Page 54 - bleak-house

He dismissed us pleasantly, and we all went out, very
much obliged to him for being so affable and polite, by
which he had certainly lost no dignity but seemed to us to
have gained some.
When we got under the colonnade, Mr. Kenge remem-
bered that he must go back for a moment to ask a question
and left us in the fog, with the Lord Chancellor’s carriage
and servants waiting for him to come out.
‘Well!’ said Richard Carstone. ‘THAT’S over! And where
do we go next, Miss Summerson?’
‘Don’t you know?’ I said.
‘Not in the least,’ said he.
‘And don’t YOU know, my love?’ I asked Ada.
‘No!’ said she. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Not at all!’ said I.
We looked at one another, half laughing at our being like
the children in the wood, when a curious little old woman
in a squeezed bonnet and carrying a reticule came curtsy-
ing and smiling up to us with an air of great ceremony.
‘Oh!’ said she. ‘The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am
sure, to have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and
hope, and beauty when they find themselves in this place,
and don’t know what’s to come of it.’
‘Mad!’ whispered Richard, not thinking she could hear
him.
‘Right! Mad, young gentleman,’ she returned so quick-
ly that he was quite abashed. ‘I was a ward myself. I was
not mad at that time,’ curtsying low and smiling between
every little sentence. ‘I had youth and hope. I believe, beau-

54 Bleak House