y,' said Mrs Boffin.

'My opinion, old lady,' returned the Golden Dustman, 'is your opinion.'

'Then,' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's name, but
to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr Rokesmith says, a matter of
feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling! Well; and so
I come to the second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella,
my dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that when I first named to my husband my
thoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon,
I further named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how
the poor boy would be benefited by John's own money, and protected from
John's own forlornness.'

'Hear, hear!' cried Mr Boffin. 'So she did. Ancoar!'

'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I am
going to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as I much as
I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the
question, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing myself.
Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite to
my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and put
my tastes and likings by?'

'Perhaps,' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little
sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers towards
the murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not have
liked to give it to a less interesting child than the original. He
interested you very much.'

'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's kind
of you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been so, and
indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am afraid not to
the whole extent. However, that don't come in question now, because we
have done with the name.'

'Laid it up as a remembrance,' suggested Bella, musingly.

'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well then; I
have been thinking if I take any orphan to provide for, let it not be
a pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for its own
sake.'

'Not pretty then?' said Bella.

'No,' returned Mrs Boffin, stoutly.

'Nor prepossessing then?' said Bella.

'No,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Not necessarily so. That's as it may happen.
A well-disposed boy comes in my way who may be even a little wanting in
such advantages for getting on in life, but is honest and industrious
and requires a helping hand and deserves it. If I am ver