Richard bowed and stepped forward.
“Hum!” said the Lord Chancellor, turning over more leaves.
“Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,” Mr. Kenge observed in a low voice, “if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable companion for—”
“For Mr. Richard Carstone?” I thought (but I am not quite sure) I heard his lordship say in an equally low voice and with a smile.
“For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson.”
His lordship gave me an indulgent look and acknowledged my curtsy very graciously.
“Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?”
“No, my lord.”
Mr. Kenge leant over before it was quite said and whispered. His lordship, with his eyes upon his papers, listened, nodded twice or thrice, turned over more leaves, and did not look towards me again until we were going away.
Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can’t help it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated, but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if he still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to the candour of a boy.