When Mr. Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to “Our House,” as he had been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat shelterless so long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as different from his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things it well could be, that farseeing and far-reaching character, by way of asserting himself and making out a case for compensation, affected to fall into a melancholy strain of musing over the mournful past; as if the house and he had had a fall in life together.

“And this, sir,” Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head and musing, “was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from which I have so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker”⁠—whose very names were of his own inventing⁠—“pass and repass! And has it come to this, indeed! Ah dear me, dear me!”