"Our lesson is, that there

are two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine

is the Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a

carriage, and you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to

pay my charges out of it. Oh, you must take the purse! We have no

choice, you and I, but to obey our instructions. We are not free to

follow our own devices, you and I."

As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an

inner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with

displeasure.

"A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a

little?"

"Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and

you are to take care of me the while."

She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I

requested a waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who

had never seen such a thing in his life, to show us a private

sitting-room. Upon that, he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a

magic clue without which he couldn't find the way up-stairs, and

led us to the black hole of the establishment: fitted up with a

diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous article considering the

hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, and somebody's

pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into another

room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched

leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at

this extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order:

which, proving to be merely "Some tea for the lady," sent him out

of the room in a very low state of mind.

I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its

strong combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to

infer that the coaching department was not doing well, and that the

enterprising proprietor was boiling down the horses for the

refreshment department. Yet the room was all in all to me, Estella

being in it. I thought that with her I could have been happy there

for life. (I was not at all happy there at the time, observe, and I

knew it well.)

"Where are you going to, at Richmond?" I asked Estella.

"I am going to live," said she, "at a great expense, with a lady

there, who has the power - or says she has - of taking me about,

and introducing me, and showing people to me and showing me to

people."

"I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

She answered so carelessly, that I said, "You speak of yourself as

if you were some one else."

"Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come," said

Estella, smiling delightfully, "you must not expect me to go to

school to you; I must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with

Mr. Pocket?"

"I live quite pleasantly there; at least--" It appeared to me that

I was losing a chance.

"At least?" repeated Estella.

"As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you."

"You silly boy," said Estella, quite composedly, "how can you talk

such nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to

the rest of his family?"

"Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy--"

"Don't add but his own," interposed Estella, "for I hate that class

of man. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy

and spite, I have heard?"

"I am sure I have every reason to say so."

"You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people,"

said Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at

once grave and rallying, "for they beset Miss Havisham with reports

and insinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent

you, write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the

torment and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realize

to yourself the hatred those people feel for you."

"They do me no harm, I hope?"

Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing.