coolly, tossing her head; 'it's exactly the same thing to me, and I'd
every bit as soon be one as the other; but I know this--I'll not grow
after I'm married!'

'You will not? YOU will not?' repeated Mrs Wilfer, solemnly.

'No, Ma, I will not. Nothing shall induce me.'

Mrs Wilfer, having waved her gloves, became loftily pathetic.

'But it was to be expected;' thus she spake. 'A child of mine deserts me
for the proud and prosperous, and another child of mine despises me. It
is quite fitting.'

'Ma,' Bella struck in, 'Mr and Mrs Boffin are prosperous, no doubt; but
you have no right to say they are proud. You must know very well that
they are not.'

'In short, Ma,' said Lavvy, bouncing over to the enemy without a word
of notice, you must know very well--or if you don't, more shame for
you!--that Mr and Mrs Boffin are just absolute perfection.'

'Truly,' returned Mrs Wilfer, courteously receiving the deserter, it
would seem that we are required to think so. And this, Lavinia, is
my reason for objecting to a tone of levity. Mrs Boffin (of whose
physiognomy I can never speak with the composure I would desire to
preserve), and your mother, are not on terms of intimacy. It is not
for a moment to be supposed that she and her husband dare to presume to
speak of this family as the Wilfers. I cannot therefore condescend to
speak of them as the Boffins. No; for such a tone--call it familiarity,
levity, equality, or what you will--would imply those social
interchanges which do not exist. Do I render myself intelligible?'

Without taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit delivered in an
imposing and forensic manner, Lavinia reminded her sister, 'After all,
you know, Bella, you haven't told us how your Whatshisnames are.'

'I don't want to speak of them here,' replied Bella, suppressing
indignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. 'They are much too kind
and too good to be drawn into these discussions.'

'Why put it so?' demanded Mrs Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. 'Why adopt a
circuitous form of speech? It is polite and it is obliging; but why do
it? Why not openly say that they are much too kind and too good for US?
We understand the allusion. Why disguise the phrase?'

'Ma,' said Bella, with one beat of her foot, 'you are enough to drive a
saint mad, and so is Lavvy.'

'Unfortunate Lavvy!' cried Mrs Wilfer, in a tone of commiseration. 'She
always comes for it. My poor child!' But Lavvy, with the suddenness of