“And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?” said I.

“Aye, my dear?  Bleak House,” he returned, “must learn to take care of itself.”

I thought his tone sounded sorrowful, but looking at him, I saw his kind face lighted up by its pleasantest smile.

“Bleak House,” he repeated—­and his tone did not sound sorrowful, I found—­“must learn to take care of itself.  It is a long way from Ada, my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you.”

“It’s like you, guardian,” said I, “to have been taking that into consideration for a happy surprise to both of us.”

“Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be seldom with me.  And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick.  Not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow.”

“Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?”

“I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden.”

“Does he still say the same of Richard?”

“Just the same.  He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on the contrary, he believes that he has none.  Yet he is not easy about him; who can be?”

My dear girl had been to see us lately every day, some times twice in a day.  But we had foreseen, all along, that this would only last until I was quite myself.  We knew full well that her fervent heart was as full of affection and gratitude towards her cousin John as it had ever been, and we acquitted Richard of laying any injunctions upon her to stay away; but we knew on the other hand that she felt it a part of her duty to him to be sparing of her visits at our house.  My guardian’s delicacy had soon perceived this and had tried to convey to her that he thought she was right.

“Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard,” said I.  “When will he awake from his delusion!”

“He is not in the way to do so now, my dear,” replied my guardian.  “The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made me the principal representative of the great occasion of his suffering.”

I could not help adding, “So unreasonably!”

“Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot,” returned my guardian, “what shall we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce!  Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end—­if it ever has an end—­how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it?  He no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older men did in old times.”

His gentleness and consideration for Richard whenever we spoke of him touched me so that I was always silent on this subject very soon.

“I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors,” pursued my guardian.  “When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be astonished too!”