“I am very glad,” sobbed Bella, “that I called you names, sir, because you richly deserved it. But I am very sorry that I called you names, because you used to be so different. Say good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” said Mr. Boffin, shortly.

“If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would ask you to let me touch it,” said Bella, “for the last time. But not because I repent of what I have said to you. For I don’t. It’s true!”

“Try the left hand,” said Mr. Boffin, holding it out in a stolid manner; “it’s the least used.”

“You have been wonderfully good and kind to me,” said Bella, “and I kiss it for that. You have been as bad as bad could be to Mr. Rokesmith, and I throw it away for that. Thank you for myself, and good- bye!”

“Good-bye,” said Mr. Boffin as before.

Bella caught him round the neck and kissed him, and ran out for ever.

She ran up-stairs, and sat down on the floor in her own room, and cried abundantly. But the day was declining and she had no time to lose. She opened all the places where she kept her dresses; selected only those she had brought with her, leaving all the rest; and made a great misshapen bundle of them, to be sent for afterwards.

“I won’t take one of the others,” said Bella, tying the knots of the bundle very tight, in the severity of her resolution. “I’ll leave all the presents behind, and begin again entirely on my own account.” That the resolution might be thoroughly carried into practice, she even changed the dress she wore, for that in which she had come to the grand mansion. Even the bonnet she put on, was the bonnet that had mounted into the Boffin chariot at Holloway.

“Now, I am complete,” said Bella. “It’s a little trying, but I have steeped my eyes in cold water, and I won’t cry any more. You have been a pleasant room to me, dear room. Adieu! We shall never see each other again.”

With a parting kiss of her fingers to it, she softly closed the door and went with a light foot down the great staircase, pausing and listening as she went, that she might meet none of the household. No one chanced to be about, and she got down to the hall in quiet. The door of the late Secretary’s room stood open. She peeped in as she passed, and divined from the emptiness of his table, and the general appearance of things, that he was already gone. Softly opening the great hall door, and softly closing it upon herself, she turned and kissed it on the outside — insensible old combination of wood and iron that it was! — before she ran away from the house at a swift pace.

“That was well done!” panted Bella, slackening in the next street, and subsiding into a walk. “If I had left myself any breath to cry with, I should have cried again. Now poor dear darling little Pa, you are going to see your lovely woman unexpectedly.”