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"What's the use of snapping at me like a turtle? Durden says Wild-Goose looks fine. There's gold up there heaps of it." "Let it stay there, then. I ain't going. That's flat." Holt turned to adjust the damper of his stove. "Oh, I don't know. I wouldn't say that," drawled Bill insolently. The man at the stove caught the change in tone and turned quickly. He was too late.
"You ran through the hall," the maid went on, "just like a frightened hare, and cast never a look at one of us, and now the saints preserve us, thou look'st as if thou hadst seen the ghost of Mary Durden." "Was he following me, Lettice?" asked Dorothy, raising her head from the pillow. "Was he there?" "Following thee, no. Who's he? There was no one else went through."
"There never was," said my guardian, musing as he smiled upon me, "such a Dame Durden for making money last." He had never yet altered his old manner.
His face appeared to me to be quite destitute of colour, and now that I saw him without his seeing me, I fully saw, for the first time, how worn away he was. But he looked handsomer than I had seen him look for many a day. I sat down by his side in silence. Opening his eyes by and by, he said in a weak voice, but with his old smile, "Dame Durden, kiss me, my dear!"
But I had already discussed it with him, I confessed; and so, I thought, had Mr. Woodcourt. "So he tells me," returned my guardian. "Very good. He has made his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, my dear?"
"I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD have loved me any better, even if I had retained them." "'Such as they were'?" said Allan, laughing. "Such as they were, of course." "My dear Dame Durden," said Allan, drawing my arm through his, "do you ever look in the glass?" "You know I do; you see me do it." "And don't you know that you are prettier than you ever were?"
"Mary Durden, Joel Cobbe, Henry Bridge, and Nathan Grene, step out," he said, "take the oath; touch the body in our presence, and prove your innocence if you are able." Every whisper was smothered into silence as they watched to see the individuals named perform the test. No one stirred, however, and the order had to be repeated.
"This cannot long endure," said Sir George, as a vivid flash of lightning almost, for the moment, blinded him. A long, loud roll of thunder, which terminated in a crashing peal, was the only answer he received, and while the noise was at its loudest, Mary Durden started to her feet and dashed forward to touch the body.
After an hour or so of this, and a good many speeches being begun and cut short, it was "referred back for the present," as Mr. Kenge said, and the papers were bundled up again before the clerks had finished bringing them in. I glanced at Richard on the termination of these hopeless proceedings and was shocked to see the worn look of his handsome young face. "It can't last for ever, Dame Durden.
Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!" "It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian with a heart full of thanks." "Well, well," said he. "I am delighted that you approve. I thought you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress of Bleak House." I kissed him and dried my eyes. "I know now!" said I. "I have seen this in your face a long while."
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