t Bleak House. It was plainly to be seen that he loved Ada dearly, and
that she loved him as well, but to Mr. Jarndyce's regret he had begun to
think and dream of the famous chancery suit and of the fortune that
would be his when it ended. Mr. Jarndyce, from his own bitter
experience, hated the Chancery Court and everything connected with it,
and saw with grief that Richard was growing to be a ne'er-do-well, who
found it easier to trust in the future than to labor in the present.

In spite of all advice Richard went from bad to worse. He began the
study of medicine, soon changed this for law, and lastly decided to
enter the army. He was naturally a spendthrift, and as long as his money
lasted Harold Skimpole found him a very fine friend and helped him spend
it.

Skimpole also introduced to him a knavish lawyer named Vholes, who made
him believe the great chancery suit must soon end in his favor, and who
(when Richard had put the case in his hands) proceeded to rob him of all
he had. He poisoned his mind, too, against Mr. Jarndyce, so that Richard
began to think his truest friend deceitful.

Ada saw this with pain, but she loved Richard above all else, and the
more so when she saw him so wretched and deceived; and at last, without
telling either Mr. Jarndyce or Esther what she was going to do, she
went to Richard one day and married him, so that, as her husband, he
could take the little fortune she possessed to pay Vholes to go on with
the chancery suit.

A great misfortune befell Esther about this time--a misfortune that came
to her, strangely enough, through little Joe, the crossing sweeper.

Half-starved, ragged and homeless all his life, Joe had never known
kindness save that given to him by the poor copyist who had lived above
Krook's rag-and-bottle shop. He lived (if having a corner to sleep in
can be called living) in a filthy alley called "Tom-all-Alone's." It
seemed to him that every one he met told him to "move on." The
policeman, the shopkeepers at whose doors he stopped for warmth, all
told him to "move on," till the wretched lad wondered if there was any
spot in London where he could rest undisturbed.

Mr. Tulkinghorn, in his search to find out the woman who had hired Joe
to show her the cemetery, had dogged him so with his detective that at
length the lad had become frightened and left London for the open
country. There he was taken very ill, and on the highway near Bleak
House one evening Esther foun