le.
'But perhaps I might have said, if I had not been restrained by delicacy
towards a sister's feelings, that I have for some time felt independent;
too independent, my dear, to subject myself to have my intended match
(you'll prick yourself again, George) looked down upon. It is not that I
could have blamed you for looking down upon it, when you were looking up
to a rich and great match, Bella; it is only that I was independent.'

Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella's declaration that she
would not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked by Bella's
return to the sphere of Mr George Sampson's courtship, or whether it was
a necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collision
with somebody on the present occasion,--anyhow she made a dash at her
stately parent now, with the greatest impetuosity.

'Ma, pray don't sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating manner!
If you see a black on my nose, tell me so; if you don't, leave me
alone.'

'Do you address Me in those words?' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Do you presume?'

'Don't talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness' sake. A girl who is old
enough to be engaged, is quite old enough to object to be stared at as
if she was a Clock.'

'Audacious one!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Your grandmamma, if so addressed by
one of her daughters, at any age, would have insisted on her retiring to
a dark apartment.'

'My grandmamma,' returned Lavvy, folding her arms and leaning back
in her chair, 'wouldn't have sat staring people out of countenance, I
think.'

'She would!' said Mrs Wilfer.

'Then it's a pity she didn't know better,' said Lavvy. 'And if my
grandmamma wasn't in her dotage when she took to insisting on people's
retiring to dark apartments, she ought to have been. A pretty exhibition
my grandmamma must have made of herself! I wonder whether she ever
insisted on people's retiring into the ball of St Paul's; and if she
did, how she got them there!'

'Silence!' proclaimed Mrs Wilfer. 'I command silence!'

'I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma,' returned
Lavinia coolly, 'but quite the contrary. I am not going to be eyed as if
I had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. I am not going
to have George Sampson eyed as if HE had come from the Boffins, and sit
silent under it. If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if HE had come from
the Boffins also, well and good. I don't choose to. And I won't!'

Lavinia's engineering having m