yesterday jogging on so serenely, and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board, gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals ; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada—I may call you Ada ?”
“Of course you may, cousin Richard.”
“At all events, Ada, Chancery will work none of its bad influence on us. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it can′t divide us now !”
“Never, I hope, cousin Richard !” said Ada, gently.
Miss Jellyby gave my arm a squeeze, and me a very significant look. I smiled in return, and we made the rest of the way back very pleasantly.
In half-an-hour after our arrival, Mrs. Jellyby appeared ; and in the course of an hour the various things necessary for breakfast straggled one by one into the dining-room. I do not doubt that Mrs. Jellyby had gone to bed, and got up in the usual manner, but she presented no appearance of having changed her dress. She was greatly occupied during breakfast ; for the morning′s post brought a heavy correspondence relative to Borrioboola-Gha, which would occasion her (she said) to pass a busy day. The children tumbled about, and notched memoranda of their accidents in their legs, which were perfect little calendars of distress ; and Peepy was lost for an hour and a half, and brought home from Newgate market by a policeman. The equable manner in which Mrs. Jellyby sustained both his absence, and his restoration to the family circle, surprised us all.
She was by that time perseveringly dictating to Caddy, and Caddy was fast relapsing into the inky condition in which we had found her. At one o′clock an open carriage arrived for us, and a cart for our luggage. Mrs. Jellyby charged us with many remembrances to her good friend, Mr. Jarndyce ; Caddy left her desk to see us depart, kissed me in the passage, and stood, biting her pen, and sobbing on the steps ; Peepy, I am happy to say, was asleep, and spared the pain of separation (I was not without misgivings that he had gone to Newgate market in search of me) ; and all the other children got up behind the barouche and fell off, and we saw them, with great concern, scattered over the surface of Thavies Inn, as we rolled out of its precincts.
CHAPTER VI.
qite at home.
The day had brightened very much, and still brightened as we went westward. We went our way through the sunshine and the fresh air, wondering more and more at the extent of the streets, the brilliancy of the shops, the great traffic, and the crowds of people whom the pleasanter weather seemed to have brought out like many-colored flowers. By-and-by we began to leave the wonderful city, and to proceed through suburbs which, of themselves, would have made a pretty large town, in
