. These, the hammer-headed young man took in
such ill part that he often impaired the majesty of the progress by
pulling up short, and making as though he would alight to exterminate
the offenders; a purpose from which he only allowed himself to be
dissuaded after long and lively arguments with his employers.

At length the Bower district was left behind, and the peaceful dwelling
of the Reverend Frank Milvey was gained. The Reverend Frank Milvey's
abode was a very modest abode, because his income was a very modest
income. He was officially accessible to every blundering old woman who
had incoherence to bestow upon him, and readily received the Boffins.
He was quite a young man, expensively educated and wretchedly paid, with
quite a young wife and half a dozen quite young children. He was under
the necessity of teaching and translating from the classics, to eke out
his scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time to spare
than the idlest person in the parish, and more money than the richest.
He accepted the needless inequalities and inconsistencies of his life,
with a kind of conventional submission that was almost slavish; and any
daring layman who would have adjusted such burdens as his, more decently
and graciously, would have had small help from him.

With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent smile that
showed a quick enough observation of Mrs Boffin's dress, Mr Milvey, in
his little book-room--charged with sounds and cries as though the six
children above were coming down through the ceiling, and the roasting
leg of mutton below were coming up through the floor--listened to Mrs
Boffin's statement of her want of an orphan.

'I think,' said Mr Milvey, 'that you have never had a child of your own,
Mr and Mrs Boffin?'

Never.

'But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I suppose you have
wished for one?'

In a general way, yes.

Mr Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself 'Those kings and
queens were always wishing for children.' It occurring to him, perhaps,
that if they had been Curates, their wishes might have tended in the
opposite direction.

'I think,' he pursued, 'we had better take Mrs Milvey into our Council.
She is indispensable to me. If you please, I'll call her.'

So, Mr Milvey called, 'Margaretta, my dear!' and Mrs Milvey came down.
A pretty, bright little woman, something worn by anxiety, who had
repressed many pretty tastes and bright fancies, an