“Certainly I do. Everyone must.”
“I hope so,” said the cherub. “Indeed, I have no doubt of it. This is a great advancement for her in life, Mr. Rokesmith. A great opening of her prospects?”
“Miss Wilfer could have no better friends than Mr. and Mrs. Boffin.”
“Impossible!” said the gratified cherub. “Really I begin to think things are very well as they are. If Mr. John Harmon had lived—”
“He is better dead,” said the Secretary.
“No, I won’t go so far as to say that,” urged the cherub, a little remonstrant against the very decisive and unpitying tone; “but he mightn’t have suited Bella, or Bella mightn’t have suited him, or fifty things, whereas now I hope she can choose for herself.”
“Has she—as you place the confidence in me of speaking on the subject, you will excuse my asking—has she—perhaps—chosen?” faltered the Secretary.
“Oh dear no!” returned R. W.
“Young ladies sometimes,” Rokesmith hinted, “choose without mentioning their choice to their fathers.”
“Not in this case, Mr. Rokesmith. Between my daughter Bella and me there is a regular league and covenant of confidence. It was ratified only the other day. The ratification dates from—these,” said the cherub, giving a little pull at the lapels of his coat and the pockets of his trousers. “Oh no, she has not chosen. To be sure, young George Sampson, in the days when Mr. John Harmon—”
“Who I wish had never been born!” said the Secretary, with a gloomy brow.