‘You do not, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, ‘inquire for your daughter Bella.’
‘To be sure, my dear,’ he returned, with a most flagrant assumption of unconsciousness, ‘I did omit it. How—or perhaps I should rather say where—is Bella?’
‘Not here,’ Mrs Wilfer proclaimed, with folded arms.
The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of ‘Oh, indeed, my dear!’
‘Not here,’ repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. ‘In a word, R. W., you have no daughter Bella.’
‘No daughter Bella, my dear?’
‘No. Your daughter Bella,’ said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of never having had the least copartnership in that young lady: of whom she now made reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband had set up entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to her advice: ‘—your daughter Bella has bestowed herself upon a Mendicant.’
‘Good gracious, my dear!’
‘Show your father his daughter Bella’s letter, Lavinia,’ said Mrs Wilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament tone, and waving her hand. ‘I think your father will admit it to be documentary proof of what I tell him. I believe your father is acquainted with his daughter Bella’s writing. But I do not know. He may tell you he is not. Nothing will surprise me.’
‘Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,’ said the Irrepressible, flouncing at her father in handing him the evidence. ‘Hopes Ma won’t be angry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, and didn’t mention it beforehand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and love to me, and I should like to know what you’d have said if any other unmarried member of the family had done it!’