of Lavater could possibly for a single moment subscribe),'
with a shiver, 'seeks to illuminate her new residence in town with the
attractions of a child of mine, I am content that she should be favoured
by the company of a child of mine.'

'You use the word, ma'am, I have myself used,' said Rokesmith, with a
glance at Bella, 'when you speak of Miss Wilfer's attractions there.'

'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, 'but I had
not finished.'

'Pray excuse me.'

'I was about to say,' pursued Mrs Wilfer, who clearly had not had
the faintest idea of saying anything more: 'that when I use the term
attractions, I do so with the qualification that I do not mean it in any
way whatever.'

The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her views
with an air of greatly obliging her hearers, and greatly distinguishing
herself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed a scornful little laugh and said:

'Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the goodness, Mr
Rokesmith, to give my love to Mrs Boffin--'

'Pardon me!' cried Mrs Wilfer. 'Compliments.'

'Love!' repeated Bella, with a little stamp of her foot.

'No!' said Mrs Wilfer, monotonously. 'Compliments.'

('Say Miss Wilfer's love, and Mrs Wilfer's compliments,' the Secretary
proposed, as a compromise.)

'And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner,
the better.'

'One last word, Bella,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'before descending to the
family apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will ever be
sensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating with Mr
and Mrs Boffin upon equal terms, to remember that the Secretary, Mr
Rokesmith, as your father's lodger, has a claim on your good word.'

The condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation of
patronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodger
had lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired down
stairs; but his face fell, as the daughter followed.

'So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so
hard to touch, so hard to turn!' he said, bitterly.

And added as he went upstairs. 'And yet so pretty, so pretty!'

And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. 'And if she
knew!'

She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and
she declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn't
get rid of a haunting Secretary, stump--stump--st