sending him home before he went to dinner himself, and occasionally with a halfpenny in his pocket. But even this disinterestedness was attended with no inconsiderable cost, to my knowledge, for before Peepy was sufficiently decorated to walk hand in hand with the professor of deportment, he had to be newly dressed, at the expense of Caddy and her husband, from top to toe.
Last of our visitors, there was Mr. Jellyby. Really when he used to come in of an evening, and ask Caddy in his meek voice how she was, and then sit down with his head against the wall, and make no attempt to say anything more, I liked him very much. If he found me bustling about doing any little thing, he sometimes half took his coat off, as if with an intention of helping by a great exertion; but he never got any further. His sole occupation was to sit with his head against the wall, looking hard at the thoughtful baby; and I could not quite divest my mind of a fancy that they understood one another.
I have not counted Mr. Woodcourt among our visitors because he was now Caddy's regular attendant. She soon began to improve under his care, but he was so gentle, so skilful, so unwearying in the pains he took that it is not to be wondered at, I am sure. I saw a good deal of Mr. Woodcourt during this time, though not so much as might be supposed, for knowing Caddy to be safe in his hands, I often slipped home at about the hours when he was expected. We frequently met, notwithstanding. I was quite reconciled to myself now, but I still felt glad to think that he was sorry for me, and he still WAS sorry for me I believed. He helped Mr. Badger in his professional engagements, which were numerous, and had as yet no settled projects for the future.
It was when Caddy began to recover that I began to notice a change in my dear girl. I cannot say how it first presented itself to me, because I observed it in many slight particulars which were nothing in themselves and only became something when they were pieced together. But I made it out, by putting them together, that Ada was not so frankly cheerful with me as she used to be. Her tenderness for me was as loving and true as ever; I did not for a moment doubt that; but there was a quiet sorrow about her which she did not confide to me, and in which I traced some hidden regret.
Now, I could not understand this, and I was so anxious for the happiness of my own pet that it caused me some uneasiness and set me thinking often. At length, feeling sure that Ada suppressed this something from me lest it should make me unhappy too, it came into my head that she was a little grieved-for me-by what I had told her about Bleak House.
How I persuaded myself that this was likely, I don't know. I had no idea that there was any selfish reference in my doing so. I was not grieved for myself: I was quite contented and quite happy.
Still, that Ada might be thinking-for me, though I had abandoned all such thoughts-of what once was, but was now all changed, seemed so easy to believe that I believed it.
What could I do to reassure my darling (I considered then) and show her that I had no such feelings? Well! I could only be as brisk and busy as possible, and that I had tried to be all along.
However, as Caddy's illness had certainly interfered, more or less, with my home duties-though I had always been there in the morning to make my guardian's breakfast, and he had a hundred times laughed and said there must be two little women, for his little woman was never missing-I resolved to be doubly diligent and gay. So I went about the house humming all the tunes I knew, and I sat working and working in a desperate manner, and I talked and talked, morning, noon, and night.
And still there was the same shade between me and my darling.
'So, Dame Trot,' observed my guardian, shutting up his book one night when we were all three together, 'so Woodcourt has restored Caddy Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?'
'Yes,' I said; 'and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be made rich, guardian.'
'I wish it was,' he returned, 'with all my heart.'
So did I too, for that matter. I said so.
'Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we not, little woman?'
I laughed as I worked and replied that I was not sure about that, for it might spoil him, and he might not be so useful, and there might be many who could ill spare him. As Miss Flite, and Caddy herself, and many others.
'True,' said my guardian. 'I had forgotten that. But we would agree to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and his own household gods-and household goddess, too, perhaps?'
That was quite another thing, I said. We must all agree in that.
'To be sure,' said my guardian. 'All of us. I have a great regard for Woodcourt, a high esteem for him; and I have been sounding him delicately about his plans. It is difficult to offer aid to an independent man with that just kind of pride which he possesses.
And yet I would be glad to do it if I might or if I knew how. He seems half inclined for another voyage. But that appears like casting such a man away.'
'It might open a new world to him,' said I.
'So it might, little woman,' my guardian assented. 'I doubt if he expects much of the old world. Do you know I have fancied that he sometimes feels some particular disappointment or misfortune encountered in it. You never heard of anything of that sort?'
I shook my head.
'Humph,' said my guardian. 'I am mistaken, I dare say.' As there was a little pause here, which I thought, for my dear girl's satisfaction, had better be filled up, I hummed an air as I worked which was a favourite with my guardian.
'And do you think Mr. Woodcourt will make another voyage?' I asked him when I had hummed it quietly all through.
'I don't quite know what to think, my dear, but I should say it was likely at present that he will give a long trip to another country.'
'I am sure he will take the best wishes of all our hearts with him wherever he goes,' said I; 'and though they are not riches, he will never be the poorer for them, guardian, at least.'
'Never, little woman,' he replied.
I was sitting in my usual place, which was now beside my guardian's chair. That had not been my usual place before the letter, but it was now. I looked up to Ada, who was sitting opposite, and I saw, as she looked at me, that her eyes were filled with tears and that tears were falling down her face. I felt that I had only to be placid and merry once for all to undeceive my dear and set her loving heart at rest. I really was so, and I had nothing to do but to be myself.
So I made my sweet girl lean upon my shoulder-how little thinking what was heavy on her mind!-and I said she was not quite well, and put my arm about her, and took her upstairs. When we were in our own room, and when she might perhaps have told me what I was so unprepared to hear, I gave her no encouragement to confide in me; I never thought she stood in need of it.
'Oh, my dear good Esther,' said Ada, 'if I could only make up my mind to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!'
'Why, my love!' I remonstrated. 'Ada, why should you not speak to us!'
Ada only dropped her head and pressed me closer to her heart.
'You surely don't forget, my beauty,' said I, smiling, 'what quiet, old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the discreetest of dames? You don't forget how happily and peacefully my life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you don't forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be.'
'No, never, Esther.'
'Why then, my dear,' said I, 'there can be nothing amiss-and why should you not speak to us?'
'Nothing amiss, Esther?' returned Ada. 'Oh, when I think of all these years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!'
I looked at my child in some wonder, but I thought it better not to answer otherwise than by cheering her, and so I turned off into many little recollections of our life together and prevented her from saying more. When she lay down to sleep, and not before, I returned to my guardian to say good night, and then I came back to Ada and sat near her for a little while.
She was asleep, and I thought as I looked at her that she was a little changed. I had thought so more than once lately. I could not decide, even looking at her while she was unconscious, how she was changed, but something in the familiar beauty of her face looked different to me. My guardian's old hopes of her and Richard
