ast now: and he said, No, truly: it had finally departed from that
quarter on that very day.
I think my darling girl is more beautiful than ever. The sorrow
that has been in her face—for it is not there now—seems to have
purified even its innocent expression, and to have given it a
diviner quality. Sometimes, when I raise my eyes and see her, in
the black dress that she still wears, teaching my Richard, I feel—it
is difficult to express—as if it were so good to know that she
remembers her dear Esther in her prayers.
I call him my Richard! But he says that he has two mamas, and
I am one.
We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered, and
we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband, but I
hear the people bless him. I never go into a house of any degree,
Charles Dickens
ncs.xvna.com
Bleak House
1206
but I hear his praises, or see them in grateful eyes. I never lie
down at night, but I know that in the course of that day he has
alleviated pain, and soothed some fellow-creature in the time of
need. I know that from the beds of those who were past recovery,
thanks have often, often gone up in the last hour for his patient
ministration. Is not this to be rich
The people even praise Me as the doctor''s wife. The people
even like Me as I go about, and make so much of me that I am
quite abashed. I owe it all to him, my love, my pride! They like me
for his sake, as I do everything I do in life for his sake.
A night or two ago, after bustling about preparing for my
darling and my Guardian and little Richard, who are coming
tomorrow, I was sitting out in the porch of all places, that dearly