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 Gerrard 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 neighborhood until she

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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.

"O 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, 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."




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