“She says,” replied Mr. Lammle, interpreting for her, “that in her eyes you look well in any colour, Sophronia, and that if she had expected to be embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has received, she would have worn another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that it would not have saved her, for whatever colour she had worn would have been Fledgeby’s colour. But what does Fledgeby say?”

“He says,” replied Mrs. Lammle, interpreting for him, and patting the back of her dear girl’s hand, as if it were Fledgeby who was patting it, “that it was no compliment, but a little natural act of homage that he couldn’t resist. And,” expressing more feeling as if it were more feeling on the part of Fledgeby, “he is right, he is right!”