Accordingly, it was resolved that Mr. and Mrs. Milvey should search for an orphan likely to suit, and as free as possible from the foregoing objections, and should communicate again with Mrs. Boffin. Then, Mr. Boffin took the liberty of mentioning to Mr. Milvey that if Mr. Milvey would do him the kindness to be perpetually his banker to the extent of “a twenty-pound note or so,” to be expended without any reference to him, he would be heartily obliged. At this, both Mr. Milvey and Mrs. Milvey were quite as much pleased as if they had no wants of their own, but only knew what poverty was, in the persons of other people; and so the interview terminated with satisfaction and good opinion on all sides.
“Now, old lady,” said Mr. Boffin, as they resumed their seats behind the hammer-headed horse and man: “having made a very agreeable visit there, we’ll try Wilfer’s.”
It appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that to try Wilfer’s was a thing more easily projected than done, on account of the extreme difficulty of getting into that establishment; three pulls at the bell producing no external result; though each was attended by audible sounds of scampering and rushing within. At the fourth tug—vindictively administered by the hammer-headed young man—Miss Lavinia appeared, emerging from the house in an accidental manner, with a bonnet and parasol, as designing to take a contemplative walk. The young lady was astonished to find visitors at the gate, and expressed her feelings in appropriate action.
“Here’s Mr. and Mrs. Boffin!” growled the hammer-headed young man through the bars of the gate, and at the same time shaking it, as if he were on view in a Menagerie; “they’ve been here half an hour.”
“Who did you say?” asked Miss Lavinia.
“Mr. and Mrs. Boffin” returned the young man, rising into a roar.
Miss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the house-door, tripped down the steps with the key, tripped across the little garden, and opened the gate. “Please to walk in,” said Miss Lavinia, haughtily. “Our servant is out.”
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin complying, and pausing in the little hall until Miss Lavinia came up to show them where to go next, perceived three pairs of listening legs upon the stairs above. Mrs. Wilfer’s legs, Miss Bella’s legs, Mr. George Sampson’s legs.
“Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, I think?” said Lavinia, in a warning voice. Strained attention on the part of Mrs. Wilfer’s legs, of Miss Bella’s legs, of Mr. George Sampson’s legs.
“Yes, Miss.”
“If you’ll step this way—down these stairs—I’ll let Ma know.” Excited flight of Mrs. Wilfer’s legs, of Miss Bella’s legs, of Mr. George Sampson’s legs.
After waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family sitting-room, which presented traces of having been so hastily arranged after a meal, that one might have doubted whether it was made tidy for visitors, or cleared for blindman’s buff, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin became aware of the entrance of Mrs. Wilfer, majestically faint, and with a condescending stitch in her side: which was her company manner.
“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Wilfer, after the first salutations, and as soon as she had adjusted the handkerchief under her chin, and waved her gloved hands, “to what am I indebted for this honour?”
“To make short of it, ma’am,” returned Mr. Boffin, “perhaps you may be acquainted with the names of me and Mrs. Boffin, as having come into a certain property.”
“I have heard, sir,” returned Mrs. Wilfer, with a dignified bend of her head, “of such being the case.”
“And I dare say, ma’am,” pursued Mr. Boffin, while Mrs. Boffin added confirmatory nods and smiles, “you are not very much inclined to take kindly to us?”
“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Wilfer. “ ’Twere unjust to visit upon Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, a calamity which was doubtless a dispensation.” These words were rendered the more effective by a serenely heroic expression of suffering.
“That’s fairly meant, I am sure,” remarked the honest Mr. Boffin; “Mrs. Boffin and me, ma’am, are plain people, and we don’t want to pretend to anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there’s always a straight way to everything. Consequently, we make this call to say, that we shall be glad to have the honour and pleasure of your daughter’s acquaintance, and that we shall be rejoiced if your daughter will come to consider our house in the light of her home equally with this. In short, we want to cheer your daughter, and to give her the opportunity of sharing such pleasures as we are a going to take ourselves. We want to brisk her up, and brisk her about, and give her a change.”
“That’s it!” said the openhearted Mrs. Boffin. “Lor! Let’s be comfortable.”
Mrs. Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady visitor, and with majestic monotony replied to the gentleman:
“Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my daughters am I to understand is thus favoured by the kind intentions of Mr. Boffin and his lady?”
“Don’t you see?” the ever-smiling Mrs. Boffin put in. “Naturally, Miss Bella, you know.”
“Oh-h!” said Mrs. Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. “My daughter Bella is accessible and shall speak for herself.” Then opening the door a little way, simultaneously with a sound of scuttling outside it, the good lady made the proclamation, “Send Miss Bella to me!” which proclamation, though grandly formal, and one might almost say heraldic, to hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfully glaring on that young lady in the flesh—and in so much of it that she was retiring with difficulty into the small closet under the stairs, apprehensive of the emergence of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin.
“The avocations of R. W., my husband,” Mrs. Wilfer explained, on resuming her seat, “keep him fully engaged in the City at
