and then we shall all be at home and
comfortable.'

Mrs Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, but was
helpless. Apparently with no compunction, and assuredly with no
ceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, and sat down to make the tea.

'Dearest Ma and Lavvy, you both take sugar, I know. And Pa (you good
little Pa), you don't take milk. John does. I didn't before I was
married; but I do now, because John does. John dear, did you kiss Ma and
Lavvy? Oh, you did! Quite correct, John dear; but I didn't see you do
it, so I asked. Cut some bread and butter, John; that's a love. Ma likes
it doubled. And now you must tell me, dearest Ma and Lavvy, upon your
words and honours! Didn't you for a moment--just a moment--think I was a
dreadful little wretch when I wrote to say I had run away?'

Before Mrs Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant's bride in her
merriest affectionate manner went on again.

'I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and Lavvy, and I
know I deserved that you should be very cross. But you see I had been
such a heedless, heartless creature, and had led you so to expect that
I should marry for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable of
marrying for love, that I thought you couldn't believe me. Because, you
see, you didn't know how much of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt from
John. Well! So I was sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me
to be, and fearful that we couldn't understand one another and might
come to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so I
said to John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. And
as he did like, I let him. And we were married at Greenwich church in
the presence of nobody--except an unknown individual who dropped in,'
here her eyes sparkled more brightly, 'and half a pensioner. And now,
isn't it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to know that no words have been
said which any of us can be sorry for, and that we are all the best of
friends at the pleasantest of teas!'

Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her chair
(after a loop on the road to squeeze her husband round the neck) and
again went on.

'And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and Lavvy, how
we live, and what we have got to live upon. Well! And so we live on
Blackheath, in the charm--ingest of dolls' houses, de--lightfully
furnished, and we have a clever little servant who is de--cidedly
pretty, and we are ec