“Lavinia!” said Mrs. Wilfer. “Hold! I will not allow you to utter in my presence the absurd suspicion that any strangers⁠—I care not what their names⁠—can patronize my child. Do you dare to suppose, you ridiculous girl, that Mr. and Mrs. Boffin would enter these doors upon a patronizing errand; or, if they did, would remain within them, only for one single instant, while your mother had the strength yet remaining in her vital frame to request them to depart? You little know your mother if you presume to think so.”

“It’s all very fine,” Lavinia began to grumble, when Mrs. Wilfer repeated: