recognising it, and then told her. As she looked at
it, and drew in her head again, murmuring
"Wretches!" I would not have confessed to
my visit for any consideration.

"Mr. Jaggers," said I, by way of putting it
neatly on somebody else, " has the reputation
of being more in the secrets of that dismal place
than any man in London."

"He is more in the secrets of every place, I
think," said Estella, in a low voice.

"You have been accustomed to see him often,
I suppose?"

"I have been accustomed to see him at
uncertain intervals, ever since I can remember.
But I know him no better now, than I did
before I could speak plainly. What is your
own experience of him? Do you advance with
him?"

"Once habituated to his distrustful manner,"
said I, " I have done very well."

"Are you intimate?"

"I have dined with him at his private
house."

"I fancy," said Estella, shrinking, " that
must be a curious place."

"It is a curious place."

I should have been chary of discussing my
guardian too freely even with her; but I should
have gone on with the subject so far as to
describe the dinner in Gerard-street, if we had not
then come into a sudden glare of gas. It
seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive
with that inexplicable feeling I had had before;
and when we were out of it, I was as much
dazed for a few moments as if I had been in
Lightning.

So, we fell into other talk, and it was principally
about the way by which we were travelling,
and about what parts of London lay on this side
of it, and what on that. The great city was
almost new to her, she told me, for she had
never left Miss Havisham's neighbourhood until
she had gone to France, and she had merely
passed through London then in going and
returning. I asked her if my guardian had any
charge of her while she remained here? To
that she emphatically said " God forbid!" and
no more.

It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that
she cared to attract me; that she made herself
winning; and would have won me even if the
task had needed pains. Yet this made me none
the happier, for, even if she had not taken that
tone of our being disposed of by others, I should
have felt that she held my heart in her hand because
she wilfully chose to do it, and not because
it would have wrung any tenderness in
her, to crush it and throw it away.

When we passed through Hammersmith, I
showed her where Mr. Matthew Pocket lived,
and said it was no great way from Richmond,
and that I hoped I should see her sometimes.

"Oh yes, you are to see me; you are to come
when you think proper; you are to be mentioned
to the family; indeed you are already mentioned."

I inquired was it a large household she was
going to be a member of?

"No; there are only two; mother and
daughter. The mother is a lady of some station,
I believe, though not averse to increasing
her income."

"I wonder Miss Havisham could part with
you again so soon."

"It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for
me, Pip," said Estella, with a sigh, as if she were
tired; " I am to write to her constantly and see
her regularly, and report how I go—on I and
the jewels—for they are nearly all mine now."

It was the first time she had ever called me
by my name. Of course she did so, purposely,
and knew that I should treasure it up.

We came to Richmond all too soon, and our
destination there, was a house by the Green;
a staid old house, where hoops and powder and
patches, embroidered coats rolled stockings
ruffles and swords, bad had their court days
many a time. Some ancient trees before the
house were still cut into fashions as formal
and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and
stiff skirts; but their own allotted places in the
great procession of the dead were not far off,
and they would soon drop into them: and go the
silent way of the rest.

A bell with an old voice—which I dare say in
its time had often said to the house, Here is
the green farthingale, Here is the diamoud-hilted
sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and
the blue solitaire,—sounded gravely in the moonlight,
and two cherry-coloured maids came fluttering
out to receive Estella. The doorway
soon absorbed her boxes, and she gave me her
hand and a smile, and said good night, and was
absorbed likewise. And still I stood looking at
the house, thinking how happy I should be if I
lived there with her, and knowing; that I never
was happy with her, but always miserable.

I got into the carriage to be taken back to
Hammersmith, and I got in with a bad heart-
ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache.
At our own door, I found little Jane Pocket
coming home from a little party escorted by her
little lover; and I envied her little lover, in
spite of his being subject to Flopson.

Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a
most delightful lecturer on domestic economy,
and his treatises on the management of children,
and servants were considered the very best
text-books on those themes. But Mrs. Pocket was
at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account
of the baby's having been accommodated
with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the
unaccountable absence (with a relative in the
Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles
were missing than it could be regarded as quite
wholesome for a patient of such tender years
either to apply externally or to take as a tonic.

Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving
most excellent practical advice, and for having
a clear and sound perception of things and a
highly judicicious mind, I had some notion in
my heart-ache of beting him to accept my
confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs.