‘But I do thank you, Mr Rokesmith,’ said Mrs Boffin, ‘and I thank you most kindly. You love children.’
‘I hope everybody does.’
‘They ought,’ said Mrs Boffin; ‘but we don’t all of us do what we ought, do us?’
John Rokesmith replied, ‘Some among us supply the short-comings of the rest. You have loved children well, Mr Boffin has told me.’
‘Not a bit better than he has, but that’s his way; he puts all the good upon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr Rokesmith.’
‘Do I?’
‘It sounds to me so. Were you one of many children?’ He shook his head.
‘An only child?’
‘No there was another. Dead long ago.’
‘Father or mother alive?’