I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form that I rang my housekeeping keys and gave them a kiss before I laid them down in their basket again.
Then I went on to think, as I dressed my hair before the glass, how often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I should be busy, busy, busy--useful, amiable, serviceable, in all honest, unpretending ways. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at first (if that were any excuse for crying, which it was not) that I was one day to be the mistress of Bleak House, why should it seem strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not. "Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, looking at the glass, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about your marrying--"

I thought, all at once, if my guardian had married some one else, how should I have felt, and what should I have done! That would have been a change indeed. It presented my life in such a new and blank form that I gave my housekeeping keys a kiss before I laid them down in their basket again.
Then I went on to think how often had I considered within myself that the deep traces of my illness and the circumstances of my birth were only new reasons why I should be busy and useful. This was a good time, to be sure, to sit down morbidly and cry! As to its seeming at all strange to me at first, why should it seem strange? Other people had thought of such things, if I had not.
"Don't you remember, my plain dear," I asked myself, "what Mrs. Woodcourt said, before those scars were there, about your marrying-"
