'Now, you come and sit by me, my dear,' said that worthy soul, taking her comfortable place on a large ottoman in the centre of the room, and drawing her arm through Bella's; 'and Noddy, you sit here, and Mr Rokesmith you sit there. Now, you see, what I want to talk about, is this. Mr and Mrs Milvey have sent me the kindest note possible (which Mr Rokesmith just now read to me out aloud, for I ain't good at handwritings), offering to find me another little child to name and educate and bring up. Well. This has set me thinking.'

('And she is a steam-ingein at it,' murmured Mr Boffin, in an admiring parenthesis, 'when she once begins. It mayn't be so easy to start her; but once started, she's a ingein.')

'--This has set me thinking, I say,' repeated Mrs Boffin, cordially beaming under the influence of her husband's compliment, 'and I have thought two things. First of all, that I have grown timid of reviving John Harmon's name. It's an unfortunate name, and I fancy I should reproach myself if I gave it to another dear child, and it proved again unlucky.'

'Now, whether,' said Mr Boffin, gravely propounding a case for his Secretary's opinion; 'whether one might call that a superstition?'

'It is a matter of feeling with Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, gently. 'The name has always been unfortunate. It has now this new unfortunate association connected with it. The name has died out. Why revive it? Might I ask Miss Wilfer what she thinks?'

'It has not been a fortunate name for me,' said Bella, colouring--'or at least it was not, until it led to my being here--but that is not the point in my thoughts. As we had given the name to the poor child, and as the poor child took so lovingly to me, I think I should feel jealous of calling another child by it. I think I should feel as if the name had become endeared to me, and I had no right to use it so.'

'And that's your opinion?' remarked Mr Boffin, observant of the Secretary's face and again addressing him.

'I say again, it is a matter of feeling,' returned the Secretary. 'I think Miss Wilfer's feeling very womanly and pretty.'

'Now, give us your opinion, Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin.

'My opinion, old lady,' returned the Golden Dustman, 'is your opinion.'

'Then,' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr Rokesmith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling! Well; and so I come to the second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that when I first named to my husband my thoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor boy would be benefited by John's own money, and protected from John's own forlornness.'

'Hear, hear!' cried Mr Boffin. 'So she did. Ancoar!'

'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I am going to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as I much as I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the question, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a child quite to my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and put my tastes and likings by?'

'Perhaps,' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers towards the murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the original. He interested you very much.'

'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am afraid not to the whole extent. However, that don't come in question now, because we have done with the name.'

'Laid it up as a remembrance,' suggested Bella, musingly.

'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance.