“It has not been a fortunate name for me,” said Bella, colouring—“or at least it was not, until it led to my being here—but that is not the point in my thoughts. As we had given the name to the poor child, and as the poor child took so lovingly to me, I think I should feel jealous of calling another child by it. I think I should feel as if the name had become endeared to me, and I had no right to use it so.”
“And that’s your opinion?” remarked Mr. Boffin, observant of the Secretary’s face and again addressing him.
“I say again, it is a matter of feeling,” returned the Secretary. “I think Miss Wilfer’s feeling very womanly and pretty.”
“Now, give us your opinion, Noddy,” said Mrs. Boffin.
“My opinion, old lady,” returned the Golden Dustman, “is your opinion.”
“Then,” said Mrs. Boffin, “we agree not to revive John Harmon’s name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr. Rokesmith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters are matters of feeling! Well; and so I come to the second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr. Rokesmith, that when I first named to my husband my thoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor boy would be benefited by John’s own money, and protected from John’s own forlornness.”
“Hear, hear!” cried Mr. Boffin. “So she did. Ancoar!”
“No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,” returned Mrs. Boffin, “because I am going to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as much as I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the question, seriously, whether I wasn’t too bent upon pleasing myself. Else why did I