Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand

now, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We

walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in

bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of

the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could

not have been more cherished in my remembrance.

There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me;

we were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more

in her case than in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her

beauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight,

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and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen

us for one another. Wretched boy!

At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise,

that my guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and

would come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in

the room where the mouldering table was spread had been lighted while we

were out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me.

It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began

the old slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But,

in the funereal room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the

chair fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful

than before, and I was under stronger enchantment.

The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew close at hand,

and Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre

of the long table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms

stretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow

cloth. As Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at the

door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity

that was of its kind quite dreadful.

Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and

said in a whisper,-"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?"

"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham."

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as

she sat in the chair. "Love her, love her, love her! How does she use

you?"

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question

at all) she repeated, "Love her, love her, love her! If she favors

you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to

pieces,--and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,--love

her, love her, love her!"




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