Meanwhile, I must say, I could not agree with my guardian on the subject of the will, and I had some sanguine hopes of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.  Which of us was right will soon appear, but I certainly did encourage expectations.  In Richard, the discovery gave occasion for a burst of business and agitation that buoyed him up for a little time, but he had lost the elasticity even of hope now and seemed to me to retain only its feverish anxieties.  From something my guardian said one day when we were talking about this, I understood that my marriage would not take place until after the term-time we had been told to look forward to; and I thought the more, for that, how rejoiced I should be if I could be married when Richard and Ada were a little more prosperous.

The term was very near indeed when my guardian was called out of town and went down into Yorkshire on Mr. Woodcourt’s business.  He had told me beforehand that his presence there would be necessary.  I had just come in one night from my dear girl’s and was sitting in the midst of all my new clothes, looking at them all around me and thinking, when a letter from my guardian was brought to me.  It asked me to join him in the country and mentioned by what stage-coach my place was taken and at what time in the morning I should have to leave town.  It added in a postscript that I would not be many hours from Ada.

I expected few things less than a journey at that time, but I was ready for it in half an hour and set off as appointed early next morning.  I travelled all day, wondering all day what I could be wanted for at such a distance; now I thought it might be for this purpose, and now I thought it might be for that purpose, but I was never, never, never near the truth.

It was night when I came to my journey’s end and found my guardian waiting for me.  This was a great relief, for towards evening I had begun to fear (the more so as his letter was a very short one) that he might be ill.  However, there he was, as well as it was possible to be; and when I saw his genial face again at its brightest and best, I said to myself, he has been doing some other great kindness.  Not that it required much penetration to say that, because I knew that his being there at all was an act of kindness.

Supper was ready at the hotel, and when we were alone at table he said, “Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have brought you here?”

“Well, guardian,” said I, “without thinking myself a Fatima or you a Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it.”

“Then to ensure your night’s rest, my love,” he returned gaily, “I won’t wait until to-morrow to tell you.  I have very much wished to express to Woodcourt, somehow, my sense of his humanity to poor unfortunate Jo, his inestimable services to my young cousins, and his value to us all.  When it was decided that he should settle here, it came into my head that I might ask his acceptance