“No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,” returned Mrs. Boffin, “because I am going to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as much as I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the question, seriously, whether I wasn’t too bent upon pleasing myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite to my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and put my tastes and likings by?”

“Perhaps,” said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers towards the murdered man; “perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the original. He interested you very much.”