We knew afterwards what we suspected then, that he did not trust to time until he had often tried to open Richard’s eyes.  That he had written to him, gone to him, talked with him, tried every gentle and persuasive art his kindness could devise.  Our poor devoted Richard was deaf and blind to all.  If he were wrong, he would make amends when the Chancery suit was over.  If he were groping in the dark, he could not do better than do his utmost to clear away those clouds in which so much was confused and obscured.  Suspicion and misunderstanding were the fault of the suit?  Then let him work the suit out and come through it to his right mind.  This was his unvarying reply.  Jarndyce and Jarndyce had obtained such possession of his whole nature that it was impossible to place any consideration before him which he did not, with a distorted kind of reason, make a new argument in favour of his doing what he did.  “So that it is even more mischievous,” said my guardian once to me, “to remonstrate with the poor dear fellow than to leave him alone.”

I took one of these opportunities of mentioning my doubts of Mr. Skimpole as a good adviser for Richard.

“Adviser!” returned my guardian, laughing, “My dear, who would advise with Skimpole?”

“Encourager would perhaps have been a better word,” said I.

“Encourager!” returned my guardian again.  “Who could be encouraged by Skimpole?”

“Not Richard?” I asked.

“No,” he replied.  “Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer creature is a relief to him and an amusement.  But as to advising or encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as Skimpole.”

“Pray, cousin John,” said Ada, who had just joined us and now looked over my shoulder, “what made him such a child?”

“What made him such a child?” inquired my guardian, rubbing his head, a little at a loss.

“Yes, cousin John.”

“Why,” he slowly replied, roughening his head more and more, “he is all sentiment, and—­and susceptibility, and—­and sensibility, and—­ and imagination.  And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow.  I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he is.  Hey?” said my guardian, stopping short and looking at us hopefully.  “What do you think, you two?”

Ada, glancing at me, said she thought it was a pity he should be an expense to Richard.

“So it is, so it is,” returned my guardian hurriedly.  “That must not be.  We must arrange that.  I must prevent it.  That will never do.”

And I said I thought it was to be regretted that he had ever introduced Richard to Mr. Vholes for a present of five pounds.

“Did he?” said my guardian with a passing shade of vexation on his face.  “But there you have the man.  There you have the man!  There is nothing mercenary in that with him.  He has no idea of the value of money.  He introduces Rick, and then he is good friends with Mr. Vholes and borrows five pounds of him.  He means nothing by it and thinks nothing of it.  He told you himself, I’ll be bound, my dear?”