Bella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his boyish figure bobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful patience smote the tears out of her eyes. “I hate that Secretary for thinking it of me,” she said to herself, “and yet it seems half true!”

Back came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his release from school. “All right, my dear. Leave given at once. Really very handsomely done!”

“Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in which I can wait for you while you go on an errand for me, if I send the carriage away?”

It demanded cogitation. “You see, my dear,” he explained, “you really have become such a very lovely woman, that it ought to be a very quiet place.” At length he suggested, “Near the garden up by the Trinity House on Tower Hill.” So, they were driven there, and Bella dismissed the chariot; sending a pencilled note by it to Mrs Boffin, that she was with her father.

“Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise and vow to be obedient.”

“I promise and vow, my dear.”

“You ask no questions. You take this purse; you go to the nearest place where they keep everything of the very very best, ready made; you buy and put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent leather, Pa, mind!) that are to be got for money; and you come back to me.”

“But, my dear Bella—”

“Take care, Pa!” pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. “You have promised and vowed. It’s perjury, you know.”

There was water in the foolish little fellow’s eyes, but she kissed them dry (though her own were wet), and he bobbed away again. After half an hour, he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that Bella was obliged to walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times, before she could draw her arm through his, and delightedly squeeze it.

“Now, Pa,” said Bella, hugging him close, “take this lovely woman out to dinner.”

“Where shall we go, my dear?”

“Greenwich!” said Bella, valiantly. “And be sure you treat this lovely woman with everything of the best.”

While they were going along to take boat, “Don’t you wish, my dear,” said R. W., timidly, “that your mother was here?”

“No, I don’t, Pa, for I like to have you all to myself to-day. I was always your little favourite at home, and you were always mine. We have run away together often, before now; haven’t we, Pa?”

“Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday when your mother was — was a little liable to it,” repeating his former delicate expression after pausing to cough.

“Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought to have been, Pa. I made you carry me, over and over again, when you should have made me walk; and I often drove you in harness, when you would much rather have sat down and read your newspaper: didn’t I?”

“Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were! What a companion you were!”

“Companion? That’s just what I want to be to-day, Pa.”