We danced for an hour with great gravity; the melancholy child doing wonders with his lower extremities, in which there appeared to be some sense of enjoyment though it never rose above his waist. Caddy, while she was observant of her husband, and was evidently founded upon him, had acquired a grace and self-possession of her own, which, united to her pretty face and figure, was uncommonly agreeable. She already relieved him of much of the instruction of these young people; and he seldom interfered, except to walk his part in the figure if he had anything to do in it. He always played the tune. The affectation of the gauzy child, and her condescension to the boys, was a sight. And thus we danced an hour by the clock.

When the practice was concluded, Caddy’s husband made himself ready to go out of town to a school, and Caddy ran away to get ready to go out with me. I sat in the ball-room in the interval, contemplating the apprentices. The two out-door boys went upon the staircase to put on their half-boots, and pull the in-door boy’s hair: as I judged from the nature of his objections. Returning with their jackets buttoned, and their pumps stuck in them, they then produced packets of cold bread and meat, and bivouacked under a painted lyre on the wall. The little gauzy child, having whisked her sandals into the reticule and put on a trodden down pair of shoes, shook her head into the dowdy bonnet at one shake; and answering my inquiry whether she liked dancing, by replying, “not with boys,” tied it across her chin, and went home contemptuous.

“Old Mr Turveydrop is so sorry,” said Caddy, “that he has not finished dressing yet, and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther.”

I expressed myself much obliged to him, but did not think it necessary to add that I readily dispensed with this attention.

“It takes him a long time to dress,” said Caddy, “because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. You can’t think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa, of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.”

There was something in the picture of Mr Turveydrop bestowing his deportment on Mr Jellyby that quite took my fancy. I asked Caddy if he brought her papa out much.

“No,” said Caddy, “I don’t know that he does that; but he talks to Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to Deportment, but they get on together delightfully. You can’t think what good companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life; but he takes one pinch out of Mr Turveydrop’s box regularly, and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again, all the evening.”

That old Mr Turveydrop should ever, in the chances and changes of life, have come to the rescue of Mr Jellyby from Borrioboola-Gha, appeared to me to be one of the pleasantest of oddities.

“As to Peepy,” said Caddy, with a little hesitation, “whom I was most afraid of — next to having any family of my own, Esther — as an inconvenience to Mr Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short,” said Caddy cheerily, “and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl, and ought to be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?”

“To the Old Street Road,” said I, “where I have a few words to say to the solicitor’s clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on the very day when I came to London, and first saw you, my dear. Now I think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house.”

“Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,” returned Caddy.