ella.

'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, again clapping her hands and shaking
her head. 'Not a bit of it.'

'At least, his name is John, I suppose?' said Bella.

'Ah! I should think so, deary!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'I should hope so!
Many and many is the time I have called him by his name of John. But
what's his other name, his true other name? Give a guess, my pretty!'

'I can't guess,' said Bella, turning her pale face from one to another.

'I could,' cried Mrs Boffin, 'and what's more, I did! I found him out,
all in a flash as I may say, one night. Didn't I, Noddy?'

'Ay! That the old lady did!' said Mr Boffin, with stout pride in the
circumstance.

'Harkee to me, deary,' pursued Mrs Boffin, taking Bella's hands between
her own, and gently beating on them from time to time. 'It was after a
particular night when John had been disappointed--as he thought--in
his affections. It was after a night when John had made an offer to a
certain young lady, and the certain young lady had refused it. It was
after a particular night, when he felt himself cast-away-like, and had
made up his mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. My
Noddy wanted a paper out of his Secretary's room, and I says to Noddy,
"I am going by the door, and I'll ask him for it." I tapped at his door,
and he didn't hear me. I looked in, and saw him a sitting lonely by his
fire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with a pleased kind of
smile in my company when he saw me, and then in a single moment every
grain of the gunpowder that had been lying sprinkled thick about him
ever since I first set eyes upon him as a man at the Bower, took fire!
Too many a time had I seen him sitting lonely, when he was a poor child,
to be pitied, heart and hand! Too many a time had I seen him in need of
being brightened up with a comforting word! Too many and too many a time
to be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No, no! I just
makes out to cry, "I know you now! You're John!" And he catches me as
I drops.--So what,' says Mrs Boffin, breaking off in the rush of her
speech to smile most radiantly, 'might you think by this time that your
husband's name was, dear?'

'Not,' returned Bella, with quivering lips; 'not Harmon? That's not
possible?'

'Don't tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things are
possible?' demanded Mrs Boffin, in a soothing tone.

'He was killed,' gasped Bella.

'Thought to be,' said Mrs Boffin. 'But if ever