“Don’t you mind him, neither, my deary,” resumed Mrs. Boffin; “stick to me. This brings up a confabulation regarding the certain fair young person; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a deary creetur. ‘She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat’rally spoilt,’ he says, ‘by circumstances, but that’s only the surface, and I lay my life,’ he says, ‘that she’s the true golden gold at heart.’ ”

“So did you,” said Mr. Boffin.

“Don’t you mind him a single morsel, my dear,” proceeded Mrs. Boffin, “but stick to me. Then says John, O, if he could but prove so! Then we both of us ups and says, that minute, ‘Prove so!’ ”