If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should have felt sufficiently discontented; but as she brought with her the three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't know what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but Miss Havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,--with a shame-faced consciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing.

     "Dear Miss Havisham," said Miss Sarah Pocket. "How well you look!"

     "I do not," returned Miss Havisham. "I am yellow skin and bone."

     Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff; and she murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, "Poor dear soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!"

     "And how are you?" said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss Havisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly obnoxious to Camilla.

     "Thank you, Miss Havisham," she returned, "I am as well as can be expected."