“Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going to tell Ma when you interrupted. I have left Mr. Boffin’s house for good, Ma, and I have come home again.”
Mrs. Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her offspring for a minute or two in an awful silence, retired into her corner of state backward, and sat down: like a frozen article on sale in a Russian market.
“In short, dear Ma,” said Bella, taking off the depreciated bonnet and shaking out her hair, “I have had a very serious difference with Mr. Boffin on the subject of his treatment of a member of his household, and it’s a final difference, and there’s an end of all.”
“And I am bound to tell you, my dear,” added R. W. , submissively, “that Bella has acted in a truly brave spirit, and with a truly right feeling. And therefore I hope, my dear, you’ll not allow yourself to be greatly disappointed.”
“George!” said Miss Lavvy, in a sepulchral, warning voice, founded on her mother’s; “George Sampson, speak! What did I tell you about those Boffins?”
Mr. Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring among shoals and breakers, thought it safest not to refer back to any particular thing that he had been told, lest he should refer back to the wrong thing. With admirable seamanship he got his bark into deep water by murmuring “Yes indeed.”
“Yes! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells you,” said Miss Lavvy, “that those hateful Boffins would pick a quarrel with Bella, as soon as her novelty had worn off. Have they done it, or have they not? Was I right, or was I wrong? And what do you say to us, Bella, of your Boffins now?”