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looking, clever, and good-humoured; when he began to consider
seriously what was to be done next. On one of his periodical visits,
while he was revolving this question in his mind, the Marchioness
came down to him, alone, looking more smiling and more fresh than
ever. Then, it occurred to him, but not for the first time, that if she
would marry him, how comfortable they might be! So Richard asked
her; whatever she said, it wasn't No; and they were married in good
earnest that day week. Which gave Mr Swiveller frequent occasion to
remark at divers subsequent periods that there had been a young lady
saving up for him after all.
A little cottage at Hampstead being to let, which had in its garden a
smoking-box, the envy of the civilised world, they agreed to become its
tenants, and, when the honey-moon was over, entered upon its
occupation. To this retreat Mr Chuckster repaired regularly every
Sunday to spend the day - usually beginning with breakfast - and
here he was the great purveyor of general news and fashionable
intelligence. For some years he continued a deadly foe to Kit,
protesting that he had a better opinion of him when he was supposed
to have stolen the five-pound note, than when he was shown to be
perfectly free of the crime; inasmuch as his guilt would have had in it
something daring and bold, whereas his innocence was but another
proof of a sneaking and crafty disposition. By slow degrees, however,
he was reconciled to him in the end; and even went so far as to
honour him with his patronage, as one who had in some measure
reformed, and was therefore to be forgiven. But he never forgot or
pardoned that circumstance of the shilling; holding that if he had
come back to get another he would have done well enough, but that
his returning to work out the former gift was a stain upon his moral
character which no penitence or contrition could ever wash away.
Mr Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic
and reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the
smoking-box, and was accustomed at such periods to debate in his
own mind the mysterious question of Sophronia's parentage.
Sophronia herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr Swiveller,
putting various slight circumstances together, often thought Miss
Brass must know better than that; and, having heard from his wife of
her strange interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings
whether that person, in his lifetime, might not also have been able to
solve the riddle, had he chosen. These speculations, however, gave
him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a most cheerful,
affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for an
occasional outbreak with Mr Chuckster, which she had the good
sense rather to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and
domesticated husband. And they played many hundred thousand
games of cribbage together. And let it be added, to Dick's honour,
that, though we have called her Sophronia, he called her the
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