queens were always wishing for children.' It occurring to him, perhaps,
that if they had been Curates, their wishes might have tended in the
opposite direction.

'I think,' he pursued, 'we had better take Mrs Milvey into our Council.
She is indispensable to me. If you please, I'll call her.'

So, Mr Milvey called, 'Margaretta, my dear!' and Mrs Milvey came down.
A pretty, bright little woman, something worn by anxiety, who had
repressed many pretty tastes and bright fancies, and substituted in
their stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals, and all the week-day cares
and Sunday coughs of a large population, young and old. As gallantly had
Mr Milvey repressed much in himself that naturally belonged to his old
studies and old fellow-students, and taken up among the poor and their
children with the hard crumbs of life.

'Mr and Mrs Boffin, my dear, whose good fortune you have heard of.'

Mrs Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, congratulated
them, and was glad to see them. Yet her engaging face, being an open as
well as a perceptive one, was not without her husband's latent smile.

'Mrs Boffin wishes to adopt a little boy, my dear.'

Mrs Milvey, looking rather alarmed, her husband added:

'An orphan, my dear.'

'Oh!' said Mrs Milvey, reassured for her own little boys.