e;--as if I wanted to deny it!

"I should think it was a strong point," said Herbert, "and I should
think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest, you
must bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his client's time.
You'll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and then perhaps
you'll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you'll be nearer
getting it, for it must come at last."

"What a hopeful disposition you have!" said I, gratefully admiring his
cheery ways.

"I ought to have," said Herbert, "for I have not much else. I must
acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is
not my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard him make on
your story, was the final one, "The thing is settled and done, or Mr.
Jaggers would not be in it." And now before I say anything more about my
father, or my father's son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want
to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,--positively
repulsive."

"You won't succeed," said I.

"O yes I shall!" said he. "One, two, three, and now I am in for it.
Handel, my good fellow;"--though he spoke in this light tone, he was
very much in earnest,--"I have been thinking since we have been talking
with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition
of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am
I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never
referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted,
for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage
ultimately?"

"Never."

"Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavor of sour grapes, upon my
soul and honor! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from
her?--I told you I should be disagreeable."

I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh
winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued
me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly
rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon
my heart again. There was silence between us for a little while.

"Yes; but my dear Handel," Herbert went on, as if we had been talking,
instead of silent, "its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of
a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very
serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of