“Noddy,” said Mrs. Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his side on the plain settle, and hooking her comfortable arm through his, “Next I think⁠—and I really have been thinking early and late⁠—of the disappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, both of her husband and his riches. Don’t you think we might do something for her? Have her to live with us? Or something of that sort?”

“Ne‑ver once thought of the way of doing it!” cried Mr. Boffin, smiting the table in his admiration. “What a thinking steam-ingein this old lady is. And she don’t know how she does it. Neither does the ingein!”