-with your Boffins. You can have as
much flirting as you like--at your Boffins. But you won't take ME to
your Boffins, I can tell you--you and your Boffins too!'

'If,' quoth Mr George Sampson, moodily pulling his stopper out, 'Miss
Bella's Mr Boffin comes any more of his nonsense to ME, I only wish him
to understand, as betwixt man and man, that he does it at his per--' and
was going to say peril; but Miss Lavinia, having no confidence in his
mental powers, and feeling his oration to have no definite application
to any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, with a sharpness that
made his eyes water.

And now the worthy Mrs Wilfer, having used her youngest daughter as a
lay-figure for the edification of these Boffins, became bland to her,
and proceeded to develop her last instance of force of character,
which was still in reserve. This was, to illuminate the family with her
remarkable powers as a physiognomist; powers that terrified R. W. when
ever let loose, as being always fraught with gloom and evil which no
inferior prescience was aware of. And this Mrs Wilfer now did, be it
observed, in jealousy of these Boffins, in the very same moments when
she was already reflecting how she would flourish these very same
Boffins and the state they kept, over the heads of her Boffinless
friends.

'Of their manners,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'I say nothing. Of their
appearance, I say nothing. Of the disinterestedness of their intentions
towards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, the secrecy, the dark
deep underhanded plotting, written in Mrs Boffin's countenance, make me
shudder.'

As an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes were all
there, Mrs Wilfer shuddered on the spot.

Chapter 10

A MARRIAGE CONTRACT

There is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The mature young lady is
going to be married (powder and all) to the mature young gentleman, and
she is to be married from the Veneering house, and the Veneerings are to
give the breakfast. The Analytical, who objects as a matter of principle
to everything that occurs on the premises, necessarily objects to the
match; but his consent has been dispensed with, and a spring-van is
delivering its load of greenhouse plants at the door, in order that
to-morrow's feast may be crowned with flowers.

The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentleman
is a gentleman of property. He invests his property. He goes, in
a condescending amateurish