But the suit stopped of its own accord, for it was found now that there
was no longer any fortune left to go to law about or to be willed to
anybody. All the money had been eaten up by the costs.

After all the years of hope and strain, this disappointment was too much
for Richard, and he died that night, at the very hour when poor crazed
little Miss Flite (as she had said she would do when the famous suit
ended) gave all her caged birds their liberty.

The time came at length, after the widowed Ada and her baby boy had come
to make their home with Mr. Jarndyce, when Esther felt that she should
fulfil her promise and become the mistress of Bleak House. So she told
her guardian she was ready to marry him when he wished. He appointed a
day, and she began to prepare her wedding-clothes.

But Mr. Jarndyce, true-hearted and generous as he had always been, had
an idea very different from this in his mind. He had found, on Allan
Woodcourt's return from his voyage, that the young surgeon still loved
Esther. His keen eye had seen that she loved him in return, and he well
knew that if she married him, Jarndyce, it would be because of her
promise and because her grateful heart could not find it possible to
refuse him. So, wishing most of all her happiness, he determined to give
up his own love for her sake.

He bought a house in the town in which Woodcourt had decided to practise
medicine, remodeled it and named it "Bleak House," after his own. When
it was finished in the way he knew Esther liked best, he took her to see
it, telling her it was to be a present from him to the surgeon to repay
him for his kindness to little Joe.

Then, when she had seen it all, he told her that he had guessed her love
for Woodcourt, and that, though she married the surgeon and not himself,
she would still be carrying out her promise and would still become the
mistress of "Bleak House."

When she lifted her tearful face from his shoulder she saw that
Woodcourt was standing near them.

"This is 'Bleak House,'" said Jarndyce. "This day I give this house its
little mistress, and, before God, it is the brightest day of my life!"

HARD TIMES

Published 1854

_Scene_: Coketown (an English factory town) and the Country.

_Time_: About 1850

CHARACTERS

Mr. Gradgrind A believer in "facts"

Mrs. Gradgrind His wife

Louisa