 soften the most rugged nature.«
    But it didn't at all soften Miss Pecksniff: perhaps because her nature was
not rugged enough. On the contrary, she persisted in saying, over and over
again, that she wasn't quite a fool, and wasn't blind, and wouldn't submit to
it.
    »You labour under some mistake, my child!« said Mr. Pecksniff: »but I will
not ask you what it is; I don't desire to know. No, pray!« he added, holding out
his hand and colouring again, »let us avoid the subject, my dear, whatever it
is!«
    »It's quite right that the subject should be avoided between us, sir,« said
Cherry. »But I wish to be able to avoid it altogether, and consequently must beg
you to provide me with a home.«
    Mr. Pecksniff looked about the room, and said »A home, my child!«
    »Another home, Papa,« said Cherry with increasing stateliness. »Place me at
Mrs. Todgers's or somewhere, on an independent footing; but I will not live
here, if such is to be the case.«
    It is possible that Miss Pecksniff saw in Mrs. Todgers's a vision of
enthusiastic men, pining to fall, in adoration, at her feet. It is possible that
Mr. Pecksniff, in his new-born juvenility, saw in the suggestion of that same
establishment, an easy means of relieving himself from an irksome charge in the
way of temper and watchfulness. It is undoubtedly a fact that in the attentive
ears of Mr. Pecksniff, the proposition did not sound quite like the dismal knell
of all his hopes.
    But he was a man of great feeling, and acute sensibility; and he squeezed
his pocket-handkerchief against his eyes with both hands - as such men always
do: especially when they are observed. »One of my birds,« Mr. Pecksniff said,
»has left me for the stranger's breast; the other would take wing to Todgers's!
Well, well, what am I? I don't know what I am, exactly. Never mind!«
    Even this remark, made more pathetic perhaps by his breaking down in the
middle of it, had no effect upon Charity. She was grim, rigid, and inflexible.
    »But I have ever,« said Mr. Pecksniff, »sacrificed my children's happiness
to my own - I mean my own happiness to my
