We held many consultations about what Richard was to be, first
without Mr. Jarndyce, as he had requested, and afterwards with him,
but it was a long time before we seemed to make progress. Richard
said he was ready for anything. When Mr. Jarndyce doubted whether he
might not already be too old to enter the Navy, Richard said he had
thought of that, and perhaps he was. When Mr. Jarndyce asked him what
he thought of the Army, Richard said he had thought of that, too, and
it wasn't a bad idea. When Mr. Jarndyce advised him to try and decide
within himself whether his old preference for the sea was an ordinary
boyish inclination or a strong impulse, Richard answered, Well he
really HAD tried very often, and he couldn't make out.

"How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me,
"is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and
procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't
pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is
responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or
confirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that,
and the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing
everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of
much older and steadier people may be even changed by the
circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a
boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and
escape them."

I felt this to be true; though if I may venture to mention what I
thought besides, I thought it much to be regretted that Richard's
education had not counteracted those influences or directed his
character. He had been eight years at a public school and had learnt,
I understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts in the most
admirable manner. But I never heard that it had been anybody's
business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings
lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to HIM. HE had been adapted to
the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection
that if he had remained at school until he was of age, I suppose he
could only have gone on making them over and over again unless he had
enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. Still, although I
had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and
very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always
remembered all through life, I did doubt whether Richard would not
have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his
studying them quite so much.

To be sure, I knew nothing of the subject and do not even now know
whether the young gentlemen of classic Rome or Greece made verses to
the same extent--or whether the young gentlemen of any country ever
did.

"I haven't the least idea," said Richard, musing, "what I had better
be. Except that I am quite sure I don't want to go into the Church,
it's a toss-up."

"You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge's way?" suggested Mr. Jarndyce.

"I don't know that, sir!" replied Richard. "I am fond of boating.
Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It's a capital
profession!"

"Surgeon--" suggested Mr. Jarndyce.

"That's the thing, sir!" cried Richard.

I doubt if he had ever once thought of it before.

"That's the thing, sir," repeated Richard with the greatest
enthusiasm. "We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!"

He was not to be laughed out of it, though he laughed at it heartily.
He said he had chosen his profession, and the more he thought of it,
the more he felt that his destiny was clear; the art of healing was
the art of all others for him. Mistrusting that he only came to this
conclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for
himself what he was fitted for and having never been guided to the
discovery, he was taken by the newest idea and was glad to get rid of
the trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses
often ended in this or whether Richard's was a solitary case.

Mr. Jarndyce took great pains to talk with him seriously and to put
it to his good sense not to deceive himself in so important a matter.
Richard was a little grave after these interviews, but invariably
told Ada and me that it was all right, and then began to talk about
something else.

"By heaven!" cried Mr. Boythorn, who interested himself strongly in
the subject--though I need not say that, for he could do nothing
weakly; "I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry
devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is
in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary
task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that
illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base
and despicable," cried Mr. Boythorn, "the treatment of surgeons
aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs--both legs--of every
member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a
transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if
the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours!"

"Wouldn't you give them a week?" asked Mr. Jarndyce.

"No!" cried Mr. Boythorn firmly. "Not on any consideration! Eight and
forty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar
gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such
speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver
mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it
were only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a
language spoken in the presence of the sun--as to those fellows, who
meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of
knowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of
their lives, their long study, and their expensive education with
pittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the
necks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in
Surgeons' Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order
that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in
early life, HOW thick skulls may become!"

He wound up this vehement declaration by looking round upon us with a
most agreeable smile and suddenly thundering, "Ha, ha, ha!" over and
over again, until anybody else might have been expected to be quite
subdued by the exertion.

As Richard still continued to say that he was fixed in his choice
after repeated periods for consideration had been recommended by Mr.
Jarndyce and had expired, and he still continued to assure Ada and me
in the same final manner that it was "all right," it became advisable
to take Mr. Kenge into council. Mr. Kenge, therefore, came down to
dinner one day, and leaned back in his chair, and turned his
eye-glasses over and over, and spoke in a sonorous voice, and did
exactly what I remembered to have seen him do when I was a little
girl.

"Ah!" said Mr. Kenge. "Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr.
Jarndyce, a very good profession."

"The course of study and preparation requires to be diligently
pursued," observed my guardian with a glance at Richard.

"Oh, no doubt," said Mr. Kenge. "Diligently."

"But that being the case, more or less, with all pursuits that are
worth much," said Mr. Jarndyce, "it is not a special consideration
which another choice would be likely to escape."

"Truly," said Mr. Kenge. "And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so
meritoriously acquitted himself in the--shall I say the classic
shades?--in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply
the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in
that tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born,
not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he
enters."

"You may rely upon it," said Richard in his off-hand manner, "that I
shall go at it and do my best."

"Very well, Mr. Jarndyce!" said Mr. Kenge, gently nodding his head.
"Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it
and to do his best," nodding feelingly and smoothly over those
expressions, "I would submit to you that we have only to inquire into
the best mode of carrying out the object of his ambition. Now, with
reference to placing Mr. Richard with some sufficiently eminent
practitioner. Is there any one in view at present?"

"No one, Rick, I think?" said my guardian.

"No one, sir," said Richard.

"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge. "As to situation, now. Is there any
particular feeling on that head?"

"N--no," said Richard.

"Quite so!" observed Mr. Kenge again.

"I should like a little variety," said Richard; "I mean a good range
of experience."

"Very requisite, no doubt," returned Mr. Kenge. "I think this may be
easily arranged, Mr. Jarndyce? We have only, in the first place, to
discover a sufficiently eligible practitioner; and as soon as we make
our want--and shall I add, our ability to pay a premium?--known, our
only difficulty will be in the selection of one from a large number.
We have only, in the second place, to observe those little
formalities which are rendered necessary by our time of life and our
being under the guardianship of the court. We shall soon be--shall I
say, in Mr. Richard's own light-hearted manner, 'going at it'--to our
heart's content. It is a coincidence," said Mr. Kenge with a tinge of
melancholy in his smile, "one of those coincidences which may or may
not require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that
I have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed
eligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I
can answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!"

As this was an opening in the prospect, it was arranged that Mr.
Kenge should see his cousin. And as Mr. Jarndyce had before proposed
to take us to London for a few weeks, it was settled next day that we
should make our visit at once and combine Richard's business with it.

Mr. Boythorn leaving us within a week, we took up our abode at a
cheerful lodging near Oxford Street over an upholsterer's shop.
London was a great wonder to us, and we were out for hours and hours
at a time, seeing the sights, which appeared to be less capable of
exhaustion than we were. We made the round of the principal theatres,
too, with great delight, and saw all the plays that were worth
seeing. I mention this because it was at the theatre that I began to
be made uncomfortable again by Mr. Guppy.

I was sitting in front of the box one night with Ada, and Richard was
in the place he liked best, behind Ada's chair, when, happening to
look down into the pit, I saw Mr. Guppy, with his hair flattened down
upon his head and woe depicted in his face, looking up at me. I felt
all through the performance that he never looked at the actors but
constantly looked at me, and always with a carefully prepared
expression of the deepest misery and the profoundest dejection.

It quite spoiled my pleasure for that night because it was so very
embarrassing and so very ridiculous. But from that time forth, we
never went to the play without my seeing Mr. Guppy in the pit, always
with his hair straight and flat, his shirt-collar turned down, and a
general feebleness about him. If he were not there when we went in,
and I began to hope he would not come and yielded myself for a little
while to the interest of the scene, I was certain to encounter his
languishing eyes when I least expected it and, from that time, to be
quite sure that they were fixed upon me all the evening.

I really cannot express how uneasy this made me. If he would only
have brushed up his hair or turned up his collar, it would have been
bad enough; but to know that that absurd figure was always gazing at
me, and always in that demonstrative state of despondency, put such a
constraint upon me that I did not like to laugh at the play, or to
cry at it, or to move, or to speak. I seemed able to do nothing
naturally. As to escaping Mr. Guppy by going to the back of the box,
I could not bear to do that because I knew Richard and Ada relied on
having me next them and that they could never have talked together so
happily if anybody else had been in my place. So there I sat, not
knowing where to look--for wherever I looked, I knew Mr. Guppy's eyes
were following me--and thinking of the dreadful expense to which this
young man was putting himself on my account.

Sometimes I thought of telling Mr. Jarndyce. Then I feared that the
young man would lose his situation and that I might ruin him.
Sometimes I thought of confiding in Richard, but was deterred by the
possibility of his fighting Mr. Guppy and giving him black eyes.
Sometimes I thought, should I frown at him or shake my head. Then I
felt I could not do it. Sometimes I considered whether I should write
to his mother, but that ended in my being convinced that to open a
correspondence would be to make the matter worse. I always came to
the conclusion, finally, that I could do nothing. Mr. Guppy's
perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any
theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we
were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly--where I am sure I
saw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful
spikes. After we got home, he haunted a post opposite our house. The
upholsterer's where we lodged being at the corner of two streets, and
my bedroom window being opposite the post, I was afraid to go near
the window when I went upstairs, lest I should see him (as I did one
moonlight night) leaning against the post and evidently catching
cold. If Mr. Guppy had not been, fortunately for me, engaged in the
daytime, I really should have had no rest from him.

While we were making this round of gaieties, in which Mr. Guppy so
extraordinarily participated, the business which had helped to bring
us to town was not neglected. Mr. Kenge's cousin was a Mr. Bayham
Badger, who had a good practice at Chelsea and attended a large
public institution besides. He was quite willing to receive Richard
into his house and to superintend his studies, and as it seemed that
those could be pursued advantageously under Mr. Badger's roof, and
Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger
"well enough," an agreement was made, the Lord Chancellor's consent
was obtained, and it was all settled.

On the day when matters were concluded between Richard and Mr.
Badger, we were all under engagement to dine at Mr. Badger's house.
We were to be "merely a family party," Mrs. Badger's note said; and
we found no lady there but Mrs. Badger herself. She was surrounded in
the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a
little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little,
playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little,
reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little.
She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed,
and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her
accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there
was any harm in it.

Mr. Bayham Badger himself was a pink, fresh-faced, crisp-looking
gentleman with a weak voice, white teeth, light hair, and surprised
eyes, some years younger, I should say, than Mrs. Bayham Badger. He
admired her exceedingly, but principally, and to begin with, on the
curious ground (as it seemed to us) of her having had three husbands.
We had barely taken our seats when he said to Mr. Jarndyce quite
triumphantly, "You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham
Badger's third!"

"Indeed?" said Mr. Jarndyce.

"Her third!" said Mr. Badger. "Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the
appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former
husbands?"

I said "Not at all!"

"And most remarkable men!" said Mr. Badger in a tone of confidence.
"Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger's first
husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of
Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European
reputation."

Mrs. Badger overheard him and smiled.

"Yes, my dear!" Mr. Badger replied to the smile, "I was observing to
Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former
husbands--both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people
generally do, difficult to believe."

"I was barely twenty," said Mrs. Badger, "when I married Captain
Swosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am
quite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I
became the wife of Professor Dingo."

"Of European reputation," added Mr. Badger in an undertone.

"And when Mr. Badger and myself were married," pursued Mrs. Badger,
"we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached
to the day."

"So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands--two of them
highly distinguished men," said Mr. Badger, summing up the facts,
"and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the
forenoon!"

We all expressed our admiration.

"But for Mr. Badger's modesty," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I would take
leave to correct him and say three distinguished men."

"Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!" observed Mrs.
Badger.

"And, my dear," said Mr. Badger, "what do I always tell you? That
without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction
as I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many
opportunities of estimating), I am not so weak--no, really," said Mr.
Badger to us generally, "so unreasonable--as to put my reputation on
the same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and
Professor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce,"
continued Mr. Bayham Badger, leading the way into the next
drawing-room, "in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on
his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from
the fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But
it's a very fine head. A very fine head!"

We all echoed, "A very fine head!"

"I feel when I look at it," said Mr. Badger, "'That's a man I should
like to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that
Captain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor
Dingo. I knew him well--attended him in his last illness--a speaking
likeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over
the sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger
IN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy."

Dinner was now announced, and we went downstairs. It was a very
genteel entertainment, very handsomely served. But the captain and
the professor still ran in Mr. Badger's head, and as Ada and I had
the honour of being under his particular care, we had the full
benefit of them.

"Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me
the professor's goblet, James!"

Ada very much admired some artificial flowers under a glass.

"Astonishing how they keep!" said Mr. Badger. "They were presented to
Mrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean."

He invited Mr. Jarndyce to take a glass of claret.

"Not that claret!" he said. "Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON
an occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have.
(James, Captain Swosser's wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that
was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You
will find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of
this wine with you. (Captain Swosser's claret to your mistress,
James!) My love, your health!"

After dinner, when we ladies retired, we took Mrs. Badger's first and
second husband with us. Mrs. Badger gave us in the drawing-room a
biographical sketch of the life and services of Captain Swosser
before his marriage and a more minute account of him dating from the
time when he fell in love with her at a ball on board the Crippler,
given to the officers of that ship when she lay in Plymouth Harbour.

"The dear old Crippler!" said Mrs. Badger, shaking her head. "She was
a noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser
used to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a
nautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved
that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he
frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he
would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck
where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he
fell--raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire
from my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes."

Mrs. Badger shook her head, sighed, and looked in the glass.

"It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo," she
resumed with a plaintive smile. "I felt it a good deal at first. Such
an entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with
science--particularly science--inured me to it. Being the professor's
sole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I
had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that
the professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr.
Badger is not in the least like either!"

We then passed into a narrative of the deaths of Captain Swosser and
Professor Dingo, both of whom seem to have had very bad complaints.
In the course of it, Mrs. Badger signified to us that she had never
madly loved but once and that the object of that wild affection,
never to be recalled in its fresh enthusiasm, was Captain Swosser.
The professor was yet dying by inches in the most dismal manner, and
Mrs. Badger was giving us imitations of his way of saying, with great
difficulty, "Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!"
when the entrance of the gentlemen consigned him to the tomb.

Now, I observed that evening, as I had observed for some days past,
that Ada and Richard were more than ever attached to each other's
society, which was but natural, seeing that they were going to be
separated so soon. I was therefore not very much surprised when we
got home, and Ada and I retired upstairs, to find Ada more silent
than usual, though I was not quite prepared for her coming into my
arms and beginning to speak to me, with her face hidden.

"My darling Esther!" murmured Ada. "I have a great secret to tell
you!"

A mighty secret, my pretty one, no doubt!

"What is it, Ada?"

"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!"

"Shall I try to guess?" said I.

"Oh, no! Don't! Pray don't!" cried Ada, very much startled by the
idea of my doing so.

"Now, I wonder who it can be about?" said I, pretending to consider.

"It's about--" said Ada in a whisper. "It's about--my cousin
Richard!"

"Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I
could see. "And what about him?"

"Oh, Esther, you would never guess!"

It was so pretty to have her clinging to me in that way, hiding her
face, and to know that she was not crying in sorrow but in a little
glow of joy, and pride, and hope, that I would not help her just yet.

"He says--I know it's very foolish, we are both so young--but he
says," with a burst of tears, "that he loves me dearly, Esther."

"Does he indeed?" said I. "I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet
of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago!"

To see Ada lift up her flushed face in joyful surprise, and hold me
round the neck, and laugh, and cry, and blush, was so pleasant!

"Why, my darling," said I, "what a goose you must take me for! Your
cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don't
know how long!"

"And yet you never said a word about it!" cried Ada, kissing me.

"No, my love," said I. "I waited to be told."

"But now I have told you, you don't think it wrong of me, do you?"
returned Ada. She might have coaxed me to say no if I had been the
hardest-hearted duenna in the world. Not being that yet, I said no
very freely.

"And now," said I, "I know the worst of it."

"Oh, that's not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!" cried Ada,
holding me tighter and laying down her face again upon my breast.

"No?" said I. "Not even that?"

"No, not even that!" said Ada, shaking her head.

"Why, you never mean to say--" I was beginning in joke.

But Ada, looking up and smiling through her tears, cried, "Yes, I do!
You know, you know I do!" And then sobbed out, "With all my heart I
do! With all my whole heart, Esther!"

I told her, laughing, why I had known that, too, just as well as I
had known the other! And we sat before the fire, and I had all the
talking to myself for a little while (though there was not much of
it); and Ada was soon quiet and happy.

"Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?" she asked.

"Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet," said I, "I should think my
cousin John knows pretty well as much as we know."

"We want to speak to him before Richard goes," said Ada timidly, "and
we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn't
mind Richard's coming in, Dame Durden?"

"Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?" said I.

"I am not quite certain," returned Ada with a bashful simplicity that
would have won my heart if she had not won it long before, "but I
think he's waiting at the door."

There he was, of course. They brought a chair on either side of me,
and put me between them, and really seemed to have fallen in love
with me instead of one another, they were so confiding, and so
trustful, and so fond of me. They went on in their own wild way for a
little while--I never stopped them; I enjoyed it too much myself--and
then we gradually fell to considering how young they were, and how
there must be a lapse of several years before this early love could
come to anything, and how it could come to happiness only if it were
real and lasting and inspired them with a steady resolution to do
their duty to each other, with constancy, fortitude, and
perseverance, each always for the other's sake. Well! Richard said
that he would work his fingers to the bone for Ada, and Ada said that
she would work her fingers to the bone for Richard, and they called
me all sorts of endearing and sensible names, and we sat there,
advising and talking, half the night. Finally, before we parted, I
gave them my promise to speak to their cousin John to-morrow.

So, when to-morrow came, I went to my guardian after breakfast, in
the room that was our town-substitute for the growlery, and told him
that I had it in trust to tell him something.

"Well, little woman," said he, shutting up his book, "if you have
accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it."

"I hope not, guardian," said I. "I can guarantee that there is no
secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday."

"Aye? And what is it, Esther?"

"Guardian," said I, "you remember the happy night when first we came
down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room?"

I wished to call to his remembrance the look he had given me then.
Unless I am much mistaken, I saw that I did so.

"Because--" said I with a little hesitation.

"Yes, my dear!" said he. "Don't hurry."

"Because," said I, "Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have
told each other so."

"Already!" cried my guardian, quite astonished.

"Yes!" said I. "And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather
expected it."

"The deuce you did!" said he.

He sat considering for a minute or two, with his smile, at once so
handsome and so kind, upon his changing face, and then requested me
to let them know that he wished to see them. When they came, he
encircled Ada with one arm in his fatherly way and addressed himself
to Richard with a cheerful gravity.

"Rick," said Mr. Jarndyce, "I am glad to have won your confidence. I
hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us
four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new
interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the
possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don't be shy, Ada,
don't be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together.
I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was
afar off, Rick, afar off!"

"We look afar off, sir," returned Richard.

"Well!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "That's rational. Now, hear me, my dears!
I might tell you that you don't know your own minds yet, that a
thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is
well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken,
or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such
wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I
will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one
another what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you
according to that assumption is, if you DO change--if you DO come to
find that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and
woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me,
Rick!)--don't be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be
nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and
distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and
hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it."

"I am very sure, sir," returned Richard, "that I speak for Ada too
when I say that you have the strongest power over us both--rooted in
respect, gratitude, and affection--strengthening every day."

"Dear cousin John," said Ada, on his shoulder, "my father's place can
never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have
rendered to him is transferred to you."

"Come!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "Now for our assumption. Now we lift our
eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before
you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive
you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never
separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a
good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy
in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great
men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely
meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition
that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could
be, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts,
leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here."

"I will leave IT here, sir," replied Richard smiling, "if I brought
it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to
my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance."

"Right!" said Mr. Jarndyce. "If you are not to make her happy, why
should you pursue her?"

"I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love," retorted
Richard proudly.

"Well said!" cried Mr. Jarndyce. "That's well said! She remains here,
in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less
than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well.
Otherwise, all will go ill. That's the end of my preaching. I think
you and Ada had better take a walk."

Ada tenderly embraced him, and Richard heartily shook hands with him,
and then the cousins went out of the room, looking back again
directly, though, to say that they would wait for me.

The door stood open, and we both followed them with our eyes as they
passed down the adjoining room, on which the sun was shining, and out
at its farther end. Richard with his head bent, and her hand drawn
through his arm, was talking to her very earnestly; and she looked up
in his face, listening, and seemed to see nothing else. So young, so
beautiful, so full of hope and promise, they went on lightly through
the sunlight as their own happy thoughts might then be traversing the
years to come and making them all years of brightness. So they passed
away into the shadow and were gone. It was only a burst of light that
had been so radiant. The room darkened as they went out, and the sun
was clouded over.

"Am I right, Esther?" said my guardian when they were gone.

He was so good and wise to ask ME whether he was right!

"Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core
of so much that is good!" said Mr. Jarndyce, shaking his head. "I
have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor
always near." And he laid his hand lovingly upon my head.

I could not help showing that I was a little moved, though I did all
I could to conceal it.

"Tut tut!" said he. "But we must take care, too, that our little
woman's life is not all consumed in care for others."

"Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the
world!"

"I believe so, too," said he. "But some one may find out what Esther
never will--that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above
all other people!"

I have omitted to mention in its place that there was some one else
at the family dinner party. It was not a lady. It was a gentleman. It
was a gentleman of a dark complexion--a young surgeon. He was rather
reserved, but I thought him very sensible and agreeable. At least,
Ada asked me if I did not, and I said yes.

The Bleak House gang is hard at work trying to figure out a career for Richard. He's mostly a good guy, but he is totally unserious and indecisive about getting a job. Anything Jarndyce suggests is fine. The navy? OK, awesome. The army? Sure, why not. Law? Yup, sounds good. Medicine? Totally. Esther and Jarndyce think this kind of thinking comes from two places: 1) classical liberal arts education that didn't stress anything after getting a degree, and 2) growing up with the uncertainly of this long lawsuit hanging over him . Finally Richard decides that medicine it is. Kenge comes over to formalize the details and tells them about Bayham Badger, his cousin, who is a surgeon, who may be willing to take Richard on as his apprentice. Richard promises to do his best. Well, "promises" might be too strong a term, since he kind of just blows off the decision process and is acting half-stoned all the time. Just thinking about him as a doctor is giving us goose bumps. Good thing there wasn't much doctors could do for sick people back then anyway. They decide to go to London to check out this Bayham Badger character. While there, they check out the theaters. Esther is shocked to run into...Mr. Guppy! He only has eyes for her, doesn't watch the play, and does kind of a sad puppy-dog thing in her direction every time he sees her. It's way creepy and borderline stalkery, especially when she catches him outside their house staring up at her window. Dude. But it's also sort of flattering or intriguing or something, we guess, because she doesn't tell anyone about it, ostensibly because she doesn't want to get him fired. Um, OK. Now on to Mr. and Mrs. Badger. They are pure comic relief. Mr. Badger's main source of pride is that he is Mrs. Badger's third husband. Hardy-har, what a crazy wacko. Her first two husbands and their illustrious careers are all he ever talks about. It's like a weird fetish of some sort. In any case, "Mr. Badger liked Richard, and as Richard said he liked Mr. Badger 'well enough,'" , so it's a deal. That night, Ada says she has to tell Esther a secret. The secret is... that Richard loves her! Esther is all, "duh." Oh, but there's something else, which is...that Ada loves Richard back! Esther is like, "double duh." But, as always, she says it in a nice and sweet way. The next morning Esther tells Jarndyce, who seems happy enough about it. He makes Richard promise to work hard for Ada's sake and to start taking things more seriously. Richard agrees. We're not holding our breath, though. The lovebirds go for a walk. Then all of a sudden, Esther busts out with the information that at the Badgers' there was also a "sensible and agreeable" young surgeon. She doesn't know why she didn't tell us this originally. We don't know either!

Richard Carstone remains pathetically indecisive, unable to choose a career. Mr. Jarndyce attributes at least some of this irresoluteness to the influence of the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case, that "incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination." Esther believes that Richard's education, consisting mostly of learning to write Latin verse, has also been a factor -- such training does nothing to prepare one for the work of the world. Among other professions, Mr. Jarndyce suggests that Richard might enjoy being a surgeon. Richard's reaction is immediate. Accepting the idea enthusiastically, he is soon a surgeon's apprentice in the house of Mr. Bayham Badger, where we learn that Mrs. Badger is a snobbish dilettante who has been married twice before and is forever talking about her husbands, past and present. Esther has been attending various theatres and has noticed that Mr. Guppy follows her and always manages to have himself seen -- wearing the downcast expression of a rejected suitor. Richard and Ada now realize that they are in love, but Mr. Jarndyce advises them to postpone marriage because they are quite young and Richard needs to establish himself in his profession. At a small dinner party given by the Badgers, Esther notices and seems attracted to one of the guests, a young surgeon of "dark complexion" .

This chapter is devoted mostly to one of the subplots , but at the end, it surprises us and advances the main plot by indicating that Esther is attracted to a young surgeon. Even the subplot, however, reinforces Dickens' principal, explicit theme -- that is, the pernicious influence of inhumane legal institutions and procedures. Dickens the social critic and sensible reformer is also evident in Esther's attitude towards training young men to write Latin verse. Dickens' abhorrence of unreal attitudes and behavior is again exemplified in the odd, insubstantial Mrs. Bayham Badger. This is the third exaggeratedly unreal wife thus far encountered ; each is somewhat comic but also distinctly repugnant.

"Esther's Narrative" Esther says that she, Richard, and Mr. Jarndyce have many conversations about what Richard should become. Esther worries that his unstable upbringing has made him indecisive. Richard is indifferent and goes along with whatever they suggest, eventually deciding to pursue medicine. Mr. Jarndyce tries to talk to him seriously about it, but Richard doesn't change his mind. Various guests support Richard's decision, including Mr. Boythorn and Mr. Kenge. Mr. Kenge promises to arrange a place for Richard to study medicine with his cousin. Mr. Guppy has begun following Esther around the city, and she spots him whenever she goes to the theater. He makes her very uncomfortable, but she decides that there is nothing she can do about it. Mr. Kenge's cousin, Mr. Bayham Badger, agrees to oversee Richard's studies. Everyone goes to dinner at Mr. Badger's house. Mr. Badger brags about being Mrs. Badger's third husband, after Captain Swosser and Professor Dingo. Both spouses extol the former husbands liberally throughout dinner. At home later that night, Ada confesses a secret to Esther: she and Richard are in love. Esther isn't surprised at all. Richard confides in her as well, and Esther observes that both really love her. Esther tells the news to Mr. Jarndyce, who approves but advises caution. Offhandedly, Esther remarks that a young surgeon with a dark complexion attended the Badgers' dinner as well and that she found him quite nice

Many consultations about Richard's future are needed to find him an occupation. He himself is uncertain. Mr. Jarndyce tells Esther he fears a combination of indecisive character and expectations of getting money from the Jarndyce case. Chancery encourages people to put off their lives. Richard is fit for nothing, having been educated in a public school to read Latin but to do nothing practical. Finally, they hit on "surgeon," though Richard knows nothing of the profession. Mr. Kenge says he will place Richard with his cousin, Bayham Badger in Chelsea. Mr. Jarndyce and the young wards go to London for a few weeks to settle Richard in, staying at a lodging near Oxford Street, over an upholster's shop. Meanwhile, Mr. Guppy manages to spoil all their outings to plays and other entertainments by following Esther and looking forlorn. He tries to make her feel guilty about her rejection. She does not know what to do; if she tells someone he will get into trouble or she will provoke some fight, so she says nothing. When they meet Bayham Badger, the surgeon, he turns out to be a strange character. He introduces himself as Mrs. Badger's third husband, and is constantly speaking of the achievements of her first two husbands, Captain Swosser and Professor Dingo. He feels very much in their shadow. Ada confesses her "secret" to Esther, that Richard is in love with her, and that she loves him back. Esther is amused, for all of this has been obvious to her and Mr. Jarndyce and they give their blessings, provided the young couple waits for Richard to have a profession. Mr. Jarndyce hints that Esther has to think of her own future as well. She mentions in passing that there was another gentleman at dinner--a dark surgeon . She thinks him agreeable.

Commentary on Chapter XIII Mr. Jarndyce tries to guide his wards, but he sees Richard's weakness showing through. Richard has no clear idea of a profession because in the back of his mind, he thinks he may be a gentleman when he gets his Jarndyce fortune. He is in love, however, and promises to work hard so he may be worthy of Ada's hand in marriage. Mr. Jarndyce warns them both to "Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts" . Richard promises "I wouldn't make her unhappy--no, not even for her love" . The lovers will be sorely tested by the Chancery suit. They are "young, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise" . Meanwhile, Esther has her own prospects. Guppy stalks her, and she is afraid to expose him. The dark surgeon, , is a more welcome possibility. Mr. Jarndyce clearly adores Esther and tells her that her happiness must not come last: "the little woman is to be held in remembrance above all other people" .