ade this crooked opening at Bella, Mrs
Wilfer strode into it.

'You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, Lavinia. If
in violation of your mother's sentiments, you had condescended to allow
yourself to be patronized by the Boffins, and if you had come from those
halls of slavery--'

'That's mere nonsense, Ma,' said Lavinia.

'How!' exclaimed Mrs Wilfer, with sublime severity.

'Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense,' returned the unmoved
Irrepressible.

'I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neighbourhood of
Portland Place, bending under the yoke of patronage and attended by its
domestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you think my deep-seated
feelings could have been expressed in looks?'

'All I think about it, is,' returned Lavinia, 'that I should wish them
expressed to the right person.'

'And if,' pursued her mother, 'if making light of my warnings that the
face of Mrs Boffin alone was a face teeming with evil, you had clung to
Mrs Boffin instead of to me, and had after all come home rejected by Mrs
Boffin, trampled under foot by Mrs Boffin, and cast out by Mrs Boffin,
do you think my feelings could have been expressed in looks?'

Lavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that she might as well
have dispensed with her looks altogether then, when Bella rose and said,
'Good night, dear Ma. I have had a tiring day, and I'll go to bed.' This
broke up the agreeable party. Mr George Sampson shortly afterwards took
his leave, accompanied by Miss Lavinia with a candle as far as the hall,
and without a candle as far as the garden gate; Mrs Wilfer, washing her
hands of the Boffins, went to bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth; and
R. W. was left alone among the dilapidations of the supper table, in a
melancholy attitude.

But, a light footstep roused him from his meditations, and it was
Bella's. Her pretty hair was hanging all about her, and she had tripped
down softly, brush in hand, and barefoot, to say good-night to him.

'My dear, you most unquestionably ARE a lovely woman,' said the cherub,
taking up a tress in his hand.

'Look here, sir,' said Bella; 'when your lovely woman marries, you shall
have that piece if you like, and she'll make you a chain of it. Would
you prize that remembrance of the dear creature?'

'Yes, my precious.'

'Then you shall have it if you're good, sir. I am very, very sorry,
dearest Pa, to have brought home all this trouble.'