Page 773 - bleak-house

cases, and either a curious egg or a curious pumpkin (but
I don’t know which, and I doubt if many people did) hang-
ing from his ceiling. I knew Mr. Grubble very well by sight,
from his often standing at his door. A pleasant-looking,
stoutish, middle-aged man who never seemed to consider
himself cozily dressed for his own fire-side without his hat
and top-boots, but who never wore a coat except at church.
He snuffed the candle, and backing away a little to see
how it looked, backed out of the room—unexpectedly to
me, for I was going to ask him by whom he had been sent.
The door of the opposite parlour being then opened, I heard
some voices, familiar in my ears I thought, which stopped.
A quick light step approached the room in which I was, and
who should stand before me but Richard!
‘My dear Esther!’ he said. ‘My best friend!’ And he really
was so warm-hearted and earnest that in the first surprise
and pleasure of his brotherly greeting I could scarcely find
breath to tell him that Ada was well.
‘Answering my very thoughts—always the same dear
girl!’ said Richard, leading me to a chair and seating him-
self beside me.
I put my veil up, but not quite.
‘Always the same dear girl!’ said Richard just as heartily
as before.
I put up my veil altogether, and laying my hand on Rich-
ard’s sleeve and looking in his face, told him how much I
thanked him for his kind welcome and how greatly I re-
joiced to see him, the more so because of the determination
I had made in my illness, which I now conveyed to him.

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