>I figure "white" just goes along with "highly respectable" in the 
>conventional rhetorical litany of attributes accorded a woman one is proud 
>to have in one's company, at that declarative time  But...who WAS that 
>white woman?

Olivia Langdon, I'd assume. I think he was courting her by that time, and I 
seem to recall they went to see Dickens at least once together. And in a 
more subjective vein, he really does sound like a proud suitor in this 
passage -- to my ears, anyway.

As for the use of "white," I've always taken that as something of a joke.

-- Bob G.