"Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him: Would you mind describing him to me?"
Shaking back her golden hair, Ada turned her eyes upon me with such laughing wonder, that I was full of wonder, too—partly at her beauty, partly at her surprise.
"Esther!" she cried.
"My dear!"
"You want a description of my cousin, Jarndyce?"
"My dear, I never saw him."
"And I never saw him!" returned Ada.
Well, to be sure!
o, she had never seen him. Young as she was when her mamma died, she remembered how the tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of him, and of the noble generosity of his character, which she had said was to be trusted above all earthly things; and Ada trusted it. Her cousin, Jarndyce, had written to her a few months ago—"a plain, honest letter," Ada said—proposing the arrangement we were now to enter on, and telling her that, "in time, it might heal some of the wounds made by the miserable Chancery suit." She had replied, gratefully accepting his proposal. Richard had received a similar letter, and had made a similar response. He had seen Mr. Jarndyce once, but only once, five years ago, at Winchester school. He had told Ada, when they were leaning on the screen before the fire where I found them, that he recollected him as "a bluff, rosy fellow." This was the utmost description Ada could give me.
It set me thinking so, that when Ada was asleep, I still remained before the fire, wondering and wondering about Bleak House, and wondering and wondering that yesterday morning should seem so long ago. I don't know where my thoughts had wandered, when they were recalled by a tap at the door.