File:Our mutual friend (1895) (14758077796).jpg

Identifier: ourmutualfriend00dick (find matches)
Title: Our mutual friend
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 Dickens, Charles, 1837-1896, ed
Subjects: Inheritance and succession Social classes Poor families Deception
Publisher: New York, London, Macmillan
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ite young children. He was under thenecessity of teaching and translating from the classics, to eke outhis scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time tospare than the idlest person in the parish, and more money thanthe richest. He accepted the needless inequalities and inconsis-tencies of his life, with a kind of conventional submission that wasalmost slavish; and any daring layman who would have adjustedsuch burdens as his, more decently and graciously, would have hadsmall help from him. With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latentsmile that showed a quick enough observation of Mrs. Boffinsdress, Mr. Milvey, in his little back-room — charged with soundsand cries as though the six children above were coming downthrough the ceiling, and the roasting leg of mutton below werecoming up through the floor — listened to Mrs. Boffins statementof her want of an orphan. I think, said Mr. Milvey, that you have never had a childof your own, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin ?
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THE BOFFIX PROGRESS. 98 OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. Never. But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I supposeyou have wished for one 1 In a general way, yes, Mr. Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself, Thosekings and queens were always wishing for children. It occurredto him, perhaps, that if they had been Curates, their wishes mighthave tended in the opposite direction. I think, he pursued, we had better take Mrs. Milvey intoour Council. Slie is indispensable to me. If you please, Ill callher. So, Mr. Milvey called, Margaretta, my dear! and Mrs.Milvey came down. A pretty, bright little woman, somethingworn by anxiety, who had repressed many pretty tastes and brightfancies, and substituted in their stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals,and all the week-day cares and Sunday coughs of a large popula-tion, young and old. As gallantly had Mr. Milvey repressed muchin himself that naturally belonged to his old studies and oldfellow-students, and taken up among the poor and their chi

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