tain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone
when she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they
had stood to one another. 'Finching?'

'Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he
proposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented I must
say to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, after all, he
wasn't answerable for it and couldn't help it could he, Excellent man,
not at all like you but excellent man!'

Flora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment. One
moment; for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner
of her pocket-handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the ghost of the
departed Mr F., and began again.

'No one could dispute, Arthur--Mr Clennam--that it's quite right you
should be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and
indeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought
to know, but I can't help recalling that there was a time when things
were very different.'

'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur began, struck by the good tone again.

'Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!'

'Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in
finding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams,
when we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope.'

'You don't seem so,' pouted Flora, 'you take it very coolly, but
however I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese
ladies--Mandarinesses if you call them so--are the cause or perhaps I am
the cause myself, it's just as likely.'

'No, no,' Clennam entreated, 'don't say that.'

'Oh I must you know,' said Flora, in a positive tone, 'what nonsense not
to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well.'

In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick
perception of a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and profoundly
unreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to
interweave their long-abandoned boy and girl relations with their
present interview, made Clennam feel as if he were light-headed.

'One remark,' said Flora, giving their conversation, without the
slightest notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a
love-quarrel, 'I wish to make, one explanation I wish to offer, when
your Mama came and made a scene of it with my Papa and when I was called
down into the little breakfast-room where they were looking at