was mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know'd
either, for sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, "Me choking,
Granny!" and Mrs Higden holds him up in her lap and says to me "Bide a
bit, Sloppy," and we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his
breathing again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.'

Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and a
vacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half-repressed gush
of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part of
his sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and
roundabout smear.

'This is unfortunate,' said Rokesmith. 'I must go and break it to Mrs
Boffin. Stay you here, Sloppy.'

Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall,
until the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came back together. And with Mrs
Boffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worth
staring at, it occurred to Sloppy, than the best of wall-papering.

'Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon!' exclaimed Mrs Boffin.

'Yes mum,' said the sympathetic Sloppy.

'You don't think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?' asked the
pleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality.

Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his
inclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous howl,
rounded off with a sniff.

'So bad as that!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'And Betty Higden not to tell me of
it sooner!'

'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' answered Sloppy,
hesitating.

'Of what, for Heaven's sake?'

'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' returned Sloppy with
submission, 'of standing in Our Johnny's light. There's so much trouble
in illness, and so much expense, and she's seen such a lot of its being
objected to.'

'But she never can have thought,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that I would grudge
the dear child anything?'

'No mum, but she might have thought (as a habit-like) of its standing
in Johnny's light, and might have tried to bring him through it
unbeknownst.'

Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like a
lower animal; to creep out of sight and coil herself away and die; had
become this woman's instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child who
was dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all
ministration but such as her own ignorant tenderness and patience could
supp