Page 276 - bleak-house

commenced our quieter career.
On our arrival in London, we had called with Mr. Jarn-
dyce at Mrs. Jellyby’s but had not been so fortunate as to
find her at home. It appeared that she had gone somewhere
to a tea-drinking and had taken Miss Jellyby with her. Be-
sides the tea-drinking, there was to be some considerable
speech-making and letter-writing on the general merits of
the cultivation of coffee, conjointly with natives, at the Set-
tlement of Borrioboola-Gha. All this involved, no doubt,
sufficient active exercise of pen and ink to make her daugh-
ter’s part in the proceedings anything but a holiday.
It being now beyond the time appointed for Mrs. Jellyby’s
return, we called again. She was in town, but not at home,
having gone to Mile End directly after breakfast on some
Borrioboolan business, arising out of a society called the
East London Branch Aid Ramification. As I had not seen
Peepy on the occasion of our last call (when he was not to
be found anywhere, and when the cook rather thought he
must have strolled away with the dustman’s cart), I now in-
quired for him again. The oyster shells he had been building
a house with were still in the passage, but he was nowhere
discoverable, and the cook supposed that he had ‘gone af-
ter the sheep.’ When we repeated, with some surprise, ‘The
sheep?’ she said, Oh, yes, on market days he sometimes fol-
lowed them quite out of town and came back in such a state
as never was!
I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the fol-
lowing morning, and Ada was busy writing-of course to
Richard—when Miss Jellyby was announced, and entered,

276 Bleak House