"Now," said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings, "if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will be!"

     I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.

     "It's only to be hoped," said my sister, "that he won't be Pompeyed. But I have my fears."

     "She ain't in that line, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "She knows better."

     She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows, "She?" Joe looked at me, making the motion with his lips and eyebrows, "She?" My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and looked at her.

     "Well?" said my sister, in her snappish way. "What are you staring at? Is the house afire?"

     "--Which some individual," Joe politely hinted, "mentioned--she."

     "And she is a she, I suppose?" said my sister. "Unless you call Miss Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you'll go so far as that."