He shook my hand and said no more.  Nor was any more said in reference to this conversation, either by him or me, through the whole week.  When the appointed night came, I said to Charley as soon as I was alone, “Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce’s door, Charley, and say you have come from me—­’for the letter.’” Charley went up the stairs, and down the stairs, and along the passages—­the zig-zag way about the old-fashioned house seemed very long in my listening ears that night—­and so came back, along the passages, and down the stairs, and up the stairs, and brought the letter.  “Lay it on the table, Charley,” said I. So Charley laid it on the table and went to bed, and I sat looking at it without taking it up, thinking of many things.

I began with my overshadowed childhood, and passed through those timid days to the heavy time when my aunt lay dead, with her resolute face so cold and set, and when I was more solitary with Mrs. Rachael than if I had had no one in the world to speak to or to look at.  I passed to the altered days when I was so blest as to find friends in all around me, and to be beloved.  I came to the time when I first saw my dear girl and was received into that sisterly affection which was the grace and beauty of my life.  I recalled the first bright gleam of welcome which had shone out of those very windows upon our expectant faces on that cold bright night, and which had never paled.  I lived my happy life there over again, I went through my illness and recovery, I thought of myself so altered and of those around me so unchanged; and all this happiness shone like a light from one central figure, represented before me by the letter on the table.

I opened it and read it.  It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution it gave me, and the consideration it showed for me in every word, that my eyes were too often blinded to read much at a time.  But I read it through three times before I laid it down.  I had thought beforehand that I knew its purport, and I did.  It asked me, would I be the mistress of Bleak House.

It was not a love letter, though it expressed so much love, but was written just as he would at any time have spoken to me.  I saw his face, and heard his voice, and felt the influence of his kind protecting manner in every line.  It addressed me as if our places were reversed, as if all the good deeds had been mine and all the feelings they had awakened his.  It dwelt on my being young, and he past the prime of life; on his having attained a ripe age, while I was a child; on his writing to me with a silvered head, and knowing all this so well as to set it in full before me for mature deliberation.  It told me that I would gain nothing by such a marriage and lose nothing by rejecting it, for no new relation could enhance the tenderness in which he held me, and whatever my decision was, he was certain it would be right.  But he had considered this step anew since our late