be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady, answering to the description of a young lady that she has a tenderness for — I ask no question, and I say no more than that — she will give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her, and be able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for’ard, and I’ll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come up with her alone — a hard matter — and I’ll do my best; but I don’t answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it’s getting on for one o’clock. When one strikes, there’s another hour gone, and it’s worth a thousand pound now, instead of a hundred.”

This is all true, and the pressing nature of the case cannot be questioned. Mr Jarndyce begs him to remain there, while he speaks to Miss Summerson. Mr Bucket says he will; but, acting on his usual principle, does no such thing — following up-stairs instead, and keeping his man in sight. So he remains, dodging and lurking about in the gloom of the staircase, while they confer. In a very little time Mr Jarndyce comes down, and tells him that Miss Summerson will join him directly, and place herself under his protection, to accompany him where he pleases. Mr Bucket, satisfied, expresses high approval; and awaits her coming, at the door.

There, he mounts a high tower in his mind, and looks out, far and wide. Many solitary figures he perceives, creeping through the streets; many solitary figures out on heaths, and roads, and lying under haystacks. But the figure that he seeks, is not among them. Other solitaries he perceives, in nooks of bridges, looking over; and in shadowed places down by the river’s level; and a dark, dark, shapeless object drifting with the tide, more solitary than all, clings with a drowning hold on his attention.

Where is she? Living or dead, where is she? If, as he folds the handkerchief and carefully puts it up, it were able, with an enchanted power, to bring before him the place where she found it, and the night- landscape near the cottage where it covered the little child, would he descry her there? On the waste, where the brick-kilns are burning with a pale blue flare; where the straw-roofs of the wretched huts in which the bricks are made, are being scattered by the wind; where the clay and water are hard frozen, and the mill in which the gaunt blind horse goes round all day, looks like an instrument of human torture; — traversing this deserted, blighted spot, there is a lonely figure with the sad world to itself, pelted by the snow and driven by the wind, and cast out, it would seem, from all companionship. It is the figure of a woman, too; but it is miserably dressed, and no such clothes ever came through the hall, and out at the great door, of the Dedlock mansion.


  By PanEris using Melati.

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