Dear me! So long as I heard that he was happy, and he heard that I was,' said Tom's sister, 'we could both bear, without one impatient or complaining thought, a great deal more than ever we have had to endure, I am very certain.' And if ever the plain truth were spoken on this occasionally false earth, Tom's sister spoke it when she said that.
'Ah!' cried Mr Pecksniff whose eyes had in the meantime wandered to the pupil; 'certainly.

And how do YOU do, my very interesting child ?' 'Quite well, I thank you, sir,' replied that frosty innocent.
'A sweet face this, my dears,' said Mr Pecksniff, turning to his daughters.

'A charming manner!' Both young ladies had been in ecstasies with the scion of a wealthy house (through whom the nearest road and shortest cut to her parents might be supposed to lie) from the first.

Mrs Todgers vowed that anything one quarter so angelic she had never seen.

'She wanted but a pair of wings, a dear,' said that good woman, 'to be a young syrup'-- meaning, possibly, young sylph, or seraph.
'If you will give that to your distinguished parents, my amiable little friend,' said Mr Pecksniff, producing one of his professional cards, 'and will say that I and my daughters--' 'And Mrs Todgers, pa,' said Merry.
'And Mrs Todgers, of London,' added Mr Pecksniff; 'that I, and my daughters, and Mrs Todgers, of London, did not intrude upon them, as our object simply was to take some notice of Miss Pinch, whose brother is a young man in my employment; but that I could not leave this very chaste mansion, without adding my humble tribute, as an Architect, to the correctness and elegance of the owner's taste, and to his just appreciation of that beautiful art to the cultivation of which I have devoted a life, and to the promotion of whose glory and advancement I have sacrified a--a fortune--I shall be very much obliged to you.' 'Missis's compliments to Miss Pinch,' said the footman, suddenly appearing, and speaking in exactly the same key as before, 'and begs to know wot my young lady is a-learning of just now.' 'Oh!' said Mr Pecksniff, 'Here is the young man.