a,
good, good-bye!'

The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs Lammle most
affectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr Lammle.

'Good-bye, dear Mr Lammle--I mean Alfred. You won't think after to-day
that I have deserted you and Sophronia because you have been brought low
in the world, will you? Oh me! oh me! I have been crying my eyes out of
my head, and Ma will be sure to ask me what's the matter. Oh, take me
down, somebody, please, please, please!'

Mr Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with her poor
little red eyes and weak chin peering over the great apron of the
custard-coloured phaeton, as if she had been ordered to expiate some
childish misdemeanour by going to bed in the daylight, and were peeping
over the counterpane in a miserable flutter of repentance and low
spirits. Returning to the breakfast-room, he found Mrs Lammle still
standing on her side of the table, and Mr Lammle on his.

'I'll take care,' said Mr Boffin, showing the money and the necklace,
'that these are soon given back.'

Mrs Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, and stood
sketching with it on the pattern of the damask cloth, as she had
sketched on the pattern of Mr Twemlow's papered wall.

'You will not undeceive her I hope, Mr Boffin?' she said, turning her
head towards him, but not her eyes.

'No,' said Mr Boffin.

'I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend,' Mrs Lammle explained,
in a measured voice, and with an emphasis on her last word.

'No,' he returned. 'I may try to give a hint at her home that she is in
want of kind and careful protection, but I shall say no more than that
to her parents, and I shall say nothing to the young lady herself.'

'Mr and Mrs Boffin,' said Mrs Lammle, still sketching, and seeming to
bestow great pains upon it, 'there are not many people, I think, who,
under the circumstances, would have been so considerate and sparing as
you have been to me just now. Do you care to be thanked?'

'Thanks are always worth having,' said Mrs Boffin, in her ready good
nature.

'Then thank you both.'

'Sophronia,' asked her husband, mockingly, 'are you sentimental?'

'Well, well, my good sir,' Mr Boffin interposed, 'it's a very good
thing to think well of another person, and it's a very good thing to be
thought well of BY another person. Mrs Lammle will be none the worse for
it, if she is.'

'Much obliged. But I asked Mrs Lammle if she was.'

She stood sketching on th