“Do you know, John dear,” said Bella, taking him by a button of his coat, “that I sometimes, at odd moments—don’t laugh, John, please.”
Nothing should induce John to do it, when she asked him not to do it.
“—That I sometimes think, John, I feel a little serious.”
“Are you too much alone, my darling?”
“O dear, no, John! The time is so short that I have not a moment too much in the week.”
“Why serious, my life, then? When serious?”
“When I laugh, I think,” said Bella, laughing as she laid her head upon his shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe, sir, that I feel serious now? But I do.” And she laughed again, and something glistened in her eyes.
“Would you like to be rich, pet?” he asked her coaxingly.
“Rich, John! How can you ask such goose’s questions?”
“Do you regret anything, my love?”
“Regret anything? No!” Bella confidently answered. But then, suddenly changing, she said, between laughing and glistening: “Oh yes, I do though. I regret Mrs. Boffin.”
“I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps it is only temporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as that you may sometimes see her again—as that we may sometimes see her again.” Bella might be very anxious on the subject, but she scarcely seemed so at the moment. With an absent air, she was investigating that button on her husband’s coat, when Pa came in to spend the evening.