I kissed his hand. I don't know what I said, or even that I spoke. He was disconcerted, and walked to the window; I almost believed with an intention of jumping out, until he turned, and I was reassured by seeing in his eyes what he had gone there to hide. He gently patted me on the head, and I sat down. "There! There!" he said. "That's over. Pooh! Don't be foolish!" "It shall not happen again, sir," I returned, "but at first it is difficult--" "Nonsense!" he said, "it's easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again." I said to myself, "Esther, my dear, you surprise me! This really is not what I expected of you!" and it had such a good effect, that I folded my hands upon my basket and quite recovered myself. Mr. Jarndyce, expressing his approval in his face, began to talk to me as confidentially, as if I had been in the habit of conversing with him every morning for I don't know how long. I almost felt as if I had. "Of course, Esther," he said, "you don't understand this Chancery business?" And of course I shook my head. "I don't know who does," he returned. "The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It's about a Will, and the trusts under a Will--or it was, once. It's about nothing but Costs, now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about Costs. That's the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away." "But it was, sir," said I, to bring him back, for he began to rub his head, "about a Will?"