Page 1244 - bleak-house

‘Have I not been what I have meant to be since—I brought
the answer to your letter, guardian?’
‘You have been everything I could desire, my love.’
‘I am very glad indeed to hear that,’ I returned. ‘You
know, you said to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House.
And I said, yes.’
‘Yes,’ said my guardian, nodding his head. He had put his
arm about me as if there were something to protect me from
and looked in my face, smiling.
‘Since then,’ said I, ‘we have never spoken on the subject
except once.’
‘And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so
it was, my dear.’
‘And I said,’ I timidly reminded him, ‘but its mistress re-
mained.’
He still held me in the same protecting manner and with
the same bright goodness in his face.
‘Dear guardian,’ said I, ‘I know how you have felt all that
has happened, and how considerate you have been. As so
much time has passed, and as you spoke only this morning
of my being so well again, perhaps you expect me to renew
the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so. I will be the mistress
of Bleak House when you please.’
‘See,’ he returned gaily, ‘what a sympathy there must be
between us! I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted—
it’s a large exception—in my mind. When you came in, I
was full of it. When shall we give Bleak House its mistress,
little woman?’
‘When you please.’

1244 Bleak House