Mrs Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady visitor, and
with majestic monotony replied to the gentleman:

'Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my daughters am I to
understand is thus favoured by the kind intentions of Mr Boffin and his
lady?'

'Don't you see?' the ever-smiling Mrs Boffin put in. 'Naturally, Miss
Bella, you know.'

'Oh-h!' said Mrs Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. 'My daughter
Bella is accessible and shall speak for herself.' Then opening the door
a little way, simultaneously with a sound of scuttling outside it,
the good lady made the proclamation, 'Send Miss Bella to me!' which
proclamation, though grandly formal, and one might almost say heraldic,
to hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfully
glaring on that young lady in the flesh--and in so much of it that she
was retiring with difficulty into the small closet under the stairs,
apprehensive of the emergence of Mr and Mrs Boffin.

'The avocations of R. W., my husband,' Mrs Wilfer explained, on resuming
her seat, 'keep him fully engaged in the City at this time of the day,
or he would have had the honour of participating in your reception
beneath our humble roof.'

'Very pleasant premises!' said Mr Boffin, cheerfully.

'Pardon me, sir,' returned Mrs Wilfer, correcting him, 'it is the abode
of conscious though independent Poverty.'