 Chadband. Yes.« Mr. Guppy draws his
chair a little forward, and seats himself again. My Lady reclines in her chair
composedly, though with a trifle less of graceful ease than usual, perhaps; and
never falters in her steady gaze. »A - stop a minute, though!« Mr. Guppy refers
again. »E.S. twice? O yes! yes, I see my way now, right on.«
    Rolling up the slip of paper as an instrument to point his speech with, Mr.
Guppy proceeds.
    »Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson's birth and
bringing up. I am informed of that fact, because - which I mention in confidence
- I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge and Carboy's. Now, as I have
already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss Summerson's image is imprinted on my
art. If I could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or
find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship's family she
had a right to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make a
sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more decided favour
on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In fact, as yet she hasn't
favoured them at all.«
    A kind of angry smile just dawns upon my Lady's face.
    »Now, it's a very singular circumstance, your ladyship,« says Mr. Guppy,
»though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of us professional
men - which I may call myself, for though not admitted, yet I have had a present
of my articles made to me by Kenge and Carboy, on my mother's advancing from the
principal of her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy - that
I have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought
Miss Summerson up, before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady was a Miss
Barbary, your ladyship.«
    Is the dead colour on my Lady's face, reflected from the screen which has a
green silk ground, and which she holds in her raised hand as if she had
forgotten it; or is it a dreadful paleness that has fallen on her?
    »Did your ladyship,« says Mr. Guppy, »ever happen to hear of Miss Barbary?«
    »I don't know. I think so. Yes.«
