seek out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite to my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and put my tastes and likings by?”
“Perhaps,” said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers towards the murdered man; “perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the original. He interested you very much.”
“Well, my dear,” returned Mrs. Boffin, giving her a squeeze, “it’s kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am afraid not to the whole extent. However, that don’t come in question now, because we have done with the name.”
“Laid it up as a remembrance,” suggested Bella, musingly.
“Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well then; I have been thinking if I take any orphan to provide for, let it not be a pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for its own sake.”
“Not pretty then?” said Bella.
“No,” returned Mrs. Boffin, stoutly.
“Nor prepossessing then?” said Bella.
“No,” returned Mrs. Boffin. “Not necessarily so. That’s as it may happen. A well-disposed boy comes in my way who may be even a little wanting in such advantages for getting on in life, but is honest and industrious and requires a helping hand and deserves it. If I am very much in earnest and quite determined to be unselfish, let me take care of him .”