So, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs. Boffin was pleased, and all were satisfied. Not least of all, Sloppy, who undertook to conduct the visitors back by the best way to the Three Magpies, and whom the hammer-headed young man much despised.
This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove Mrs. Boffin back to the Bower, and found employment for himself at the new house until evening. Whether, when evening came, he took a way to his lodgings that led through fields, with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer in those fields, is not so certain as that she regularly walked there at that hour.
And, moreover, it is certain that there she was.
No longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty colours as she could muster. There is no denying that she was as pretty as they, and that she and the colours went very prettily together. She was reading as she walked, and of course it is to be inferred, from her showing no knowledge of Mr. Rokesmith’s approach, that she did not know he was approaching.
“Eh?” said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when he stopped before her. “Oh! It’s you.”
“Only I. A fine evening!”
“Is it?” said Bella, looking coldly round. “I suppose it is, now you mention it. I have not been thinking of the evening.”
“So intent upon your book?”