Wilfer, when whom should she see, sitting at one of the windows with the plate-glass sash raised, but R. Wilfer himself, preparing to take a slight refection.
On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection had the appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth of milk. Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discovered her, and invoked the echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim “My gracious me!”
He then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and embraced her, and handed her in. “For it’s after hours and I am all alone, my dear,” he explained, “and am having—as I sometimes do when they are all gone—a quiet tea.”
Looking round the office, as if her father were a captive and this his cell, Bella hugged him and choked him to her heart’s content.
“I never was so surprised, my dear!” said her father. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they had taken to lying! The idea of your coming down the Lane yourself! Why didn’t you send the footman down the Lane, my dear?”
“I have brought no footman with me, Pa.”
“Oh indeed! But you have brought the elegant turnout, my love?”
“No, Pa.”
“You never can have walked, my dear?”
“Yes, I have, Pa.”
He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make up her mind to break it to him just yet.