At Caddy’s request, I took the supreme direction of her apartment, trimmed it up, and pushed her, couch and all, into a lighter and more airy and more cheerful corner than she had yet occupied; then, every day, when we were in our neatest array, I used to lay my small small namesake in her arms, and sit down to chat or work or read to her. It was at one of the first of these quiet times that I told Caddy about Bleak House.

We had other visitors besides Ada. First of all, we had Prince, who in his hurried intervals of teaching used to come softly in and sit softly down, with a face of loving anxiety for Caddy and the very little child. Whatever Caddy’s condition really was, she never failed to declare to Prince that she was all but well — which I, heaven forgive me, never failed to confirm. This would put Prince in such good spirits, that he would sometimes take the kit from his pocket and play a chord or two to astonish the baby — which I never knew it to do in the least degree, for my tiny namesake never noticed it at all.

Then there was Mrs Jellyby. She would come occasionally, with her usual distraught manner, and sit calmly looking miles beyond her grandchild, as if her attention were absorbed by a young Borrioboolan on its native shores. As bright-eyed as ever, as serene, and as untidy, she would say, “Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do to-day?” And then would sit amiably smiling, and taking no notice of the reply; or would sweetly glide off into a calculation of the number of letters she had lately received and answered, or of the coffee-bearing power of Borrioboola-Gha. This she would always do with a serene contempt for our limited sphere of action, not to be disguised.

Then there was old Mr Turveydrop, who was from morning to night and from night to morning the subject of innumerable precautions. If the baby cried, it was nearly stifled lest the noise should make him uncomfortable. If the fire wanted stirring in the night, it was surreptitiously done lest his rest should be broken. If Caddy required any little comfort that the house contained, she first carefully discussed whether he was likely to require it too. In return for this consideration, he would come into the room once a day, all but blessing it — showing a condescension, and a patronage, and a grace of manner, in dispensing the light of his high-shouldered presence, from which I might have supposed him (if I had not known better) to have been the benefactor of Caddy’s life.

“My Caroline,” he would say, making the nearest approach that he could to bending over her. “Tell me that you are better to-day.”

“O, much better, thank you, Mr Turveydrop,” Caddy would reply.

“Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite prostrated by fatigue?” Here he would crease up his eyelids, and kiss his fingers to me; though I am happy to say he had ceased to be particular in his attentions, since I had been so altered.

“Not at all,” I would assure him.

“Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My dear Caroline;” he would turn to his daughter-in-law with infinite generosity and protection; “want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not,” he would sometimes add, in a burst of deportment, “even allow my simple requirements to be considered, if they should at any time interfere with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine.”

He had established such a long prescriptive right to this Deportment (his son’s inheritance from his mother), that I several times knew both Caddy and her husband to be melted to tears by these affectionate self- sacrifices.

“Nay, my dears,” he would remonstrate; and when I saw Caddy’s thin arm about his fat neck as he said it, I would be melted too, though not by the same process; “Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave