"Ah, sir! You are an old friend, I see," said Mrs. Todgers.
"Yes," said Tom.
"And yet," quoth Mrs. Todgers, shutting the door softly, "she hasn't told you what her troubles are, I'm certain."
Tom was struck by these words, for they were quite true. "Indeed," he said, "she has not."
"And never would," said Mrs. Todgers, "if you saw her daily. She never makes the least complaint to me, or utters a single word of explanation or reproach. But I know," said Mrs. Todgers, drawing in her breath, "I know!"
Tom nodded sorrowfully, "so do I."
"I fully believe," said Mrs. Todgers, taking her pocket-handkerchief from the flat reticule, "that nobody can tell one half of what that poor young creature has to undergo. But though she comes here, constantly, to ease her poor full heart without his knowing it; and saying, 'Mrs. Todgers, I am very low to-day; I think that I shall soon be dead,' sits crying in my room until the fit is past; I know no more from her. And, I believe," said Mrs. Todgers, putting back her handkerchief again, "that she considers me a good friend too."
Mrs. Todgers might have said her best friend. Commercial gentlemen and gravy had tried Mrs. Todgers's temper; the main chance—it was such a very small one in her case, that she might have been excused for looking sharp after it, lest it should entirely vanish from her sight—had taken a firm hold on Mrs. Todgers's attention. But in some odd nook of Mrs. Todgers's breast, up a great many steps, and in a corner easy to be overlooked, there was a secret door, with 'Woman' written on the spring, which at a touch from Mercy's hand had flown wide open, and admitted her for shelter.
When boarding-house accounts are balanced with all other ledgers, and the books of the Recording Angel are made up for ever, perhaps there may be seen an entry to thy credit, lean Mrs. Todgers, which shall make thee beautiful!
She was growing beautiful so rapidly in Tom's eyes; for he saw that she was poor, and that this good had sprung up in her from among the sordid strivings of her life; that she might have been a very Venus in a minute more, if Miss Pecksniff had not entered with her friend.
"Mr. Thomas Pinch!" said Charity, performing the ceremony of introduction with evident pride, "Mr. Moddle. Where's my sister?"
"Gone, Miss Pecksniff," Mrs. Todgers answered. "She had appointed to be home."
"Ah!" sighed Charity, looking at Tom. "Oh, dear me!"
"She's greatly altered since she's been Anoth— since she's been married, Mrs. Todgers!" observed Moddle.
"My dear Augustus!" said Miss Pecksniff, in a low voice, "I verily believe you have said that fifty thousand times, in my hearing. What a Prose you are!"
This was succeeded by some trifling love passages, which appeared to originate with, if not to be wholly carried on by, Miss Pecksniff. At any rate, Mr. Moddle was much slower in his responses than is customary
