CHAPTER VIII
 
 

            Covering a Multitude of Sins
 
 

        It was interesting when I dressed before daylight to peep out of

        window, where my candles were reflected in the black panes like two

        beacons, and finding all beyond still enshrouded in the

        indistinctness of last night, to watch how it turned out when the

        day came on.  As the prospect gradually revealed itself and

        disclosed the scene over which the wind had wandered in the dark,

        like my memory over my life, I had a pleasure in discovering the

        unknown objects that had been around me in my sleep.  At first they

        were faintly discernible in the mist, and above them the later

        stars still glimmered.  That pale interval over, the picture began

        to enlarge and fill up so fast that at every new peep I could have

        found enough to look at for an hour.  Imperceptibly my candles

        became the only incongruous part of the morning, the dark places in

        my room all melted away, and the day shone bright upon a cheerful

        landscape, prominent in which the old Abbey Church, with its

        massive tower, threw a softer train of shadow on the view than

        seemed compatible with its rugged character.  But so from rough

        outsides (I hope I have learnt), serene and gentle influences often

        proceed.
 
 

        Every part of the house was in such order, and every one was so

        attentive to me, that I had no trouble with my two bunches of keys,

        though what with trying to remember the contents of each little

        store-room drawer and cupboard; and what with making notes on a

        slate about jams, and pickles, and preserves, and bottles, and

        glass, and china, and a great many other things; and what with

        being generally a methodical, old-maidish sort of foolish little

        person, I was so busy that I could not believe it was breakfast-

        time when I heard the bell ring.  Away I ran, however, and made

        tea, as I had already been installed into the responsibility of the

        tea-pot; and then, as they were all rather late and nobody was down

        yet, I thought I would take a peep at the garden and get some

        knowledge of that too.  I found it quite a delightful place--in

        front, the pretty avenue and drive by which we had approached (and

        where, by the by, we had cut up the gravel so terribly with our

        wheels that I asked the gardener to roll it); at the back, the

        flower-garden, with my darling at her window up there, throwing it

        open to smile out at me, as if she would have kissed me from that

        distance.  Beyond the flower-garden was a kitchen-garden, and then

        a paddock, and then a snug little rick-yard, and then a dear little

        farm-yard.  As to the house itself, with its three peaks in the

        roof; its various-shaped windows, some so large, some so small, and

        all so pretty; its trellis-work, against the southfront for roses

        and honey-suckle, and its homely, comfortable, welcoming look--it

        was, as Ada said when she came out to meet me with her arm through

        that of its master, worthy of her cousin John, a bold thing to say,

        though he only pinched her dear cheek for it.
 
 

        Mr. Skimpole was as agreeable at breakfast as he had been

        overnight.  There was honey on the table, and it led him into a

        discourse about bees.  He had no objection to honey, he said (and I

        should think he had not, for he seemed to like it), but he

        protested against the overweening assumptions of bees.  He didn't

        at all see why the busy bee should be proposed as a model to him;

        he supposed the bee liked to make honey, or he wouldn't do it--

        nobody asked him.  It was not necessary for the bee to make such a

        merit of his tastes.  If every confectioner went buzzing about the

        world banging against everything that came in his way and

        egotistically calling upon everybody to take notice that he was

        going to his work and must not be interrupted, the world would be

        quite an unsupportable place.  Then, after all, it was a ridiculous

        position to be smoked out of your fortune with brimstone as soon as

        you had made it.  You would have a very mean opinion of a

        Manchester man if he spun cotton for no other purpose.  He must say

        he thought a drone the embodiment of a pleasanter and wiser idea.

        The drone said unaffectedly, "You will excuse me; I really cannot

        attend to the shop!  I find myself in a world in which there is so

        much to see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the

        liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by

        somebody who doesn't want to look about him."  This appeared to Mr.

        Skimpole to be the drone philosophy, and he thought it a very good

        philosophy, always supposing the drone to be willing to be on good

        terms with the bee, which, so far as he knew, the easy fellow

        always was, if the consequential creature would only let him, and

        not be so conceited about his honey!
 
 

        He pursued this fancy with the lightest foot over a variety of

        ground and made us all merry, though again he seemed to have as

        serious a meaning in what he said as he was capable of having.  I

        left them still listening to him when I withdrew to attend to my

        new duties.  They had occupied me for some time, and I was passing

        through the passages on my return with my basket of keys on my arm

        when Mr. Jarndyce called me into a small room next his bed-chamber,

        which I found to be in part a little library of books and papers

        and in part quite a little museum of his boots and shoes and hat-

        boxes.
 
 

        "Sit down, my dear," said Mr. Jarndyce.  "This, you must know, is

        the growlery.  When I am out of humour, I come and growl here."
 
 

        "You must be here very seldom, sir," said I.
 
 

        "Oh, you don't know me!" he returned.  "When I am deceived or

        disappointed in--the wind, and it's easterly, I take refuge here.

        The growlery is the best-used room in the house.  You are not aware

        of half my humours yet.  My dear, how you are trembling!"
 
 

        I could not help it; I tried very hard, but being alone with that

        benevolent presence, and meeting his kind eyes, and feeling so

        happy and so honoured there, and my heart so full--
 
 

        I kissed his hand.  I don't know what I said, or even that I spoke.

        He was disconcerted and walked to the window; I almost believed

        with an intention of jumping out, until he turned and I was

        reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide.  He

        gently patted me on the head, and I sat down.
 
 

        "There!  There!" he said.  "That's over.  Pooh!  Don't be foolish."
 
 

        "It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is

        difficult--"
 
 

        "Nonsense!" he said.  "It's easy, easy.  Why not?  I hear of a good

        little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head

        to be that protector.  She grows up, and more than justifies my

        good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend.  What is

        there in all this?  So, so!  Now, we have cleared off old scores,

        and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again."
 
 

        I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, you surprise me!  This really

        is not what I expected of you!"  And it had such a good effect that

        I folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself.  Mr.

        Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me

        as confidentially as if I had been in the habit of conversing with

        him every morning for I don't know how long.  I almost felt as if I

        had.
 
 

        "Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery

        business?"
 
 

        And of course I shook my head.
 
 

        "I don't know who does," he returned.  "The lawyers have twisted it

        into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the

        case have long disappeared from the face of the earth.  It's about

        a will and the trusts under a will--or it was once.  It's about

        nothing but costs now.  We are always appearing, and disappearing,

        and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and

        arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting,

        and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and

        equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs.

        That's the great question.  All the rest, by some extraordinary

        means, has melted away."
 
 

        "But it was, sir," said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub

        his head, "about a will?"
 
 

        "Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything," he

        returned.   "A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great

        fortune, and made a great will.  In the question how the trusts

        under that will are to be administered, the fortune left by the

        will is squandered away; the legatees under the will are reduced to

        such a miserable condition that they would be sufficiently punished

        if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them,

        and the will itself is made a dead letter.  All through the

        deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man,

        knows already is referred to that only one man who don't know it to

        find out--all through the deplorable cause, everybody must have

        copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated

        about it in the way of cartloads of papers (or must pay for them

        without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants

        them) and must go down the middle and up again through such an

        infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and

        corruption as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a

        witch's Sabbath.  Equity sends questions to law, law sends

        questions back to equity; law finds it can't do this, equity finds

        it can't do that; neither can so much as say it can't do anything,

        without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for

        A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for B;

        and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the apple

        pie.  And thus, through years and years, and lives and lives,

        everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and

        nothing ever ends.  And we can't get out of the suit on any terms,

        for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to it, whether

        we like it or not.  But it won't do to think of it!  When my great

        uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the

        beginning of the end!"
 
 

        "The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?"
 
 

        He nodded gravely.  "I was his heir, and this was his house,

        Esther.  When I came here, it was bleak indeed.  He had left the

        signs of his misery upon it."
 
 

        "How changed it must be now!" I said.
 
 

        "It had been called, before his time, the Peaks.  He gave it its

        present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the

        wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to

        disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close.  In

        the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled

        through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof,

        the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door.  When I brought

        what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have

        been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined."
 
 

        He walked a little to and fro after saying this to himself with a

        shudder, and then looked at me, and brightened, and came and sat

        down again with his hands in his pockets.
 
 

        "I told you this was the growlery, my dear.  Where was I?"
 
 

        I reminded him, at the hopeful change he had made in Bleak House.
 
 

        "Bleak House; true.  There is, in that city of London there, some

        property of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was

        then; I say property of ours, meaning of the suit's, but I ought to

        call it the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth

        that will ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for

        anything but an eyesore and a heartsore.  It is a street of

        perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane

        of glass, without so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank

        shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder, the iron

        rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the

        stone steps to every door (and every door might be death's door)

        turning stagnant green, the very crutches on which the ruins are

        propped decaying.  Although Bleak House was not in Chancery, its

        master was, and it was stamped with the same seal.  These are the

        Great Seal's impressions, my dear, all over England--the children

        know them!"
 
 

        "How changed it is!" I said again.
 
 

        "Why, so it is," he answered much more cheerfully; "and it is

        wisdom in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture."  (The

        idea of my wisdom!)  "These are things I never talk about or even

        think about, excepting in the growlery here.  If you consider it

        right to mention them to Rick and Ada," looking seriously at me,

        "you can.  I leave it to your discretion, Esther."
 
 

        "I hope, sir--" said I.
 
 

        "I think you had better call me guardian, my dear."
 
 

        I felt that I was choking again--I taxed myself with it, "Esther,

        now, you know you are!"--when he feigned to say this slightly, as

        if it were a whim instead of a thoughtful tenderness.  But I gave

        the housekeeping keys the least shake in the world as a reminder to

        myself, and folding my hands in a still more determined manner on

        the basket, looked at him quietly.
 
 

        "I hope, guardian," said I, "that you may not trust too much to my

        discretion.  I hope you may not mistake me.  I am afraid it will be

        a disappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really

        is the truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the

        honesty to confess it."
 
 

        He did not seem at all disappointed; quite the contrary.  He told

        me, with a smile all over his face, that he knew me very well

        indeed and that I was quite clever enough for him.
 
 

        "I hope I may turn out so," said I, "but I am much afraid of it,

        guardian."
 
 

        "You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives

        here, my dear," he returned playfully; "the little old woman of the

        child's (I don't mean Skimpole's) rhyme:
 
 
 
 

             'Little old woman, and whither so high?'

             'To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.'
 
 
 
 

        You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your

        housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to

        abandon the growlery and nail up the door."
 
 

        This was the beginning of my being called Old Woman, and Little Old

        Woman, and Cobweb, and Mrs. Shipton, and Mother Hubbard, and Dame

        Durden, and so many names of that sort that my own name soon became

        quite lost among them.
 
 

        "However," said Mr. Jarndyce, "to return to our gossip.  Here's

        Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise.  What's to be done with

        him?"
 
 

        Oh, my goodness, the idea of asking my advice on such a point!
 
 

        "Here he is, Esther," said Mr. Jarndyce, comfortably putting his

        hands into his pockets and stretching out his legs.  "He must have

        a profession; he must make some choice for himself.  There will be

        a world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be

        done."
 
 

        "More what, guardian?" said I.
 
 

        "More wiglomeration," said he.  "It's the only name I know for the

        thing.  He is a ward in Chancery, my dear.  Kenge and Carboy will

        have something to say about it; Master Somebody--a sort of

        ridiculous sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a

        back room at the end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane--will have

        something to say about it; counsel will have something to say about

        it; the Chancellor will have something to say about it; the

        satellites will have something to say about it; they will all have

        to be handsomely feed, all round, about it; the whole thing will be

        vastly ceremonious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I

        call it, in general, wiglomeration.  How mankind ever came to be

        afflicted with wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people

        ever fell into a pit of it, I don't know; so it is."
 
 

        He began to rub his head again and to hint that he felt the wind.

        But it was a delightful instance of his kindness towards me that

        whether he rubbed his head, or walked about, or did both, his face

        was sure to recover its benignant expression as it looked at mine;

        and he was sure to turn comfortable again and put his hands in his

        pockets and stretch out his legs.
 
 

        "Perhaps it would be best, first of all," said I, "to ask Mr.

        Richard what he inclines to himself."
 
 

        "Exactly so," he returned.  "That's what I mean!  You know, just

        accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet

        way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it.  We are

        sure to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little

        woman."
 
 

        I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was

        attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me.

        I had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to

        Richard.  But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would

        do my best, though I feared (I realty felt it necessary to repeat

        this) that he thought me much more sagacious than I was.  At which

        my guardian only laughed the pleasantest laugh I ever heard.
 
 

        "Come!" he said, rising and pushing back his chair.  "I think we

        may have done with the growlery for one day!  Only a concluding

        word.  Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?"
 
 

        He looked so attentively at me that I looked attentively at him and

        felt sure I understood him.
 
 

        "About myself, sir?" said I.
 
 

        "Yes."
 
 

        "Guardian," said I, venturing to put my hand, which was suddenly

        colder than I could have wished, in his, "nothing!  I am quite sure

        that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to

        know, I should not have to ask you to tell it to me.  If my whole

        reliance and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard

        heart indeed.  I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world."
 
 

        He drew my hand through his arm and we went away to look for Ada.

        From that hour I felt quite easy with him, quite unreserved, quite

        content to know no more, quite happy.
 
 

        We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had

        to become acquainted with many residents in and out of the

        neighbourhood who knew Mr. Jarndyce.  It seemed to Ada and me that

        everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else's

        money.  It amazed us when we began to sort his letters and to

        answer some of them for him in the growlery of a morning to find

        how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents

        appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in

        and laying out money.  The ladies were as desperate as the

        gentlemen; indeed, I think they were even more so.  They threw

        themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and

        collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary.  It

        appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in

        dealing out subscription-cards to the whole post-office directory--

        shilling cards, half-crown cards, half-sovereign cards, penny

        cards.  They wanted everything.  They wanted wearing apparel, they

        wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they

        wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they

        wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had--or had not.

        Their objects were as various as their demands.  They were going to

        raise new buildings, they were going to pay off debts on old

        buildings, they were going to establish in a picturesque building

        (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) the Sisterhood of

        Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a testimonial to Mrs.

        Jellyby, they were going to have their secretary's portrait painted

        and presented to his mother-in-law, whose deep devotion to him was

        well known, they were going to get up everything, I really believe,

        from five hundred thousand tracts to an annuity and from a marble

        monument to a silver tea-pot.  They took a multitude of titles.

        They were the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the

        Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the Females of

        America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations.  They appeared to

        be always excited about canvassing and electing.  They seemed to

        our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be

        constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing

        their candidates in for anything.  It made our heads ache to think,

        on the whole, what feverish lives they must lead.
 
 

        Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious

        benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who

        seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce,

        to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself.

        We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became

        the subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr.

        Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked

        that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people

        who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the

        people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.  We were

        therefore curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a

        type of the former class, and were glad when she called one day

        with her five young sons.
 
 

        She was a formidable style of lady with spectacles, a prominent

        nose, and a loud voice, who had the effect of wanting a great deal

        of room.  And she really did, for she knocked down little chairs

        with her skirts that were quite a great way off.  As only Ada and I

        were at home, we received her timidly, for she seemed to come in

        like cold weather and to make the little Pardiggles blue as they

        followed.
 
 

        "These, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility

        after the first salutations, "are my five boys.  You may have seen

        their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one)

        in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce.  Egbert, my

        eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the

        amount of five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians.  Oswald,

        my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and

        nine-pence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial.  Francis, my

        third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven),

        eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five),

        has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is

        pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form."
 
 

        We had never seen such dissatisfied children.  It was not merely

        that they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly

        that to--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent.  At

        the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians, I could really have supposed

        Eghert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave

        me such a savage frown.  The face of each child, as the amount of

        his contribution was mentioned, darkened in a peculiarly vindictive

        manner, but his was by far the worst.  I must except, however, the

        little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and

        evenly miserable.
 
 

        "You have been visiting, I understand," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "at

        Mrs. Jellyby's?"
 
 

        We said yes, we had passed one night there.
 
 

        "Mrs. Jellyby," pursued the lady, always speaking in the same

        demonstrative, loud, hard tone, so that her voice impressed my

        fancy as if it had a sort of spectacles on too--and I may take the

        opportunity of remarking that her spectacles were made the less

        engaging by her eyes being what Ada called "choking eyes," meaning

        very prominent--"Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and

        deserves a helping hand.  My boys have contributed to the African

        project--Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine

        weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest,

        according to their little means.  Nevertheless, I do not go with

        Mrs. Jellyby in all things.  I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her

        treatment of her young family.  It has been noticed.  It has been

        observed that her young family are excluded from participation in

        the objects to which she is devoted.  She may be right, she may be

        wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with MY young

        family.  I take them everywhere."
 
 

        I was afterwards convinced (and so was Ada) that from the ill-

        conditioned eldest child, these words extorted a sharp yell.  He

        turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.
 
 

        "They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six

        o'clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the

        depth of winter," said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with

        me during the revolving duties of the day.  I am a School lady, I

        am a Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady;

        I am on the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees;

        and my canvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more

        so.  But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they

        acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing

        charitable business in general--in short, that taste for the sort

        of thing--which will render them in after life a service to their

        neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves.  My young family are

        not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in

        subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many

        public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and

        discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people.

        Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined

        the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who

        manifested consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of

        two hours from the chairman of the evening."
 
 

        Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the

        injury of that night.
 
 

        "You may have observed, Miss Summerson," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "in

        some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of

        our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family

        are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound.

        That is their father.  We usually observe the same routine.  I put

        down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions,

        according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr.

        Pardiggle brings up the rear.  Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in

        his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made

        not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to

        others."
 
 

        Suppose Mr. Pardiggle were to dine with Mr. Jellyby, and suppose

        Mr. Jellyby were to relieve his mind after dinner to Mr. Pardiggle,

        would Mr. Pardiggle, in return, make any confidential communication

        to Mr. Jellyby?  I was quite confused to find myself thinking this,

        but it came into my head.
 
 

        "You are very pleasantly situated here!" said Mrs. Pardiggle.
 
 

        We were glad to change the subject, and going to the window,

        pointed out the beauties of the prospect, on which the spectacles

        appeared to me to rest with curious indifference.
 
 

        "You know Mr. Gusher?" said our visitor.
 
 

        We were obliged to say that we had not the pleasure of Mr. Gusher's

        acquaintance.
 
 

        "The loss is yours, I assure you," said Mrs. Pardiggle with her

        commanding deportment.  "He is a very fervid, impassioned speaker-

        full of fire!  Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, which, from

        the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public meeting, he

        would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and

        hours!  By this time, young ladies," said Mrs. Pardiggle, moving

        back to her chair and overturning, as if by invisible agency, a

        little round table at a considerable distance with my work-basket

        on it, "by this time you have found me out, I dare say?"
 
 

        This was really such a confusing question that Ada looked at me in

        perfect dismay.  As to the guilty nature of my own consciousness

        after what I had been thinking, it must have been expressed in the

        colour of my cheeks.
 
 

        "Found out, I mean," said Mrs. Pardiggle, "the prominent point in

        my character.  I am aware that it is so prominent as to be

        discoverable immediately.  I lay myself open to detection, I know.

        Well!  I freely admit, I am a woman of business.  I love hard work;

        I enjoy hard work.  The excitement does me good.  I am so

        accustomed and inured to hard work that I don't know what fatigue

        is."
 
 

        We murmured that it was very astonishing and very gratifying, or

        something to that effect.  I don't think we knew what it was

        either, but this is what our politeness expressed.
 
 

        "I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if

        you try!" said Mrs. Pardiggle.  "The quantity of exertion (which is

        no exertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as

        nothing), that I go through sometimes astonishes myself.  I have

        seen my young family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with

        witnessing it, when I may truly say I have been as fresh as a

        lark!"
 
 

        If that dark-visaged eldest boy could look more malicious than he

        had already looked, this was the time when he did it.  I observed

        that he doubled his right fist and delivered a secret blow into the

        crown of his cap, which was under his left arm.
 
 

        "This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds," said

        Mrs. Pardiggle.  "If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have

        to say, I tell that person directly, 'I am incapable of fatigue, my

        good friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have

        done.'  It answers admirably!  Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have

        your assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare's

        very soon."
 
 

        At first I tried to excuse myself for the present on the general

        ground of having occupations to attend to which I must not neglect.

        But as this was an ineffectual protest, I then said, more

        particularly, that I was not sure of my qualifications.  That I was

        inexperienced in the art of adapting my mind to minds very

        differently situated, and addressing them from suitable points of

        view.  That I had not that delicate knowledge of the heart which

        must be essential to such a work.  That I had much to learn,

        myself, before I could teach others, and that I could not confide

        in my good intentions alone.  For these reasons I thought it best

        to be as useful as I could, and to render what kind services I

        could to those immediately about me, and to try to let that circle

        of duty gradually and naturally expand itself.  All this I said

        with anything but confidence, because Mrs. Pardiggle was much older

        than I, and had great experience, and was so very military in her

        manners.
 
 

        "You are wrong, Miss Summerson," said she, "but perhaps you are not

        equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast

        difference.  If you would like to see how I go through my work, I

        am now about--with my young family--to visit a brickmaker in the

        neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you

        with me.  Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour."
 
 

        Ada and I interchanged looks, and as we were going out in any case,

        accepted the offer.  When we hastily returned from putting on our

        bonnets, we found the young family languishing in a corner and Mrs.

        Pardiggle sweeping about the room, knocking down nearly all the

        light objects it contained.  Mrs. Pardiggle took possession of Ada,

        and I followed with the family.
 
 

        Ada told me afterwards that Mrs. Pardiggle talked in the same loud

        tone (that, indeed, I overheard) all the way to the brickmaker's

        about an exciting contest which she had for two or three years

        waged against another lady relative to the bringing in of their

        rival candidates for a pension somewhere.  There had been a

        quantity of printing, and promising, and proxying, and polling, and

        it appeared to have imparted great liveliness to all concerned,

        except the pensioners--who were not elected yet.
 
 

        I am very fond of being confided in by children and am happy in

        being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it

        gave me great uneasiness.  As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert,

        with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me on

        the ground that his pocket-money was "boned" from him.  On my

        pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in

        connexion with his parent (for he added sulkily "By her!"), he

        pinched me and said, "Oh, then!  Now!  Who are you!  YOU wouldn't

        like it, I think?  What does she make a sham for, and pretend to

        give me money, and take it away again?  Why do you call it my

        allowance, and never let me spend it?"  These exasperating

        questions so inflamed his mind and the minds of Oswald and Francis

        that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way--

        screwing up such little pieces of my arms that I could hardly

        forbear crying out.  Felix, at the same time, stamped upon my toes.

        And the Bond of Joy, who on account of always having the whole of

        his little income anticipated stood in fact pledged to abstain from

        cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we

        passed a pastry-cook's shop that he terrified me by becoming

        purple.  I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the

        course of a walk with young people as from these unnaturally

        constrained children when they paid me the compliment of being

        natural.
 
 

        I was glad when we came to the brickmaker's house, though it was

        one of a cluster of wretched hovels in a brick-field, with pigsties

        close to the broken windows and miserable little gardens before the

        doors growing nothing but stagnant pools.  Here and there an old

        tub was put to catch the droppings of rain-water from a roof, or

        they were banked up with mud into a little pond like a large dirt-

        pie.  At the doors and windows some men and women lounged or

        prowled about, and took little notice of us except to laugh to one

        another or to say something as we passed about gentlefolks minding

        their own business and not troubling their heads and muddying their

        shoes with coming to look after other people's.
 
 

        Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral

        determination and talking with much volubility about the untidy

        habits of the people (though I doubted if the best of us could have

        been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the

        farthest corner, the ground-floor room of which we nearly filled.

        Besides ourselves, there were in this damp, offensive room a woman

        with a black eye, nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire; a

        man, all stained with clay and mud and looking very dissipated,

        lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe; a powerful

        young man fastening a collar on a dog; and a bold girl doing some

        kind of washing in very dirty water.  They all looked up at us as

        we came in, and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire

        as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome.
 
 

        "Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle, but her voice had not a

        friendly sound, I thought; it was much too businesslike and

        systematic.  "How do you do, all of you?  I am here again.  I told

        you, you couldn't tire me, you know.  I am fond of hard work, and

        am true to my word."
 
 

        "There an't," growled the man on the floor, whose head rested on

        his hand as he stared at us, "any more on you to come in, is

        there?"
 
 

        "No, my friend," said Mrs. Pardiggle, seating herself on one stool

        and knocking down another.  "We are all here."
 
 

        "Because I thought there warn't enough of you, perhaps?" said the

        man, with his pipe between his lips as he looked round upon us.
 
 

        The young man and the girl both laughed.  Two friends of the young

        man, whom we had attracted to the doorway and who stood there with

        their hands in their pockets, echoed the laugh noisily.
 
 

        "You can't tire me, good people," said Mrs. Pardiggle to these

        latter.  "I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the

        better I like it."
 
 

        "Then make it easy for her!" growled the man upon the floor.  "I

        wants it done, and over.  I wants a end of these liberties took

        with my place.  I wants an end of being drawed like a badger.  Now

        you're a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--I know

        what you're a-going to be up to.  Well!  You haven't got no

        occasion to be up to it.  I'll save you the trouble.  Is my

        daughter a-washin?  Yes, she IS a-washin.  Look at the water.

        Smell it!  That's wot we drinks.  How do you like it, and what do

        you think of gin instead!  An't my place dirty?  Yes, it is dirty--

        it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had

        five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so

        much the better for them, and for us besides.  Have I read the

        little book wot you left?  No, I an't read the little book wot you

        left.  There an't nobody here as knows how to read it; and if there

        wos, it wouldn't be suitable to me.  It's a book fit for a babby,

        and I'm not a babby.  If you was to leave me a doll, I shouldn't

        nuss it.  How have I been conducting of myself?  Why, I've been

        drunk for three days; and I'da been drunk four if I'da had the

        money.  Don't I never mean for to go to church?  No, I don't never

        mean for to go to church.  I shouldn't be expected there, if I did;

        the beadle's too gen-teel for me.  And how did my wife get that

        black eye?  Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn't, she's a

        lie!"
 
 

        He had pulled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this, and he now

        turned over on his other side and smoked again.  Mrs. Pardiggle,

        who had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible

        composure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his

        antagonism, pulled out a good book as if it were a constable's

        staff and took the whole family into custody.  I mean into

        religious custody, of course; but she really did it as if she were

        an inexorable moral policeman carrying them all off to a station-

        house.
 
 

        Ada and I were very uncomfortable.  We both felt intrusive and out

        of place, and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on

        infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of

        taking possession of people.  The children sulked and stared; the
 
        family took no notice of us whatever, except when the young man

        made the dog bark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was

        most emphatic.  We both felt painfully sensible that between us and

        these people there was an iron barrier which could not be removed

        by our new friend.  By whom or how it could be removed, we did not

        know, but we knew that.  Even what she read and said seemed to us

        to be ill-chosen for such auditors, if it had been imparted ever so

        modestly and with ever so much tact.  As to the little book to

        which the man on the floor had referred, we acqulred a knowledge of

        it afterwards, and Mr. Jarndyce said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe

        could have read it, though he had had no other on his desolate

        island.
 
 

        We were much relieved, under these circumstances, when Mrs.

        Pardiggle left off.
 
 

        The man on the floor, then turning his bead round again, said

        morosely, "Well!  You've done, have you?"

        "For to-day, I have, my friend.  But I am never fatigued.  I shall

        come to you again in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle

        with demonstrative cheerfulness.
 
 

        "So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting

        his eyes with an oath, "you may do wot you like!"
 
 

        Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose and made a little vortex in the

        confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped.

        Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others

        to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickmaker and

        all his house would be improved when she saw them next, she then

        proceeded to another cottage.  I hope it is not unkind in me to say

        that she certainly did make, in this as in everything else, a show

        that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale and of

        dealing in it to a large extent.
 
 

        She supposed that we were following her, but as soon as the space

        was left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask

        if the baby were ill.
 
 

        She only looked at it as it lay on her lap.  We had observed before

        that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her

        hand, as though she wished to separate any association with noise

        and violence and ill treatment from the poor little child.
 
 

        Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearance, bent down to

        touch its little face.  As she did so, I saw what happened and drew

        her back.  The child died.
 
 

        "Oh, Esther!" cried Ada, sinking on her knees beside it.  "Look

        here!  Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing!  The suffering,

        quiet, pretty little thing!  I am so sorry for it.  I am so sorry

        for the mother.  I never saw a sight so pitiful as this before!

        Oh, baby, baby!"
 
 

        Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down

        weeping and put her hand upon the mother's might have softened any

        mother's heart that ever beat.  The woman at first gazed at her in

        astonishment and then burst into tears.
 
 

        Presently I took the light burden from her lap, did what I could to

        make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler, laid it on a shelf,

        and covered it with my own handkerchief.  We tried to comfort the

        mother, and we whispered to her what Our Saviour said of children.

        She answered nothing, but sat weeping--weeping very much.
 
 

        When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog and

        was standing at the door looking in upon us with dry eyes, but

        quiet.  The girl was quiet too and sat in a corner looking on the

        ground.  The man had risen.  He still smoked his pipe with an air

        of defiance, but he was silent.
 
 

        An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, hurried in while I was glancing

        at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said, "Jenny!

        Jenny!"  The mother rose on being so addressed and fell upon the

        woman's neck.
 
 

        She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill usage.  She

        had no kind of grace about her, but the grace of sympathy; but when

        she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no

        beauty.  I say condoled, but her only words were "Jenny!  Jenny!"

        All the rest was in the tone in which she said them.
 
 

        I thought it very touching to see these two women, coarse and

        shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one

        another; to see how they felt for one another, how the heart of

        each to each was softened by the hard trials of their lives.  I

        think the best side of such people is almost hidden from us.  What

        the poor are to the poor is little known, excepting to themselves

        and God.
 
 

        We felt it better to withdraw and leave them uninterrupted.  We

        stole out quietly and without notice from any one except the man.

        He was leaning against the wall near the door, and finding that

        there was scarcely room for us to pass, went out before us.  He

        seemed to want to hide that he did this on our account, but we

        perceived that be did, and thanked him.  He made no answer.
 
 

        Ada was so full of grief all the way home, and Richard, whom we

        found at home, was so distressed to see her in tears (though he

        said to me, when she was not present, how beautiful it was too!),

        that we arranged to return at night with some little comforts and

        repeat our visit at the brick-maker's house.  We said as little as

        we could to Mr. Jarndyce, but the wind changed directly.
 
 

        Richard accompanied us at night to the scene of our morning

        expedition.  On our way there, we had to pass a noisy drinking-

        house, where a number of men were flocking about the door.  Among

        them, and prominent in some dispute, was the father of the little

        child.  At a short distance, we passed the young man and the dog,

        in congenial company.  The sister was standing laughing and talking

        with some other young women at the corner of the row of cottages,

        but she seemed ashamed and turned away as we went by.
 
 

        We left our escort within sight of the brickmaker's dwelling and

        proceeded by ourselves.  When we came to the door, we found the

        woman who had brought such consolation with her standing there

        looking anxiously out.
 
 

        "It's you, young ladies, is it?" she said in a whisper.  "I'm a-

        watching for my master.  My heart's in my mouth.  If he was to

        catch me away from home, he'd pretty near murder me."
 
 

        "Do you mean your husband?" said I.
 
 

        "Yes, miss, my master.  Jennys asleep, quite worn out.  She's

        scarcely had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days

        and nights, except when I've been able to take it for a minute or

        two."
 
 

        As she gave way for us, she went softly in and put what we had

        brought near the miserable bed on which the mother slept.  No

        effort had been made to clean the room--it seemed in its nature

        almost hopeless of being clean; but the small waxen form from which

        so much solemnity diffused itself had been composed afresh, and

        washed, and neatly dressed in some fragments of white linen; and on

        my handkerchief, which still covered the poor baby, a little bunch

        of sweet herbs had been laid by the same rough, scarred hands, so

        lightly, so tenderly!
 
 

        "May heaven reward you!" we said to her.  "You are a good woman."

        "Me, young ladies?" she returned with surprise.  "Hush!  Jenny,

        Jenny!"
 
 

        The mother had moaned in her sleep and moved.  The sound of the

        familiar voice seemed to calm her again.  She was quiet once more.
 
 

        How little I thought, when I raised my handkerchief to look upon

        the tiny sleeper underneath and seemed to see a halo shine around

        the child through Ada's drooping hair as her pity bent her head--

        how little I thought in whose unquiet bosom that handkerchief would

        come to lie after covering the motionless and peaceful breast!  I

        only thought that perhaps the Angel of the child might not be all

        unconscious of the woman who replaced it with so compassionate a

        hand; not all unconscious of her presently, when we had taken

        leave, and left her at the door, by turns looking, and listening in

        terror for herself, and saying in her old soothing manner, "Jenny,

        Jenny!"
 
 
 

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