BOOK THE SECOND: BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Chapter 10: A Successor (continued)
'Then,' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's
name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr Rokesmith says, a
matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of
feeling! Well; and so I come to the second thing I have thought
of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that
when I first named to my husband my thoughts of adopting a little
orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further named to
my husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor boy
would be benefited by John's own money, and protected from
John's own forlornness.'
'Hear, hear!' cried Mr Boffin. 'So she did. Ancoar!'
'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I
am going to say something else. I meant that, I am sure, as I much
as I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the
question, seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing
myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child, and a
child quite to my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its
own sake, and put my tastes and likings by?'
'Perhaps,' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little
sensitiveness arising out of those old curious relations of hers
towards the murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you
would not have liked to give it to a less interesting child than the
original. He interested you very much.'
'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's
kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope it may have been
so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am
afraid not to the whole extent. However, that don't come in
question now, because we have done with the name.'
'Laid it up as a remembrance,' suggested Bella, musingly.
'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well
then; I have been thinking if I take any orphan to provide for, let it
not be a pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for
its own sake.'
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