“Not like your ladyship’s family?”

“No.”

“I think your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy, “can hardly remember Miss Summerson’s face?”

“I remember the young lady very well.  What has this to do with me?”

“Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson’s image imprinted on my ’eart—­which I mention in confidence—­I found, when I had the honour of going over your ladyship’s mansion of Chesney Wold while on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a friend, such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship’s own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that I didn’t at the moment even know what it was that knocked me over.  And now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (I have often, since that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your carriage in the park, when I dare say you was not aware of me, but I never saw your ladyship so near), it’s really more surprising than I thought it.”

Young man of the name of Guppy!  There have been times, when ladies lived in strongholds and had unscrupulous attendants within call, when that poor life of yours would not have been worth a minute’s purchase, with those beautiful eyes looking at you as they look at this moment.

My Lady, slowly using her little hand-screen as a fan, asks him again what he supposes that his taste for likenesses has to do with her.

“Your ladyship,” replies Mr. Guppy, again referring to his paper, “I am coming to that.  Dash these notes!  Oh!  ‘Mrs. Chadband.’  Yes.”  Mr. Guppy draws his chair a little forward and seats himself again.  My Lady reclines in her chair composedly, though with a trifle less of graceful ease than usual perhaps, and never falters in her steady gaze.  “A—­stop a minute, though!” Mr. Guppy refers again.  “E.S. twice?  Oh, yes!  Yes, I see my way now, right on.”

Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech with, Mr. Guppy proceeds.

“Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson’s birth and bringing up.  I am informed of that fact because—­which I mention in confidence—­I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge and Carboy’s.  Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss Summerson’s image is imprinted on my ’eart.  If I could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship’s family she had a right to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make a sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more dedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet.  In fact, as yet she hasn’t favoured them at all.”

A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady’s face.