lace
his sitting-room at our disposal to-day. You will therefore, Bella, be
entertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in accordance
with your present style of living, that there will be a drawing-room
for your reception as well as a dining-room. Your papa invited Mr.
Rokesmith to partake of our lowly fare. In excusing himself on account
of a particular engagement, he offered the use of his apartment."

Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own room
at Mr. Boffin's, but she approved of his staying away. "We should only
have put one another out of countenance," she thought, "and we do
that quite often enough as it is."

Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room to run up to it with
the least possible delay, and make a close inspection of its contents.
It was tastefully tho economically furnished, and very neatly
arranged. There were shelves and stands of books, English, French, and
Italian; and in a portfolio on the writing-table there were sheets
upon sheets of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently
referring to the Boffin property. On that table also, carefully backed
with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was the
placard descriptive of the murdered man who had come from afar to be
her husband. She shrank from this ghostly surprize, and felt quite
frightened as she rolled and tied it up again. Peeping about here and
there, she came upon a print, a graceful head of a pretty woman,
elegantly framed, hanging in the corner by the easy chair. "Oh,
indeed, Sir!" said Bella, after stopping to ruminate before it. "Oh,
indeed, Sir! I fancy I can guess whom you think that's like. But I'll
tell you what it's much more like--your impudence!" Having said which
she decamped: not solely because she was offended, but because there
was nothing else to look at.

"Now, Ma," said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some remains of
a blush, "you and Lavvy think magnificent me fit for nothing, but I
intend to prove the contrary. I mean to be cook to-day."

"Hold!" rejoined her majestic mother. "I can not permit it. Cook in
that dress!"

"As for my dress, Ma," returned Bella, merrily searching in a
dresser-drawer, "I mean to apron it and towel it all over the front;
and as to permission, I mean to do without."

"You cook?" said Mrs. Wilfer. "You who never cooked when you were at
home?"

"Yes, Ma," returned Bella; "that is precisely the state of the case."

She