“What! My flower!” she pleasantly began, shaking her large head at him. “You’re there, are you! Oh, you naughty boy, fie for shame, what do you do so far away from home? Up to mischief, I’ll be bound. Oh, you’re a downy fellow, Steerforth, so you are, and I’m another, ain’t I? Ha, ha, ha! You’d have betted a hundred pound to five, now, that you wouldn’t have seen me here, wouldn’t you? Bless you, man alive, I’m everywhere. I’m here and there, and where not, like the conjurer’s half-crown in the lady’s handkercher. Talking of handkerchers⁠— and talking of ladies⁠—what a comfort you are to your blessed mother, ain’t you, my dear boy, over one of my shoulders, and I don’t say which!”

Miss Mowcher untied her bonnet, at this passage of her discourse, threw back the strings, and sat down, panting, on a footstool in front of the fire⁠—making a kind of arbour of the dining table, which spread its mahogany shelter above her head.