Page 53 - bleak-house

‘For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Sum-
merson.’
His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowl-
edged my curtsy very graciously.
‘Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause,
I think?’
‘No, my lord.’
Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whis-
pered. His lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened,
nodded twice or thrice, turned over more leaves, and did
not look towards me again until we were going away.
Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where
I was, near the door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me
that again I can’t help it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor,
with whom his lordship spoke a little part, asking her, as
she told me afterwards, whether she had well reflected on
the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she would
be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House,
and why she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and
released her, and then he spoke for a minute or two with
Richard Carstone, not seated, but standing, and altogeth-
er with more ease and less ceremony, as if he still knew,
though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to the
candour of a boy.
‘Very well!’ said his lordship aloud. ‘I shall make the or-
der. Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may
judge,’ and this was when he looked at me, ‘a very good com-
panion for the young lady, and the arrangement altogether
seems the best of which the circumstances admit.’

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