awing up Mr Boffin's
street where they have no business to be. Oh! where is, where is it?
Oh! I can't find it!' All this time sobbing, and searching in the little
reticule.

'What do you miss, my dear?' asked Mr Boffin, stepping forward.

'Oh! it's little enough,' replied Georgiana, 'because Ma always treats
me as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I wish I was!), but I hardly
ever spend it and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and I
hope three five-pound notes are better than nothing, though so little,
so little! And now I have found that--oh, my goodness! there's the other
gone next! Oh no, it isn't, here it is!'

With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgiana
produced a necklace.

'Ma says chits and jewels have no business together,' pursued Georgiana,
'and that's the reason why I have no trinkets except this, but I suppose
my aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this,
though I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it's
always kept in jewellers' cotton. However, here it is, I am thankful
to say, and of use at last, and you'll sell it, dear Sophronia, and buy
things with it.'

'Give it to me,' said Mr Boffin, gently taking it. 'I'll see that it's
properly disposed of.'

'Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia's, Mr Boffin?' cried Georgiana.
'Oh, how good of you! Oh, my gracious! there was something else, and
it's gone out of my head! Oh no, it isn't, I remember what it was. My
grandmamma's property, that'll come to me when I am of age, Mr Boffin,
will be all my own, and neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else will have
any control over it, and what I wish to do it so make some of it over
somehow to Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that'll
prevail on somebody to advance them something. I want them to have
something handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my goodness
me! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia's, you won't refuse me,
will you?'

'No, no,' said Mr Boffin, 'it shall be seen to.'

'Oh, thank you, thank you!' cried Georgiana. 'If my maid had a little
note and half a crown, I could run round to the pastrycook's to sign
something, or I could sign something in the Square if somebody would
come and cough for me to let 'em in with the key, and would bring a pen
and ink with 'em and a bit of blotting-paper. Oh, my gracious! I must
tear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! Dear, dear Sophroni