He had been walking moodily from seven till about nine,
and now resolved to go straight to Ashpit Place and make a mother
confessor of Mrs Jupp without more delay.
Of all tasks that could be performed by mortal woman there was none which
Mrs Jupp would have liked better than the one Ernest was thinking of
imposing upon her; nor do I know that in his scared and broken-down state
he could have done much better than he now proposed. Miss Jupp would
have made it very easy for him to open his grief to her; indeed, she
would have coaxed it all out of him before he knew where he was; but the
fates were against Mrs Jupp, and the meeting between my hero and his
former landlady was postponed _sine die_, for his determination had
hardly been formed and he had not gone more than a hundred yards in the
direction of Mrs Jupp's house, when a woman accosted him.
He was turning from her, as he had turned from so many others, when she
started back with a movement that aroused his curiosity. He had hardly
seen her face, but being determined to catch sight of it, followed her as
she hurried away, and passed her; then turning round he saw that she was
none other than Ellen, the housemaid who had been dismissed by his mother
eight years previously.
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