thought it better not to speak.

"I wish I was dead!" she broke out. "I wish we were all dead. It
would be a great deal better for us."

In a moment afterwards, she knelt on the ground at my side, hid her
face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. I
comforted her and would have raised her, but she cried no, no; she
wanted to stay there!

"You used to teach girls," she said, "If you could only have taught
me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I
like you so much!"

I could not persuade her to sit by me or to do anything but move a
ragged stool to where she was kneeling, and take that, and still
hold my dress in the same manner. By degrees the poor tired girl
fell asleep, and then I contrived to raise her head so that it
should rest on my lap, and to cover us both with shawls. The fire
went out, and all night long she slumbered thus before the ashy
grate. At first I was painfully awake and vainly tried to lose
myself, with my eyes closed, among the scenes of the day. At
length, by slow degrees, they became indistinct and mingled. I
began to lose the identity of the sleeper resting on me. Now it
was Ada, now one of my old Reading friends from whom I could not
believe I had so recently parted. Now it was the little mad woman
worn out with curtsying and smiling, now some one in authority at
Bleak House. Lastly, it was no one, and I was no one.

The purblind day was feebly struggling with the fog when I opened