Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella’s declaration that she would not quarrel, or whether her spitefulness was evoked by Bella’s return to the sphere of Mr. George Sampson’s courtship, or whether it was a necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collision with somebody on the present occasion, — anyhow she made a dash at her stately parent now, with the greatest impetuosity.
“Ma, pray don’t sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating manner! If you see a black on my nose, tell me so; if you don’t, leave me alone.”
“Do you address Me in those words?” said Mrs. Wilfer. “Do you presume?”
“Don’t talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness’ sake. A girl who is old enough to be engaged, is quite old enough to object to be stared at as if she was a Clock.”
“Audacious one!” said Mrs. Wilfer. “Your grandmamma, if so addressed by one of her daughters, at any age, would have insisted on her retiring to a dark apartment.”
“My grandmamma,” returned Lavvy, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair, “wouldn’t have sat staring people out of countenance, I think.”
“She would!” said Mrs. Wilfer.
“Then it’s a pity she didn’t know better,” said Lavvy. “And if my grandmamma wasn’t in her dotage when she took to insisting on people’s retiring to dark apartments, she ought to have been. A pretty exhibition my grandmamma must have made of herself! I wonder whether she ever insisted on people’s retiring into the ball of St. Paul’s; and if she did, how she got them there!”
“Silence!” proclaimed Mrs. Wilfer. “I command silence!”
“I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma,” returned Lavinia coolly, “but quite the contrary. I am not going to be eyed as if I had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. I am not going to have George Sampson eyed as if he had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if he had come from the Boffins also, well and good. I don’t choose to. And I won’t!”
Lavinia’s engineering having made this crooked opening at Bella, Mrs. Wilfer strode into it.
“You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, Lavinia. If, in violation of your mother’s sentiments, you had condescended to allow yourself to be patronized by the Boffins, and if you had come from those halls of slavery—”
“That’s mere nonsense, Ma,” said Lavinia.
“How!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, with sublime severity.
“Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense,” returned the unmoved Irrepressible.
“I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neighbourhood of Portland Place, bending under the yoke of patronage and attended by its domestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you think my deep- seated feelings could have been expressed in looks?”
“All I think about it, is,” returned Lavinia, “that I should wish them expressed to the right person.”
“And if,” pursued her mother, “if, making light of my warnings that the face of Mrs. Boffin alone was a face teeming with evil, you had clung to Mrs. Boffin instead of to me, and had after all come home rejected by Mrs. Boffin, trampled under foot by Mrs. Boffin, and cast out by Mrs. Boffin, do you think my feelings could have been expressed in looks?”