“Oh, no, I didn’t,” cried Georgiana. “It’s very impolite, I know, but I came to see my poor Sophronia, my only friend. Oh! how I felt the separation, my dear Sophronia, before I knew you were brought low in the world, and how much more I feel it now!”
There were actually tears in the bold woman’s eyes, as the soft-headed and soft-hearted girl twined her arms about her neck.
“But I’ve come on business,” said Georgiana, sobbing and drying her face, and then searching in a little reticule, “and if I don’t despatch it I shall have come for nothing, and oh good gracious! what would Pa say if he knew of Sackville Street, and what would Ma say if she was kept waiting on the doorsteps of that dreadful turban, and there never were such pawing horses as ours unsettling my mind every moment more and more when I want more mind than I have got, by pawing up Mr. Boffin’s street where they have no business to be. Oh! where is, where is it? Oh! I can’t find it!” All this time sobbing, and searching in the little reticule.
“What do you miss, my dear?” asked Mr. Boffin, stepping forward.
“Oh! it’s little enough,” replied Georgiana, “because Ma always treats me as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I wish I was!), but I hardly ever spend it and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and I hope three five-pound notes are better than nothing, though so little, so little! And now I have found that — oh, my goodness! there’s the other gone next! Oh no, it isn’t, here it is!”
With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgiana produced a necklace.
“Ma says chits and jewels have no business together,” pursued Georgiana,“and that’s the reason why I have no trinkets except this, but I suppose my aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this, though I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it’s always kept in jewellers’ cotton. However, here it is, I am thankful to say, and of use at last, and you’ll sell it, dear Sophronia, and buy things with it.”
“Give it to me,” said Mr. Boffin, gently taking it. “I’ll see that it’s properly disposed of.”
“Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia’s, Mr. Boffin?” cried Georgiana. “Oh, how good of you! Oh, my gracious! there was something else, and it’s gone out of my head! Oh no, it isn’t, I remember what it was. My grandmamma’s property, that’ll come to me when I am of age, Mr. Boffin, will be all my own, and neither Pa nor Ma nor anybody else will have any control over it, and what I wish to do it so make some of it over somehow to Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that’ll prevail on somebody to advance them something. I want them to have something handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my goodness me! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia’s, you won’t refuse me, will you?”
“No, no,” said Mr. Boffin, “it shall be seen to.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” cried Georgiana. “If my maid had a little note and half a crown, I could run round to the pastrycook’s to sign something, or I could sign something in the Square if somebody would come and cough for me to let ’em in with the key, and would bring a pen and ink with ’em and a bit of blotting-paper. Oh, my gracious! I must tear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! Dear, dear Sophronia, good, good-bye!”
The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs. Lammle most affectionately, and then held out her hand to Mr. Lammle.
“Good-bye, dear Mr. Lammle — I mean Alfred. You won’t think after to-day that I have deserted you and Sophronia because you have been brought low in the world, will you? Oh me! oh me! I have been