No one is useless in this world who lightens the…

In Book III, chapter 9 of Our Mutual Friend, John Rokesmith, Mr Boffin’s secretary, and Bella Wilfer have attended the burial of old Betty Higden, who died wandering rather than enter the workhouse. Rokesmith asks Bella to speak alone with Lizzie Hexam and find out Lizzie’s feeling on a matter that worries Mr Boffin and, “for a special reason”, himself. Bella agrees, saying that after “the serious scene of to-day” she feels useless enough in this world.

The Secretary answers with this line, then asks: “Not for your father?” Bella melts: “Dear, loving, self-forgetting, easily-satisfied Pa!” It is enough, he says, if her father only thinks so. The reader knows what Bella does not: Rokesmith is John Harmon, the heir believed drowned, whom his father’s will meant her to marry.

Our Mutual Friend, Dickens’s last completed novel, appeared in monthly parts in 1864 and 1865. The line marks Bella’s change from a girl who longs for money to a woman who values love and usefulness.

Our Mutual Friend, Book III, chapter 9 (John Rokesmith to Bella Wilfer), 1865

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