Mr. Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the tidings. Nay, it was afterwards affirmed by a witness who shall at present be nameless, that in the seclusion of the Bower he poked out his wooden leg, in the stage-ballet manner, and executed a taunting or triumphant pirouette on the genuine leg remaining to him.
John Rokesmith’s manner towards Mrs. Boffin at this time, was more the manner of a young man towards a mother, than that of a Secretary towards his employer’s wife. It had always been marked by a subdued affectionate deference that seemed to have sprung up on the very day of his engagement; whatever was odd in her dress or her ways had seemed to have no oddity for him; he had sometimes borne a quietly-amused face in her company, but still it had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temper and radiant nature yielded him, could have been quite as naturally expressed in a tear as in a smile. The completeness of his sympathy with her fancy for having a little John Harmon to protect and rear, he had shown in every act and word, and now that the kind fancy was disappointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect for which she could hardly thank him enough.
“But I do thank you, Mr. Rokesmith,” said Mrs. Boffin, “and I thank you most kindly. You love children.”
“I hope everybody does.”
“They ought,” said Mrs. Boffin; “but we don’t all of us do what we ought, do us?”
John Rokesmith replied, “Some among us supply the shortcomings of the rest. You have loved children well, Mr. Boffin has told me.”
“Not a bit better than he has, but that’s his way; he puts all the good upon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr. Rokesmith.”
“Do I?”