"O cousin--!" Ada hastily began. "Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is better." "Then, cousin John!--" Ada laughingly began again. "Ha, ha! Very good indeed!" said Mr. Jarndyce, with great enjoyment. "Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?" "It did better than that. It rained Esther." "Ay?" said Mr. Jarndyce. "What did Esther do?" "Why, cousin John," said Ada, clasping her hands upon his arm, and shaking her head at me across him--for I wanted her to be quiet: "Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them quiet, bought them keepsakes."--My dear girl! I had only gone out with Peepy, after he was found, and given him a little, tiny horse!--"and, cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much, and was so thoughtful for me and so amiable!--No, no, I won't be contradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it's true!" The warm-hearted darling leaned across her cousin John, and kissed me; and then, looking up in his face, boldly said, "At all events, cousin John, I _will_ thank you for the companion you have given me." I felt as if she challenged him to run away. But he didn't. "Where did you say the wind was, Rick?" asked Mr. Jarndyce. "In the north, as we came down, sir." "You are right. There's no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come girls, come and see your home!" It was one of those delightfully irregular houses where you go up and down steps, out of one room into another, and where you come upon more rooms when you think you have seen all there are, and where there is a bountiful provision of little halls and passages, and where you find still older cottage-rooms in unexpected places, with lattice windows and green growth pressing through them. Mine, which we entered first, was of this kind, with an up-and-down roof, that had more corners in it than I ever counted afterward, and a chimney (there was a wood-fire on the hearth) paved all round with pure white tiles, in every one of which a bright miniature of the fire was blazing. Out of this room, you went down two steps, into a charming little sitting-room, looking down upon a flower-garden, which room was henceforth to belong to Ada and me. Out of this you went up three steps, into Ada's bed-room, which had a fine broad window, commanding a beautiful view (we saw a great expanse of darkness lying underneath the stars), to which there was a hollow window-seat, in which, with a spring-lock, three dear Adas might have been lost at once. Out of this room, you passed into a little gallery, with which the other best rooms (only two) communicated, and so, by a little staircase of shallow steps, with a great number of corner stairs in it, considering its length, down into the hall. But if, instead of going out at Ada's door, you came back into my room, and went out at the door by which you had entered it, and turned up a few crooked steps that