' replied Mr Boffin, thinking it over. 'He don't
consider himself above it.'

'Perhaps he considers himself beneath it,' suggested Bella. 'If so, he
ought to know best.'

'No, my dear; nor it ain't that, neither. No,' repeated Mr Boffin, with
a shake of his head, after again thinking it over; 'Rokesmith's a modest
man, but he don't consider himself beneath it.'

'Then what does he consider, sir?' asked Bella.

'Dashed if I know!' said Mr Boffin. 'It seemed that first as if it
was only Lightwood that he objected to meet. And now it seems to be
everybody, except you.'

Oho! thought Miss Bella. 'In--deed! That's it, is it!' For Mr Mortimer
Lightwood had dined there two or three times, and she had met him
elsewhere, and he had shown her some attention. 'Rather cool in a
Secretary--and Pa's lodger--to make me the subject of his jealousy!'

That Pa's daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa's lodger was odd;
but there were odder anomalies than that in the mind of the spoilt girl:
spoilt first by poverty, and then by wealth. Be it this history's part,
however, to leave them to unravel themselves.

'A little too much, I think,' Miss Bella reflected scornfully, 'to
have Pa's lodger laying claim to me, and keeping eligible people off!
A little too much, indeed, to have the opportunities opened to me by Mr
and Mrs Boffin, appropriated by a mere Secretary and Pa's lodger!'

Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by the
discovery that this same Secretary and lodger seem to like her. Ah! but
the eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs Boffin's dressmaker had not
come into play then.

In spite of his seemingly retiring manners a very intrusive person, this
Secretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's opinion. Always a light in his
office-room when we came home from the play or Opera, and he always at
the carriage-door to hand us out. Always a provoking radiance too on
Mrs Boffin's face, and an abominably cheerful reception of him, as if it
were possible seriously to approve what the man had in his mind!

'You never charge me, Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, encountering her
by chance alone in the great drawing-room, 'with commissions for home.
I shall always be happy to execute any commands you may have in that
direction.'

'Pray what may you mean, Mr Rokesmith?' inquired Miss Bella, with
languidly drooping eyelids.

'By home? I mean your father's house at Holloway.'

She coloured under the retort--so