--I have
just left Miss Landless.'
'What is her state?'
'Defiance of all suspicion, and unbounded faith in her brother.'
'Poor thing!'
'However,' pursued Mr. Grewgious, 'it is not of her that I came to
speak. It is of my ward. I have a communication to make that will
surprise you. At least, it has surprised me.'
Jasper, with a groaning sigh, turned wearily in his chair.
'Shall I put it off till to-morrow?' said Mr. Grewgious. 'Mind, I
warn you, that I think it will surprise you!'
More attention and concentration came into John Jasper's eyes as
they caught sight of Mr. Grewgious smoothing his head again, and
again looking at the fire; but now, with a compressed and
determined mouth.
'What is it?' demanded Jasper, becoming upright in his chair.
'To be sure,' said Mr. Grewgious, provokingly slowly and
internally, as he kept his eyes on the fire: 'I might have known
it sooner; she gave me the opening; but I am such an exceedingly
Angular man, that it never occurred to me; I took all for granted.'
'What is it?' demanded Jasper once more.
Mr. Grewgious, alternately opening and shutting the palms of his
hands as he warmed them at the fire, and looking fixedly at him
sideways, and never changing either his action or his look in all
that followed, went on to reply.
'This young couple, the lost youth and Miss Rosa, my ward, though
so long betrothed, and so long recognising their betrothal, and so
near being married--'
Mr.
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