Mrs. Jellyby A lady greatly interested in the welfare of the heathen Caddy Jellyby Her daughter Harold Skimpole A trifler with life, preferring to live at other people's expense Allan Woodcourt A young surgeon Grandfather Smallweed A money-lender Mrs. Smallweed His crazy wife Mr. Turveydrop The proprietor of a dancing school and a model of deportment Prince Turveydrop His son. Later, Caddy's husband Joe A crossing sweeper Krook A dealer in rags and old bottles "Lady Jane" His cat BLEAK HOUSE I THE COURT OF CHANCERY An Englishman named Jarndyce, once upon a time having made a great fortune, died and left a great will. The persons appointed to carry out its provisions could not agree; they fell to disputing among themselves and went to law over it. The court which in England decides such suits is called the Court of Chancery. Its action is slow and its delays many, so that men generally consider it a huge misfortune to be obliged to have anything to do with it. Sometimes it has kept cases undecided for many years, till the heirs concerned were dead and gone; and often when the decision came at last there was no money left to be divided, because it had all been eaten up by the costs of the suit. Lawyers inherited some cases from their fathers, who themselves had made a living by them, and many suits had become so twisted that nobody alive could have told at last what they really meant. Such came to be the case with the Jarndyce will. It had been tried for so many years that the very name had become a joke. Those who began it were long since dead and their heirs either knew nothing of it or had given up hope of its ever being ended. The only one who seemed to be interested in it was a little old woman named Miss Flite, whom delay and despair in a suit of her own had made half crazy. For many years she had attended the Chancery Court every day and many thoughtless people made fun of her. She was wretchedly poor and lived in a small room over a rag-and-bottle shop kept by a man named Krook. Here she had a great number of birds in little cages--larks and linnets and goldfinches. She had given them names to represent the different things which the cruel Chancery Court required to carry on these shameful suits, such as Hope, Youth, Rest, Ashes, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Folly, Words, Plunder and Jargon. She used to say that when the Jarndyce case was decided she would open the cages and let the birds all go.