re I was
staying, and he seemed quite pleased to see me. He was glad to meet
Richard again, too, and promised, on my asking him, to befriend Richard
in London.

_IV.--End of Jarndyce and Jarndyce_

Richard always declared that it was Ada he meant to see righted, no less
than himself, and his anxiety on that point so impressed Mr. Woodcourt
that he told me about it. It revived a fear I had had before, that my
dear girl's little property might be absorbed by Mr. Vholes, and that
Richard's justification to himself would be this.

So I went up to London to see Richard, who now lived in Symond's Inn,
and my darling Ada went with me. He was poring over a table covered with
dusty papers, but he received us very affectionately.

I noticed, as he passed his two hands over his head, how sunken and how
large his eyes appeared, and how dry his lips were. He spoke of the case
half-hopefully, half-despondently, "Either the suit must be ended,
Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit--the suit." Then he took
a few turns up and down, and sank upon the sofa. "I get so tired," he
said gloomily. "It is such weary, weary work."

"Esther, dear," Ada said, very quietly, "I am not going home again.
Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been
married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I shall
never go home any more."

I often came to Richard and his wife, and I often met Mr. Woodcourt
there. Richard still suspected my guardian, and refused to see him, and
when I said this was so unreasonable, my guardian only said, "What shall
we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce? Unreason and injustice from
beginning to end, if it ever has an end. How should poor Rick, always
hovering near it, pluck reason out of it?"

It was some months after this when Mr. Woodcourt asked me to be his
wife, and I had to tell him I was not free. But I had to tell him that I
could never forget how proud and glad I was at having been beloved by
him.

He took my hand and kissed it, and was like himself again.

All this time my guardian had never referred to his letter or my answer,
so I said to him next morning I would be the mistress of Bleak House
whenever he pleased.

"Next month?" my guardian said gaily.

"Next month, dear guardian."

At the end of the month my guardian went away to Yorkshire, and asked me
to follow him. I was very much surprised, and when the journey was over
my guardian explained