(“Say Miss Wilfer’s love, and Mrs Wilfer’s compliments,” the Secretary proposed, as a compromise.)

“And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner, the better.”

“One last word, Bella,” said Mrs Wilfer, “before descending to the family apartment. I trust that as a child of mine you will ever be sensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating with Mr and Mrs Boffin upon equal terms, to remember that the Secretary, Mr Rokesmith, as your father’s lodger, has a claim on your good word.”

The condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation of patronage, was as wonderful as the swiftness with which the lodger had lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired down stairs; but his face fell, as the daughter followed.

“So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn!” he said, bitterly.

And added as he went upstairs. “And yet so pretty, so pretty!”

And added presently, as he walked to and fro in his room. “And if she knew!”

She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and she declared it another of the miseries of being poor, that you couldn’t get rid of a haunting Secretary, stump—stump—stumping overhead in the dark, like a Ghost.