Bella caught Mr. Boffin’s twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got it away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand.
“From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy’s,” said Mrs. Boffin, shaking her head. “O you were! And if I had been inclined to be jealous, I don’t know what I mightn’t have done to you. But as I wasn’t—why, my beauty,” with a hearty laugh and an embrace, “I made you a special favourite of my own too. But the horses is coming round the corner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to make ’em ache again: ‘Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John, for if ever a man had a hard master, you shall find me from this present time to be such to you.’ And then he began!” cried Mrs. Boffin, in an ecstacy of admiration. “Lord bless you, then he began! And how he did begin; didn’t he!”
Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed.
“But, bless you,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, “if you could have seen him of a night, at that time of it! The way he’d sit and chuckle over himself! The way he’d say ‘I’ve been a regular brown bear today,’ and take himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had pretended. But every night he says to me: ‘Better and better, old lady. What did we say of her? She’ll come through it, the true golden gold. This’ll be the happiest piece of work we ever done.’ And then he’d say, ‘I’ll be a grislier old growler tomorrow!’ and laugh, he would, till John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his windpipes with a little water.”
Mr. Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastly enjoying himself.
“And so, my good and pretty,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, “you was married, and there was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; for he wouldn’t let us out with it then, as was first meant. ‘No,’ he says, ‘she’s so unselfish and contented, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.’ Then, when baby was expected, he says, ‘She is such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.’ Then when baby was born, he says, ‘She is so much better than she ever was, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.’ And so he goes on and on, till I says outright, ‘Now, John, if you don’t fix a time for setting her up in her own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I’ll turn informer.’ Then he says he’ll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thought possible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; and he says, ‘She shall see me under suspicion of having murdered myself, and you shall see how trusting and how true she’ll be.’ Well! Noddy and me agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is in, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless us all!”
The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs. Boffin took a good long hug of one another: to the apparent peril of the inexhaustible baby, lying staring in Bella’s lap.
“But is the story done?” said Bella, pondering. “Is there no more of it?”
“What more of it should there be, deary?” returned Mrs. Boffin, full of glee.
“Are you sure you have left nothing out of it?” asked Bella.
“I don’t think I have,” said Mrs. Boffin, archly.
“John dear,” said Bella, “you’re a good nurse; will you please hold baby?” Having deposited the Inexhaustible in his arms with those words, Bella looked hard at Mr. Boffin, who had moved to a table where he was leaning his head upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietly settling herself on her knees at his side, and drawing one arm over his shoulder, said: “Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake of a word when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (not worse) than Hopkins, better (not worse) than Dancer, better (not worse) than Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Please something more!” cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as she struggled with him and forced him to turn his delighted face to hers. “Please I have found out something not yet mentioned. Please I don’t believe you are a hardhearted miser at all, and please I don’t believe you ever for one single minute were!”
At this, Mrs. Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating her feet upon the floor, clapping her hands, and bobbing herself backwards and forwards, like a demented member of some Mandarin’s family.
“O, I understand you now, sir!” cried Bella. “I want neither you nor anyone else to tell me the rest of the story. I can tell it to you, now, if you would like to hear it.”
“Can you, my dear?” said Mr. Boffin. “Tell it then.”
“What?” cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat with both hands. “When you saw what a greedy little wretch you were the patron of, you determined to show her how much misused and misprized riches could do, and often had done, to spoil people; did you? Not caring what she thought of you (and Goodness knows that was of no consequence!) you showed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of wealth, saying in your own mind, ‘This shallow creature would never work
