‘That was well done!’ panted Bella, slackening
in the next street, and subsiding into a walk.
’If I had left myself any breath to cry with,
I should have cried again. Now poor dear darling
little Pa, you are going to see your lovely woman
unexpectedly.’
THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS
The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made
her way along its gritty streets. Most of its
money-mills were slackening sail, or had left off
grinding for the day. The master-millers had already
departed, and the journeymen were departing.
There was a jaded aspect on the business lanes and
courts, and the very pavements had a weary appearance,
confused by the tread of a million of feet. There
must be hours of night to temper down the day’s
distraction of so feverish a place. As yet the
worry of the newly-stopped whirling and grinding on
the part of the money-mills seemed to linger in the
air, and the quiet was more like the prostration of
a spent giant than the repose of one who was renewing
his strength.
If Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank,
how agreeable it would be to have an hour’s
gardening there, with a bright copper shovel, among
the money, still she was not in an avaricious vein.
Much improved in that respect, and with certain half-formed
images which had little gold in their composition,
dancing before her bright eyes, she arrived in the
drug-flavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the sensation
of having just opened a drawer in a chemist’s
shop.
The counting-house of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles
was pointed out by an elderly female accustomed to
the care of offices, who dropped upon Bella out of
a public-house, wiping her mouth, and accounted for
its humidity on natural principles well known to the
physical sciences, by explaining that she had looked
in at the door to see what o’clock it was.
The counting-house was a wall-eyed ground floor by
a dark gateway, and Bella was considering, as she
approached it, could there be any precedent in the
City for her going in and asking for R. Wilfer, when
whom should she see, sitting at one of the windows
with the plate-glass sash raised, but R. Wilfer himself,
preparing to take a slight refection.
On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection
had the appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth
of milk. Simultaneously with this discovery on
her part, her father discovered her, and invoked the
echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim ‘My gracious
me!’
He then came cherubically flying out without a hat,
and embraced her, and handed her in. ‘For
it’s after hours and I am all alone, my dear,’
he explained, ’and am having—as I
sometimes do when they are all gone—a quiet
tea.’
Looking round the office, as if her father were a
captive and this his cell, Bella hugged him and choked
him to her heart’s content.
