“She will be as well, in a day or two,” said Mr. Woodcourt, with an observant smile, “as she ever will be.  Have you heard of her good fortune?”

“Most extraordinary!” said Miss Flite.  “Every Saturday Kenge and Carboy place a paper of shillings in my hand.  Always the same number.  One for every day in the week. I think that the Lord Chancellor forwards them.  Until the judgment I expect is given.”

My guardian was contemplating Miss Flite’s birds, and I had no need to look beyond him.

III.—­I Am Made Happy

I sometimes thought that Mr. Woodcourt loved me, and that, if he had been richer, he would perhaps have told me that he loved me before he went away.  I had thought sometimes that if he had done so I should have been glad.  As it was, he went to the East Indies, and later we read in the papers of a great shipwreck, that Allan Woodcourt had worked like a hero to save the drowning, and succour the survivors.

I had been ill when my dear guardian asked me one day if I would care to read something he had written, and I said “Yes.”  There was estrangement at that time between Richard and Mr. Jarndyce, for the unhappy boy had taken it into his head that the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce would yet be settled, and would bring him fortune, and this kept him from devoting himself seriously to any profession.  Of course, he and my darling Ada had fallen in love, and my guardian insisting on their waiting till Richard was earning some income before any engagement could be recognised, increased the estrangement.  I knew, to my distress, that Richard suspected my guardian of having a conflicting claim in the horrible lawsuit and this made him think unjustly of Mr. Jarndyce.

I read the letter.  It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the unselfish caution it gave me, 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.  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 felt that to devote my life to his happiness was to thank him poorly for all he had done for me.  Still I cried very much; not only in the fulness of my heart after reading the letter, but as if something for which there was no name or distinct idea were lost to me.  I was very happy, very thankful, very hopeful, but I cried very much.

On entering the breakfast-room next morning I found my guardian just as usual; quite as frank, as open, as free.  I thought he might speak to me about the letter, but he never did.

At the end of a week I went to him and said, rather hesitating and trembling, “Guardian, when would you like to have the answer to the letter?”

“When it’s ready, my dear,” he replied.

“I think it’s ready,” said I, “and I have brought it myself.”