“I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such admirable advantage,” he replied with earnestness. “Forgive me; I could not help saying that. To return to what I have digressed from, let me add that perhaps they think I report them to you, deliver little messages, and the like. But I forbear to trouble you, as you never ask me.”
“I am going, sir,” said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved her, “to see them tomorrow.”
“Is that,” he asked, hesitating, “said to me, or to them?”
“To which you please.”
“To both? Shall I make it a message?”
“You can if you like, Mr. Rokesmith. Message or no message, I am going to see them tomorrow.”
“Then I will tell them so.”
He lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity of prolonging the conversation if she wished. As she remained silent, he left her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by Miss Bella herself, when alone again, to be very curious. The first was, that he unquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, and a penitent feeling in her heart. The second was, that she had not an intention or a thought of going home, until she had announced it to him as a settled design.
“What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it?” was her mental inquiry: “He has no right to any power over me, and how do I come to mind him when I don’t care for him?”
Mrs. Boffin, insisting that Bella should make tomorrow’s expedition in the chariot, she went home in great grandeur. Mrs. Wilfer and Miss