“No,” said Mr. Boffin.
“I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend,” Mrs. Lammle explained, in a measured voice, and with an emphasis on her last word.
“No,” he returned. “I may try to give a hint at her home that she is in want of kind and careful protection, but I shall say no more than that to her parents, and I shall say nothing to the young lady herself.”
“ Mr. and Mrs. Boffin,” said Mrs. Lammle, still sketching, and seeming to bestow great pains upon it, “there are not many people, I think, who, under the circumstances, would have been so considerate and sparing as you have been to me just now. Do you care to be thanked?”
“Thanks are always worth having,” said Mrs. Boffin, in her ready good nature.
“Then thank you both.”
“Sophronia,” asked her husband, mockingly, “are you sentimental?”
“Well, well, my good sir,” Mr. Boffin interposed, “it’s a very good thing to think well of another person, and it’s a very good thing to be thought well of by another person. Mrs. Lammle will be none the worse for it, if she is.”
“Much obliged. But I asked Mrs. Lammle if she was.”
She stood sketching on the tablecloth, with her face clouded and set, and was silent.
“Because,” said Alfred, “I am disposed to be sentimental myself, on your appropriation of the jewels and the money, Mr. Boffin. As our little Georgiana said, three five-pound notes are better than nothing, and if you sell a necklace you can buy things with the produce.”