joke, I think,” said Richard, “from that quarter!”—and at last it was settled that his application should be granted. His name was entered at the Horse Guards as an applicant for an ensign’s commission; the purchase-money was deposited at an agent’s; and Richard, in his usual characteristic way, plunged into a violent course of military study and got up at five o’clock every morning to practise the broadsword exercise.
Thus, vacation succeeded term, and term succeeded vacation. We sometimes heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce as being in the paper or out of the paper, or as being to be mentioned, or as being to be spoken to; and it came on, and it went off. Richard, who was now in a professor’s house in London, was able to be with us less frequently than before; my guardian still maintained the same reserve; and so time passed until the commission was obtained and Richard received directions with it to join a regiment in Ireland.
He arrived posthaste with the intelligence one evening, and had a long conference with my guardian. Upwards of an hour elapsed before my guardian put his head into the room where Ada and I were sitting and said, “Come in, my dears!” We went in and found Richard, whom we had last seen in high spirits, leaning on the chimneypiece looking mortified and angry.
“Rick and I, Ada,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “are not quite of one mind. Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!”
“You are very hard with me, sir,” said Richard. “The harder because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have been set right without you, sir.”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Jarndyce. “I want to set you more right yet. I want to set you more right with yourself.”