from the wards in
Jarndyce! Very happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my
humble roof!"

"Has she been very ill?" asked Mr. Jarndyce in a whisper of the doctor.

"Oh, decidedly unwell!" she answered confidentially. "Not pain, you
know--trouble. Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr.
Woodcourt"--with great stateliness--"The wards in Jarndyce; Jarndyce of
Bleak House. The kindest physician in the college," she whispered to me.
"I expect a judgment. On the Day of Judgment. And shall then confer
estates."

"She will be as well, in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, with an
observant smile, "as she ever will be. Have you heard of her good
fortune?"

"Most extraordinary!" said Miss Flite. "Every Saturday Kenge and Carboy
place a paper of shillings in my hand. Always the same number. One for
every day in the week. _I_ think that the Lord Chancellor forwards them.
Until the judgment I expect is given."

My guardian was contemplating Miss Flite's birds, and I had no need to
look beyond him.

_III.--I Am Made Happy_

I sometimes thought that Mr. Woodcourt loved me, and that, if he had
been richer, he would perhaps have told me that he loved me before he
went away. I had thought sometimes that if he had done so I should have
been glad. As it was, he went to the East Indies, and later we read in
the papers of a great shipwreck, that Allan Woodcourt had worked like a
hero to save the drowning, and succour the survivors.

I had been ill when my dear guardian asked me one day if I would care to
read something he had written, and I said "Yes." There was estrangement
at that time between Richard and Mr. Jarndyce, for the unhappy boy had
taken it into his head that the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce would yet
be settled, and would bring him fortune, and this kept him from devoting
himself seriously to any profession. Of course, he and my darling Ada
had fallen in love, and my guardian insisting on their waiting till
Richard was earning some income before any engagement could be
recognised, increased the estrangement. I knew, to my distress, that
Richard suspected my guardian of having a conflicting claim in the
horrible lawsuit and this made him think unjustly of Mr. Jarndyce.

I read the letter. It was so impressive in its love for me, and in the
unselfish caution it gave me, that my eyes were too often blinded to
read much at a time. But I read it through three times before I laid it
down. It ask