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.
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