“You needn’t make a merit of that,” said she.

“No, my dear,” said I.  “That would be very foolish.”

She was still standing by the bed, and now stooped down (but still with the same discontented face) and kissed Ada.  That done, she came softly back and stood by the side of my chair.  Her bosom was heaving in a distressful manner that I greatly pitied, but I thought it better not to speak.

“I wish I was dead!” she broke out.  “I wish we were all dead.  It would be a great deal better for us.”

In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept.  I comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she wanted to stay there!

“You used to teach girls,” she said, “If you could only have taught me, I could have learnt from you!  I am so very miserable, and I like you so much!”

I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still hold my dress in the same manner.  By degrees the poor tired girl fell asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it should rest on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls.  The fire went out, and all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy grate.  At first I was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose myself, with my eyes closed, among the scenes of the day.  At length, by slow degrees, they became indistinct and mingled.  I began to lose the identity of the sleeper resting on me.  Now it was Ada, now one of my old Reading friends from whom I could not believe I had so recently parted.  Now it was the little mad woman worn out with curtsying and smiling, now some one in authority at Bleak House.  Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one.

The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened my eyes to encounter those of a dirty-faced little spectre fixed upon me.  Peepy had scaled his crib, and crept down in his bed-gown and cap, and was so cold that his teeth were chattering as if he had cut them all.

CHAPTER V

A Morning Adventure

Although the morning was raw, and although the fog still seemed heavy—­I say seemed, for the windows were so encrusted with dirt that they would have made midsummer sunshine dim—­I was sufficiently forewarned of the discomfort within doors at that early hour and sufficiently curious about London to think it a good idea on the part of Miss Jellyby when she proposed that we should go out for a walk.

“Ma won’t be down for ever so long,” she said, “and then it’s a chance 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 has what you would call a regular breakfast.  Priscilla leaves him out the loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight.  Sometimes there isn’t any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it.  But I’m afraid you must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to bed.”