"Finely expressed! The professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants.
The ruling passion!" Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr.and Mrs.Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound.

We agreed to say nothing to Mr.Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him.
So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly right in whatever he said.
"And how do you get on, Richard ?" said I.I always sat down on the other side of him.

He made quite a sister of me.
"Oh! Well enough!" said Richard.
"He can't say better than that, Esther, can he ?" cried my pet triumphantly.
I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I couldn't.
"Well enough ?" I repeated.
"Yes," said Richard, "well enough.

It's rather jog-trotty and humdrum.

But it'll do as well as anything else!" "Oh! My dear Richard!" I remonstrated.
"What's the matter ?" said Richard.
"Do as well as anything else!" "I don't think there's any harm in that, Dame Durden," said Ada, looking so confidingly at me across him; "because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope." "Oh, yes, I hope so," returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead.