may have even gone the length of sometimes severely
reproving him for that he ever took the liberty of making so exalted a
character his wife.

As for the children of the union, their experience of these festivals
had been sufficiently uncomfortable to lead them annually to wish,
when out of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married somebody
else instead of much-teased Pa, or that Pa had married somebody else
instead of Ma.

When there came to be but two sisters left at home, the daring mind of
Bella on the next of these occasions scaled the height of wondering
with droll vexation, "what on earth Pa ever could have seen in Ma, to
induce him to make such a little fool of himself as to ask her to have
him."

The revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly sequence,
Bella arrived in the Boffin chariot to assist at the celebration. It
was the family custom when the day recurred to sacrifice a pair of
fowls on the altar of Hymen; and Bella had sent a note beforehand, to
intimate that she would bring the votive offering with her. So, Bella
and the fowls, by the united energies of two horses, two men, four
wheels, and a plum-pudding carriage dog with as uncomfortable a collar
on as if he had been George the Fourth, were deposited at the door of
the parental dwelling. They were there received by Mrs. Wilfer in
person, whose dignity on this, as on most special occasions, was
heightened by a mysterious toothache.

"I shall not require the carriage at night," said Bella. "I shall walk
back."

The male domestic of Mrs. Boffin touched his hat, and in the act of
departure had an awful glare bestowed upon him by Mrs. Wilfer,
intended to carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that,
whatever his private suspicions might be, male domestics in livery
were no rarity there.

"Well, dear Ma," said Bella, "and how do you do?"

"I am as well, Bella," replied Mrs. Wilfer, "as can be expected."

"Dear me, Ma," said Bella, "you talk as if one was just born!"

"That's exactly what Ma has been doing," interposed Lavvy, over the
maternal shoulder, "ever since we got up this morning. It's all very
well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible
to conceive."

Mrs. Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied by any
words, attended both her daughters to the kitchen, where the sacrifice
was to be prepared.

"Mr. Rokesmith," said she, resignedly, "has been so polite as to p