don't say but what it cut me, and but what it at the
same time heightened my feelings of admiration for Mrs Boffin. The poor
child clings to her for awhile, as she clings to him, and then, when
the old man calls, he says "I must go! God bless you!" and for a moment
rests his heart against her bosom, and looks up at both of us, as if it
was in pain--in agony. Such a look! I went aboard with him (I gave him
first what little treat I thought he'd like), and I left him when he had
fallen asleep in his berth, and I came back to Mrs Boffin. But tell
her what I would of how I had left him, it all went for nothing, for,
according to her thoughts, he never changed that look that he had looked
up at us two. But it did one piece of good. Mrs Boffin and me had no
child of our own, and had sometimes wished that how we had one. But not
now. "We might both of us die," says Mrs Boffin, "and other eyes might
see that lonely look in our child." So of a night, when it was very
cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she would
wake sobbing, and call out in a fluster, "Don't you see the poor child's
face? O shelter the poor child!"--till in course of years it gently wore
out, as many things do.'

'My dear Mr Boffin, everything wears to rags,' said Mortimer, with a
light laugh.

'I won't go so far as to say everything,' returned Mr Boffin, on whom
his manner seemed to grate, 'because there's some things that I never
found among the dust. Well, sir. So Mrs Boffin and me grow older and
older in the old man's service, living and working pretty hard in it,
till the old man is discovered dead in his bed. Then Mrs Boffin and me
seal up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his bed,
and having frequently heerd tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyer's
dust is contracted for, I come down here in search of a lawyer to
advise, and I see your young man up at this present elevation, chopping
at the flies on the window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy!
not then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by that
means come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentleman in the
uncomfortable neck-cloth under the little archway in Saint Paul's
Churchyard--'

'Doctors' Commons,' observed Lightwood.

'I understood it was another name,' said Mr Boffin, pausing, 'but you
know best. Then you and Doctor Scommons, you go to work, and you do the
thing that's proper, and you and Doctor S. take steps for finding o