“When I get down to Bleak House,” said Richard, “I shall have much to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me.  You will go, won’t you?”

“Undoubtedly, dear Rick.”

“Thank you; like you, like you,” said Richard.  “But it’s all like you.  They have been telling me how you planned it and how you remembered all Esther’s familiar tastes and ways.  It will be like coming to the old Bleak House again.”

“And you will come there too, I hope, Rick.  I am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me.  A charity to come to me, my love!” he repeated to Ada as he gently passed his hand over her golden hair and put a lock of it to his lips. (I think he vowed within himself to cherish her if she were left alone.)

“It was a troubled dream?” said Richard, clasping both my guardian’s hands eagerly.

“Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.”

“And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?”

“Indeed I can.  What am I but another dreamer, Rick?”

“I will begin the world!” said Richard with a light in his eyes.

My husband drew a little nearer towards Ada, and I saw him solemnly lift up his hand to warn my guardian.

“When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child?” said Richard.  “When shall I go?”

“Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,” returned my guardian.

“Ada, my darling!”

He sought to raise himself a little.  Allan raised him so that she could hold him on her bosom, which was what he wanted.

“I have done you many wrongs, my own.  I have fallen like a poor stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds.  You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?”

A smile irradiated his face as she bent to kiss him.  He slowly laid his face down upon her bosom, drew his arms closer round her neck, and with one parting sob began the world.  Not this world, oh, not this!  The world that sets this right.

When all was still, at a late hour, poor crazed Miss Flite came weeping to me and told me she had given her birds their liberty.

CHAPTER LXVI

Down in Lincolnshire