you?"We said yes, as she seemed to expect us to say so.

　　"When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no moreflowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor'scourt," said the old lady, "the vacation is fulfilled and the sixthseal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come andsee my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope,and beauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since Ihad a visit from either."She had taken my hand, and leading me and Miss Jellyby away,beckoned Richard and Ada to come too. I did not know how to excusemyself and looked to Richard for aid. As he was half amused andhalf curious and all in doubt how to get rid of the old ladywithout offence, she continued to lead us away, and he and Adacontinued to follow, our strange conductress informing us all thetime, with much smiling condescension, that she lived close by.

　　It was quite true, as it soon appeared. She lived so close by thatwe had not time to have done humouring her for a few moments beforeshe was at home. Slipping us out at a little side gate, the oldlady stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part ofsome courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, andsaid, "This is my lodging. Pray walk up!"She had stopped at a shop over which was written KROOK, RAG ANDBOTTLE WAREHOUSE. Also, in long thin letters, KROOK, DEALER INMARINE STORES. In one part of the window was a picture of a redpaper mill at which a cart was unloading a quantity of sacks of oldrags. In another was the inscription BONES BOUGHT. In another,KITCHEN-STUFF BOUGHT. In another, OLD IRON BOUGHT. In another,WASTE-PAPER BOUGHT. In another, LADIES' AND GENTLEMEN'S WARDROBESBOUGHT. Everything seemed to be bought and nothing to be soldthere. In all parts of the window were quantities of dirtybottles--blacking bottles, medicine bottles, ginger-beer and soda-water bottles, pickle bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles; I amreminded by mentioning the latter that the shop had in severallittle particulars the air of being in a legal neighbourhood and ofbeing, as it were, a dirty hanger-on and disowned relation of thelaw. There were a great many ink bottles. There was a littletottering bench of shabby old volumes outside the door, labelled"Law Books, all at 9d." Some of the inscriptions I have enumeratedwere written in law-hand, like the papers I had seen in Kenge andCarboy's office and the letters I had so long received from thefirm. Among them was one, in the same writing, having nothing todo with the business of the shop, but announcing that a respectableman aged forty-five wanted engrossing or copying to execute withneatness and dispatch: Address to Nemo, care of Mr. Krook, within.

　　There were several second-hand bags, blue and red, hanging up. Alittle way within the shop-door lay heaps of old crackled parchmentscrolls and discoloured and dog's-eared law-papers. I could havefancied that all the rusty keys, of which there must have beenhundreds huddled together as old iron, had once belonged to doorsof rooms or strong chests in lawyers' offices. The litter of ragstumbled partly into and partly out of a one-legged wooden scale,hanging without any counterpoise from a beam, might have beencounsellors' bands and gowns torn up. One had only to fancy, asRichard whispered to Ada and me while we all stood looking in, thatyonder bones in a corner, piled together and picked very clean,were the bones of clients, to make the picture complete.

　　As it was still foggy and dark, and as the shop was blinded besidesby the wall of Lincoln's Inn, intercepting the light within acouple of yards, we should not have seen so much but for a lightedlantern that an old man in spectacles and a hairy cap was carryingabout in the shop. Turning towards the door, he now caught sightof us. He was short, cadaverous, and withered, with his head sunksideways between his shoulders and the breath issuing in visiblesmoke from his mouth as if he were on fire within. His throat,chin, and eyebrows were so frosted with white hairs and so gnarledwith veins and puckered skin that he looked from his breast upwardlike some old root in a fall of snow.

　　"Hi, hi!" said the old man, coming to the door. "Have you anythingto sell?"We naturally drew back and glanced at our conductress, who had beentrying to open the house-door with a key she had taken from herpocket, and to whom Richard now said that as we had had thepleasure of seeing where she lived, we would leave her, beingpressed for time. But she was not to be so easily left. Shebecame so fantastically and pressingly earnest in her entreatiesthat we would walk up and see her apartment for an instant, and wasso bent, in her harmless way, on leading me in, as part of the goodomen she desired, that I (whatever the others might do) saw nothingfor it but to comply. I suppose we were all more or less curious;at any rate, when the old man added his persuasions to hers andsaid, "Aye, aye! Please her! It won't take a minute! Come in,come in! Come in through the shop if t'other door's out of order!"we all went in, stimulated by Richard's laughing encouragement andrelying on his protection.

　　"My landlord, Krook," said the little old lady, condescending tohim from her lofty station as she presented him to us. "He iscalled among the neighbours the Lord Chancellor. His shop iscalled the Court of Chancery. He is a very eccentric person. Heis very odd. Oh, I assure you he is very odd!"She shook her head a great many times and tapped her forehead withher finger to express to us that we must have the goodness toexcuse him, "For he is a little--you know--M!" said the old ladywith great stateliness. The old man overheard, and laughed.

　　"It's true enough," he said, going before us with the lantern,"that they call me the lord chancellor and call my shop Chancery.

　　And why do you think they call me the Lord Chancellor and my shopChancery?""I don't know, I am sure!" said Richard rather carelessly.

　　"You see," said the old man, stopping and turning round, "they--Hi!

　　Here's lovely hair! I have got three sacks of ladies' hair below,but none so beautiful and fine as this. What colour, and whattexture!""That'll do, my good friend!" said Richard, strongly disapprovingof his having drawn one of Ada's tresses through his yellow hand.

　　"You can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty."The old man darted at him a sudden look which even called myattention from Ada, who, startled and blushing, was so remarkablybeautiful that she seemed to fix the wandering attention of thelittle old lady herself. But as Ada interposed and laughingly saidshe could only feel proud of such genuine admiration, Mr. Krookshrunk into his former self as suddenly as he had leaped out of it.

　　"You see, I have so many things here," he resumed, holding up thelantern, "of so many kinds, and all as the neighbours think (butTHEY know nothing), wasting away and going to rack and ruin, thatthat's why they have given me and my place a christening. And Ihave so many old parchmentses and papers in my stock. And I have aliking for rust and must and cobwebs. And all's fish that comes tomy net. And I can't abear to part with anything I once lay hold of(or so my neighbours think, but what do THEY know?) or to alteranything, or to have any sweeping, nor scouring, nor cleaning, norrepairing going on about me. That's the way I've got the ill nameof Chancery. I don't mind. I go to see my noble and learnedbrother pretty well every day, when he sits in the Inn. He don'tnotice me, but I notice him. There's no great odds betwixt us. Weboth grub on in a muddle. Hi, Lady Jane!"A large grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf on hisshoulder and startled us all.

　　"Hi! Show 'em how you scratch. Hi! Tear, my lady!" said hermaster.

　　The cat leaped down and ripped at a bundle of rags with hertigerish claws, with a sound that it set my teeth on edge to hear.

　　"She'd do as much for any one I was to set her on," said the oldman. "I deal in cat-skins among other general matters, and herswas offered to me. It's a very fine skin, as you may see, but Ididn't have it stripped off! THAT warn't like Chancery practicethough, says you!"He had by this time led us across the shop, and now opened a doorin the back part of it, leading to the house-entry. As he stoodwith his hand upon the lock, the little old lady graciouslyobserved to him before passing out, "That will do, Krook. You meanwell, but are tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. Ihave none to spare myself, having to attend court very soon. Myyoung friends are the wards in Jarndyce.""Jarndyce!" said the old man with a start.

　　"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned hislodger.

　　"Hi!" exclaimed the old man in a tone of thoughtful amazement andwith a wider stare than before. "Think of it!"He seemed so rapt all in a moment and looked so curiously at usthat Richard said, "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good dealabout the causes before your noble and learned brother, the otherChancellor!""Yes," said the old man abstractedly. "Sure! YOUR name now willbe--""Richard Carstone.""Carstone," he repeated, slowly checking off that name upon hisforefinger; and each of the others he went on to mention upon aseparate finger. "Yes. There was the name of Barbary, and thename of Clare, and the name of Dedlock, too, I think.""He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!"said Richard, quite astonished, to Ada and me.

　　"Aye!" said the old man, coming slowly out of his abstraction.

　　"Yes! Tom Jarndyce--you'll excuse me, being related; but he wasnever known about court by any other name, and was as well knownthere as--she is now," nodding slightly at his lodger. "TomJarndyce was often in here. He got into a restless habit ofstrolling about when the cause was on, or expected, talking to thelittle shopkeepers and telling 'em to keep out of Chancery,whatever they did. 'For,' says he, 'it's being ground to bits in aslow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung todeath by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going madby grains.' He was as near making away with himself, just wherethe young lady stands, as near could be."We listened with horror.

　　"He come in at the door," said the old man, slowly pointing animaginary track along the shop, "on the day he did it--the wholeneighbourhood had said for months before that he would do it, of acertainty sooner or later--he come in at the door that day, andwalked along there, and sat himself on a bench that stood there,and asked me (you'll judge I was a mortal sight younger then) tofetch him a pint of wine. 'For,' says he, 'Krook, I am muchdepressed; my cause is on again, and I think I'm nearer judgmentthan I ever was.' I hadn't a mind to leave him alone; and Ipersuaded him to go to the tavern over the way there, t'other sidemy lane (I mean Chancery Lane); and I followed and looked in at thewindow, and saw him, comfortable as I thought, in the arm-chair bythe fire, and company with him. I hadn't hardly got back here whenI heard a shot go echoing and rattling right away into the inn. Iran out--neighbours ran out--twenty of us cried at once, 'TomJarndyce!'"The old man stopped, looked hard at us, looked down into thelantern, blew the light out, and shut the lantern up.

　　"We were right, I needn't tell the present hearers. Hi! To besure, how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon whilethe cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all therest of 'em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look asif they hadn't heard a word of the last fact in the case or as ifthey had--Oh, dear me!--nothing at all to do with it if they hadheard of it by any chance!"Ada's colour had entirely left her, and Richard was scarcely lesspale. Nor could I wonder, judging even from my emotions, and I wasno party in the suit, that to hearts so untried and fresh it was ashock to come into the inheritance of a protracted misery, attendedin the minds of many people with such dreadful recollections. Ihad another uneasiness, in the application of the painful story tothe poor half-witted creature who had brought us there; but, to mysurprise, she seemed perfectly unconscious of that and only led theway upstairs again, informing us with the toleration of a superiorcreature for the infirmities of a common mortal that her landlordwas "a little M, you know!"She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, fromwhich she had a glimpse of Lincoln's Inn Hall. This seemed to havebeen her principal inducement, originally, for taking up herresidence there. She could look at it, she said, in the night,especially in the moonshine. Her room was clean, but very, verybare. I noticed the scantiest necessaries in the way of furniture;a few old prints from books, of Chancellors and barristers, waferedagainst the wall; and some half-dozen reticles and work-bags,"containing documents," as she informed us. There were neithercoals nor ashes in the grate, and I saw no articles of clothinganywhere, nor any kind of food. Upon a shelf in an open cupboardwere a plate or two, a cup or two, and so forth, but all dry andempty. There was a more affecting meaning in her pinchedappearance, I thought as I looked round, than I had understoodbefore.

　　"Extremely honoured, I am sure," said our poor hostess with thegreatest suavity, "by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. Andvery much indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation.

　　Considering. I am limited as to situation. In consequence of thenecessity of attending on the Chancellor. I have lived here manyyears. I pass my days in court, my evenings and my nights here. Ifind the nights long, for I sleep but little and think much. Thatis, of course, unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannotoffer chocolate. I expect a judgment shortly and shall then placemy establishment on a superior footing. At present, I don't mindconfessing to the wards in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that Isometimes find it difficult to keep up a genteel appearance. Ihave felt the cold here. I have felt something sharper than cold.

　　It matters very little. Pray excuse the introduction of such meantopics."She partly drew aside the curtain of the long, low garret windowand called our attention to a number of bird-cages hanging there,some containing several birds. There were larks, linnets, andgoldfinches--I should think at least twenty.

　　"I began to keep the little creatures," she said, "with an objectthat the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention ofrestoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things,are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one byone, the whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt,do you know, whether one of these, though they are all young, willlive to be free! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not?"Although she sometimes asked a question, she never seemed to expecta reply, but rambled on as if she were in the habit of doing sowhen no one but herself was present.

　　"Indeed," she pursued, "I positively doubt sometimes, I do assureyou, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth orGreat Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying starkand senseless here, as I have found so many birds!"Richard, answering what he saw in Ada's compassionate eyes, tookthe opportunity of laying some money, softly and unobserved, on thechimney-piece. We all drew nearer to the cages, feigning toexamine the birds.

　　"I can't allow them to sing much," said the little old lady, "for(you'll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the ideathat they are singing while I am following the arguments in court.

　　And my mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time,I'll tell you their names. Not at present. On a day of such goodomen, they shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth," asmile and curtsy, "hope," a smile and curtsy, "and beauty," a smileand curtsy. "There! We'll let in the full light."The birds began to stir and chirp.

　　"I cannot admit the air freely," said the little old lady--the roomwas close, and would have been the better for it--"because the catyou saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives.

　　She crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I havediscovered," whispering mysteriously, "that her natural cruelty issharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. Inconsequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She issly and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is nocat, but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult tokeep her from the door."Some neighbouring bells, reminding the poor soul that it was half-past nine, did more for us in the way of bringing our visit to anend than we could easily have done for ourselves. She hurriedlytook up her little bag of documents, which she had laid upon thetable on coming in, and asked if we were also going into court. Onour answering no, and that we would on no account detain her, sheopened the door to attend us downstairs.

　　"With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that Ishould be there before the Chancellor comes in," said she, "for hemight mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment thathe WILL mention it the first thing this morning"She stopped to tell us in a whisper as we were going down that thewhole house was filled with strange lumber which her landlord hadbought piecemeal and had no wish to sell, in consequence of being alittle M. This was on the first floor. But she had made aprevious stoppage on the second floor and had silently pointed at adark door there.

　　"The only other lodger," she now whispered in explanation, "a law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself tothe devil. I don't know what he can have done with the money.

　　Hush!"She appeared to mistrust that the lodger might hear her even there,and repeating "Hush!" went before us on tiptoe as though even thesound of her footsteps might reveal to him what she had said.

　　Passing through the shop on our way out, as we had passed throughit on our way in, we found the old man storing a quantity ofpackets of waste-paper in a kind of well in the floor. He seemedto be working hard, with the perspiration standing on his forehead,and had a piece of chalk by him, with which, as he put eachseparate package or bundle down, he made a crooked mark on thepanelling of the wall.

　　Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had goneby him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me,and chalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner,beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward. Itwas a capital letter, not a printed one, but just such a letter asany clerk in Messrs. Kenge and Carboy's office would have made.

　　"Can you read it?" he asked me with a keen glance.

　　"Surely," said I. "It's very plain.""What is it?""J."With another glance at me, and a glance at the door, he rubbed itout and turned an "a" in its place (not a capital letter thistime), and said, "What's that?"I told him. He then rubbed that out and turned the letter "r," andasked me the same question. He went on quickly until he had formedin the same curious manner, beginning at the ends and bottoms ofthe letters, the word Jarndyce, without once leaving two letters onthe wall together.

　　"What does that spell?" he asked me.

　　When I told him, he laughed. In the same odd way, yet with thesame rapidity, he then produced singly, and rubbed out singly, theletters forming the words Bleak House. These, in someastonishment, I also read; and he laughed again.

　　"Hi!" said the old man, laying aside the chalk. "I have a turn forcopying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read norwrite."He looked so disagreeable and his cat looked so wickedly at me, asif I were a blood-relation of the birds upstairs, that I was quiterelieved by Richard's appearing at the door and saying, "MissSummerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair.

　　Don't be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!"I lost no time in wishing Mr. Krook good morning and joining myfriends outside, where we parted with the little old lady, who gaveus her blessing with great ceremony and renewed her assurance ofyesterday in reference to her intention of settling estates on Adaand me. Before we finally turned out of those lanes, we lookedback and saw Mr. Krook standing at his shop-door, in hisspectacles, looking after us, with his cat upon his shoulder, andher tail sticking up on one side of his hairy cap like a tallfeather.

　　"Quite an adventure for a morning in London!" said Richard with asigh. "Ah, cousin, cousin, it's a weary word this Chancery!""It is to me, and has been ever since I can remember," returnedAda. "I am grieved that I should be the enemy---as I suppose I am--of a great number of relations and others, and that they should bemy enemies--as I suppose they are--and that we should all beruining one another without knowing how or why and be in constantdoubt and discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as theremust be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest hasnot been able to find out through all these years where it is.""Ah, cousin!" said Richard. "Strange, indeed! All this wasteful,wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed courtyesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchednessof the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartacheboth together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, ifmen were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to thinkthey could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada--I may callyou Ada?""Of course you may, cousin Richard.""At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences onUS. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our goodkinsman, and it can't divide us now!""Never, I hope, cousin Richard!" said Ada gently.

　　Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze and me a very significant look.

　　I smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back verypleasantly.

　　In half an hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared; and inthe course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfaststraggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt thatMrs. Jellyby had gone to bed and got up in the usual manner, butshe presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She wasgreatly occupied during breakfast, for the morning's post brought aheavy correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which wouldoccasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbledabout, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs,which were perfect little calendars of distress; and Peepy was lostfor an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by apoliceman. The equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained bothhis absence and his restoration to the family circle surprised usall.

　　She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddywas fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had foundher. At one o'clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cartfor our luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances toher good friend Mr. Jarndyce; Caddy left her desk to see us depart,kissed me in the passage, and stood biting her pen and sobbing onthe steps; Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep and spared the painof separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone toNewgate market in search of me); and all the other children got upbehind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with greatconcern, scattered over the surface of Thavies Inn as we rolled outof its precincts.