Chapter 18

Nicholas Nickleby

by Charles Dickens

Miss Knag, after doting on Kate Nickleby for three whole Days,
makes up her Mind to hate her for evermore. The Causes which led
Miss Knag to form this Resolution

There are many lives of much pain, hardship, and suffering,
which, having no stirring interest for any but those who lead them,
are disregarded by persons who do not want thought or feeling, but
who pamper their compassion and need high stimulants to rouse it.

There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require,
in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of
pleasure in theirs; and hence it is that diseased sympathy and
compassion are every day expended on out-of-the-way objects, when
only too many demands upon the legitimate exercise of the same
virtues in a healthy state, are constantly within the sight and
hearing of the most unobservant person alive. In short, charity must
have its romance, as the novelist or playwright must have his. A
thief in fustian is a vulgar character, scarcely to be thought of by
persons of refinement; but dress him in green velvet, with a
high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his operations, from a
thickly-peopled city, to a mountain road, and you shall find in him
the very soul of poetry and adventure. So it is with the one great
cardinal virtue, which, properly nourished and exercised, leads to,
if it does not necessarily include, all the others. It must have its
romance; and the less of real, hard, struggling work-a-day life there
is in that romance, the better.

The life to which poor Kate Nickleby was devoted, in consequence
of the unforeseen train of circumstances already developed in this
narrative, was a hard one; but lest the very dulness, unhealthy
confinement, and bodily fatigue, which made up its sum and substance,
should deprive it of any interest with the mass of the charitable and
sympathetic, I would rather keep Miss Nickleby herself in view just
now, than chill them in the outset, by a minute and lengthened
description of the establishment presided over by Madame
Mantalini.

'Well, now, indeed, Madame Mantalini,' said Miss Knag, as Kate
was taking her weary way homewards on the first night of her
novitiate; 'that Miss Nickleby is a very creditable young person--a
very creditable young person indeed--hem--upon my word, Madame
Mantalini, it does very extraordinary credit even to your
discrimination that you should have found such a very excellent, very
well-behaved, very--hem--very unassuming young woman to assist in the
fitting on. I have seen some young women when they had the
opportunity of displaying before their betters, behave in such a--oh,
dear--well-- but you're always right, Madame Mantalini, always; and
as I very often tell the young ladies, how you do contrive to be
always right, when so many people are so often wrong, is to me a
mystery indeed.'

'Beyond putting a very excellent client out of humour, Miss
Nickleby has not done anything very remarkable today--that I am aware
of, at least,' said Madame Mantalini in reply.

'Oh, dear!' said Miss Knag; 'but you must allow a great deal for
inexperience, you know.'

'And youth?' inquired Madame.

'Oh, I say nothing about that, Madame Mantalini,' replied Miss
Knag, reddening; 'because if youth were any excuse, you wouldn't
have--'

'Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,' suggested
Madame.

'Well, I never did know anybody like you, Madame Mantalini,'
rejoined Miss Knag most complacently, 'and that's the fact, for you
know what one's going to say, before it has time to rise to one's
lips. Oh, very good! Ha, ha, ha!'

'For myself,' observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with affected
carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in her sleeve,
'I consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl I ever saw in my
life.'

'Poor dear thing,' said Miss Knag, 'it's not her fault. If it
was, we might hope to cure it; but as it's her misfortune, Madame
Mantalini, why really you know, as the man said about the blind
horse, we ought to respect it.'

'Her uncle told me she had been considered pretty,' remarked
Madame Mantalini. 'I think her one of the most ordinary girls I ever
met with.'

'Ordinary!' cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight;
'and awkward! Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite
love the poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-
looking, and twice as awkward as she is, I should be only so much the
more her friend, and that's the truth of it.'

In fact, Miss Knag had conceived an incipient affection for Kate
Nickleby, after witnessing her failure that morning, and this short
conversation with her superior increased the favourable prepossession
to a most surprising extent; which was the more remarkable, as when
she first scanned that young lady's face and figure, she had
entertained certain inward misgivings that they would never agree.

'But now,' said Miss Knag, glancing at the reflection of herself
in a mirror at no great distance, 'I love her--I quite love her--I
declare I do!'

Of such a highly disinterested quality was this devoted
friendship, and so superior was it to the little weaknesses of
flattery or ill- nature, that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly
informed Kate Nickleby, next day, that she saw she would never do for
the business, but that she need not give herself the slightest
uneasiness on this account, for that she (Miss Knag), by increased
exertions on her own part, would keep her as much as possible in the
background, and that all she would have to do, would be to remain
perfectly quiet before company, and to shrink from attracting notice
by every means in her power. This last suggestion was so much in
accordance with the timid girl's own feelings and wishes, that she
readily promised implicit reliance on the excellent spinster's
advice: without questioning, or indeed bestowing a moment's
reflection upon, the motives that dictated it.

'I take quite a lively interest in you, my dear soul, upon my
word,' said Miss Knag; 'a sister's interest, actually. It's the most
singular circumstance I ever knew.'

Undoubtedly it was singular, that if Miss Knag did feel a strong
interest in Kate Nickleby, it should not rather have been the
interest of a maiden aunt or grandmother; that being the conclusion
to which the difference in their respective ages would have naturally
tended. But Miss Knag wore clothes of a very youthful pattern, and
perhaps her feelings took the same shape.

'Bless you!' said Miss Knag, bestowing a kiss upon Kate at the
conclusion of the second day's work, 'how very awkward you have been
all day.'

'I fear your kind and open communication, which has rendered me
more painfully conscious of my own defects, has not improved me,'
sighed Kate.

'No, no, I dare say not,' rejoined Miss Knag, in a most uncommon
flow of good humour. 'But how much better that you should know it at
first, and so be able to go on, straight and comfortable! Which way
are you walking, my love?'

'Towards the city,' replied Kate.

'The city!' cried Miss Knag, regarding herself with great favour
in the glass as she tied her bonnet. 'Goodness gracious me! now do
you really live in the city?'

'Is it so very unusual for anybody to live there?' asked Kate,
half smiling.

'I couldn't have believed it possible that any young woman could
have lived there, under any circumstances whatever, for three days
together,' replied Miss Knag.

'Reduced--I should say poor people,' answered Kate, correcting
herself hastily, for she was afraid of appearing proud, 'must live
where they can.'

'Ah! very true, so they must; very proper indeed!' rejoined Miss
Knag with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three
slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society;
'and that's what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go
away ill, one after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen's rather
too damp for 'em to sleep in. These sort of people, I tell him, are
glad to sleep anywhere! Heaven suits the back to the burden. What a
nice thing it is to think that it should be so, isn't it?'

'Very,' replied Kate.

'I'll walk with you part of the way, my dear,' said Miss Knag,
'for you must go very near our house; and as it's quite dark, and our
last servant went to the hospital a week ago, with St Anthony's fire
in her face, I shall be glad of your company.'

Kate would willingly have excused herself from this flattering
companionship; but Miss Knag having adjusted her bonnet to her entire
satisfaction, took her arm with an air which plainly showed how much
she felt the compliment she was conferring, and they were in the
street before she could say another word.

'I fear,' said Kate, hesitating, 'that mama--my mother, I
mean--is waiting for me.'

'You needn't make the least apology, my dear,' said Miss Knag,
smiling sweetly as she spoke; 'I dare say she is a very respectable
old person, and I shall be quite--hem--quite pleased to know her.'

As poor Mrs Nickleby was cooling--not her heels alone, but her
limbs generally at the street corner, Kate had no alternative but to
make her known to Miss Knag, who, doing the last new carriage
customer at second-hand, acknowledged the introduction with
condescending politeness. The three then walked away, arm in arm:
with Miss Knag in the middle, in a special state of amiability.

'I have taken such a fancy to your daughter, Mrs Nickleby, you
can't think,' said Miss Knag, after she had proceeded a little
distance in dignified silence.

'I am delighted to hear it,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'though it is
nothing new to me, that even strangers should like Kate.'

'Hem!' cried Miss Knag.

'You will like her better when you know how good she is,' said
Mrs Nickleby. 'It is a great blessing to me, in my misfortunes, to
have a child, who knows neither pride nor vanity, and whose
bringing-up might very well have excused a little of both at first.
You don't know what it is to lose a husband, Miss Knag.'

As Miss Knag had never yet known what it was to gain one, it
followed, very nearly as a matter of course, that she didn't know
what it was to lose one; so she said, in some haste, 'No, indeed I
don't,' and said it with an air intending to signify that she should
like to catch herself marrying anybody--no, no, she knew better than
that.

'Kate has improved even in this little time, I have no doubt,'
said Mrs Nickleby, glancing proudly at her daughter.

'Oh! of course,' said Miss Knag.

'And will improve still more,' added Mrs Nickleby.

'That she will, I'll be bound,' replied Miss Knag, squeezing
Kate's arm in her own, to point the joke.

'She always was clever,' said poor Mrs Nickleby, brightening up,
'always, from a baby. I recollect when she was only two years and a
half old, that a gentleman who used to visit very much at our house
--Mr Watkins, you know, Kate, my dear, that your poor papa went bail
for, who afterwards ran away to the United States, and sent us a pair
of snow shoes, with such an affectionate letter that it made your
poor dear father cry for a week. You remember the letter? In which
he said that he was very sorry he couldn't repay the fifty pounds
just then, because his capital was all out at interest, and he was
very busy making his fortune, but that he didn't forget you were his
god-daughter, and he should take it very unkind if we didn't buy you
a silver coral and put it down to his old account? Dear me, yes, my
dear, how stupid you are! and spoke so affectionately of the old port
wine that he used to drink a bottle and a half of every time he came.
You must remember, Kate?'

'Yes, yes, mama; what of him?'

'Why, that Mr Watkins, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby slowly, as if
she were making a tremendous effort to recollect something of
paramount importance; 'that Mr Watkins--he wasn't any relation, Miss
Knag will understand, to the Watkins who kept the Old Boar in the
village; by- the-bye, I don't remember whether it was the Old Boar or
the George the Third, but it was one of the two, I know, and it's
much the same--that Mr Watkins said, when you were only two years and
a half old, that you were one of the most astonishing children he
ever saw. He did indeed, Miss Knag, and he wasn't at all fond of
children, and couldn't have had the slightest motive for doing it. I
know it was he who said so, because I recollect, as well as if it was
only yesterday, his borrowing twenty pounds of her poor dear papa the
very moment afterwards.'

Having quoted this extraordinary and most disinterested
testimony to her daughter's excellence, Mrs Nickleby stopped to
breathe; and Miss Knag, finding that the discourse was turning upon
family greatness, lost no time in striking in, with a small
reminiscence on her own account.

'Don't talk of lending money, Mrs Nickleby,' said Miss Knag, 'or
you'll drive me crazy, perfectly crazy. My mama--hem--was the most
lovely and beautiful creature, with the most striking and exquisite
--hem--the most exquisite nose that ever was put upon a human face, I
do believe, Mrs Nickleby (here Miss Knag rubbed her own nose
sympathetically); the most delightful and accomplished woman,
perhaps, that ever was seen; but she had that one failing of lending
money, and carried it to such an extent that she lent--hem--oh!
thousands of pounds, all our little fortunes, and what's more, Mrs
Nickleby, I don't think, if we were to live till--till--hem--till the
very end of time, that we should ever get them back again. I don't
indeed.'

After concluding this effort of invention without being
interrupted, Miss Knag fell into many more recollections, no less
interesting than true, the full tide of which, Mrs Nickleby in vain
attempting to stem, at length sailed smoothly down by adding an
under-current of her own recollections; and so both ladies went on
talking together in perfect contentment; the only difference between
them being, that whereas Miss Knag addressed herself to Kate, and
talked very loud, Mrs Nickleby kept on in one unbroken monotonous
flow, perfectly satisfied to be talking and caring very little
whether anybody listened or not.

In this manner they walked on, very amicably, until they arrived
at Miss Knag's brother's, who was an ornamental stationer and small
circulating library keeper, in a by-street off Tottenham Court Road;
and who let out by the day, week, month, or year, the newest old
novels, whereof the titles were displayed in pen-and-ink characters
on a sheet of pasteboard, swinging at his door-post. As Miss Knag
happened, at the moment, to be in the middle of an account of her
twenty-second offer from a gentleman of large property, she insisted
upon their all going in to supper together; and in they went.

'Don't go away, Mortimer,' said Miss Knag as they entered the
shop. 'It's only one of our young ladies and her mother. Mrs and
Miss Nickleby.'

'Oh, indeed!' said Mr Mortimer Knag. 'Ah!'

Having given utterance to these ejaculations with a very
profound and thoughtful air, Mr Knag slowly snuffed two kitchen
candles on the counter, and two more in the window, and then snuffed
himself from a box in his waistcoat pocket.

There was something very impressive in the ghostly air with
which all this was done; and as Mr Knag was a tall lank gentleman of
solemn features, wearing spectacles, and garnished with much less
hair than a gentleman bordering on forty, or thereabouts, usually
boasts, Mrs Nickleby whispered her daughter that she thought he must
be literary.

'Past ten,' said Mr Knag, consulting his watch. 'Thomas, close
the warehouse.'

Thomas was a boy nearly half as tall as a shutter, and the
warehouse was a shop about the size of three hackney coaches.

'Ah!' said Mr Knag once more, heaving a deep sigh as he restored
to its parent shelf the book he had been reading. 'Well--yes--I
believe supper is ready, sister.'

With another sigh Mr Knag took up the kitchen candles from the
counter, and preceded the ladies with mournful steps to a back-
parlour, where a charwoman, employed in the absence of the sick
servant, and remunerated with certain eighteenpences to be deducted
from her wages due, was putting the supper out.

'Mrs Blockson,' said Miss Knag, reproachfully, 'how very often I
have begged you not to come into the room with your bonnet on!'

'I can't help it, Miss Knag,' said the charwoman, bridling up on
the shortest notice. 'There's been a deal o'cleaning to do in this
house, and if you don't like it, I must trouble you to look out for
somebody else, for it don't hardly pay me, and that's the truth, if I
was to be hung this minute.'

'I don't want any remarks if you please,' said Miss Knag, with a
strong emphasis on the personal pronoun. 'Is there any fire
downstairs for some hot water presently?'

'No there is not, indeed, Miss Knag,' replied the substitute;
'and so I won't tell you no stories about it.'

'Then why isn't there?' said Miss Knag.

'Because there arn't no coals left out, and if I could make
coals I would, but as I can't I won't, and so I make bold to tell
you, Mem,' replied Mrs Blockson.

'Will you hold your tongue--female?' said Mr Mortimer Knag,
plunging violently into this dialogue.

'By your leave, Mr Knag,' retorted the charwoman, turning sharp
round. 'I'm only too glad not to speak in this house, excepting when
and where I'm spoke to, sir; and with regard to being a female, sir,
I should wish to know what you considered yourself?'

'A miserable wretch,' exclaimed Mr Knag, striking his forehead.
'A miserable wretch.'

'I'm very glad to find that you don't call yourself out of your
name, sir,' said Mrs Blockson; 'and as I had two twin children the
day before yesterday was only seven weeks, and my little Charley fell
down a airy and put his elber out, last Monday, I shall take it as a
favour if you'll send nine shillings, for one week's work, to my
house, afore the clock strikes ten tomorrow.'

With these parting words, the good woman quitted the room with
great ease of manner, leaving the door wide open; Mr Knag, at the
same moment, flung himself into the 'warehouse,' and groaned
aloud.

'What is the matter with that gentleman, pray?' inquired Mrs
Nickleby, greatly disturbed by the sound.

'Is he ill?' inquired Kate, really alarmed.

'Hush!' replied Miss Knag; 'a most melancholy history. He was
once most devotedly attached to--hem--to Madame Mantalini.'

'Bless me!' exclaimed Mrs Nickleby.

'Yes,' continued Miss Knag, 'and received great encouragement
too, and confidently hoped to marry her. He has a most romantic
heart, Mrs Nickleby, as indeed--hem--as indeed all our family have,
and the disappointment was a dreadful blow. He is a wonderfully
accomplished man--most extraordinarily accomplished--reads--hem--
reads every novel that comes out; I mean every novel that--hem--that
has any fashion in it, of course. The fact is, that he did find so
much in the books he read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did
find himself in every respect so much like the heroes--because of
course he is conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and
very naturally--that he took to scorning everything, and became a
genius; and I am quite sure that he is, at this very present moment,
writing another book.'

'Another book!' repeated Kate, finding that a pause was left for
somebody to say something.

'Yes,' said Miss Knag, nodding in great triumph; 'another book,
in three volumes post octavo. Of course it's a great advantage to
him, in all his little fashionable descriptions, to have the benefit
of my--hem--of my experience, because, of course, few authors who
write about such things can have such opportunities of knowing them
as I have. He's so wrapped up in high life, that the least allusion
to business or worldly matters--like that woman just now, for
instance-- quite distracts him; but, as I often say, I think his
disappointment a great thing for him, because if he hadn't been
disappointed he couldn't have written about blighted hopes and all
that; and the fact is, if it hadn't happened as it has, I don't
believe his genius would ever have come out at all.'

How much more communicative Miss Knag might have become under
more favourable circumstances, it is impossible to divine, but as the
gloomy one was within ear-shot, and the fire wanted making up, her
disclosures stopped here. To judge from all appearances, and the
difficulty of making the water warm, the last servant could not have
been much accustomed to any other fire than St Anthony's; but a
little brandy and water was made at last, and the guests, having been
previously regaled with cold leg of mutton and bread and cheese, soon
afterwards took leave; Kate amusing herself, all the way home, with
the recollection of her last glimpse of Mr Mortimer Knag deeply
abstracted in the shop; and Mrs Nickleby by debating within herself
whether the dressmaking firm would ultimately become 'Mantalini,
Knag, and Nickleby', or 'Mantalini, Nickleby, and Knag'.

At this high point, Miss Knag's friendship remained for three
whole days, much to the wonderment of Madame Mantalini's young ladies
who had never beheld such constancy in that quarter, before; but on
the fourth, it received a check no less violent than sudden, which
thus occurred.

It happened that an old lord of great family, who was going to
marry a young lady of no family in particular, came with the young
lady, and the young lady's sister, to witness the ceremony of trying
on two nuptial bonnets which had been ordered the day before, and
Madame Mantalini announcing the fact, in a shrill treble, through the
speaking-pipe, which communicated with the workroom, Miss Knag darted
hastily upstairs with a bonnet in each hand, and presented herself in
the show-room, in a charming state of palpitation, intended to
demonstrate her enthusiasm in the cause. The bonnets were no sooner
fairly on, than Miss Knag and Madame Mantalini fell into convulsions
of admiration.

'A most elegant appearance,' said Madame Mantalini.

'I never saw anything so exquisite in all my life,' said Miss
Knag.

Now, the old lord, who was a very old lord, said nothing, but
mumbled and chuckled in a state of great delight, no less with the
nuptial bonnets and their wearers, than with his own address in
getting such a fine woman for his wife; and the young lady, who was a
very lively young lady, seeing the old lord in this rapturous
condition, chased the old lord behind a cheval-glass, and then and
there kissed him, while Madame Mantalini and the other young lady
looked, discreetly, another way.

But, pending the salutation, Miss Knag, who was tinged with
curiosity, stepped accidentally behind the glass, and encountered the
lively young lady's eye just at the very moment when she kissed the
old lord; upon which the young lady, in a pouting manner, murmured
something about 'an old thing,' and 'great impertinence,' and
finished by darting a look of displeasure at Miss Knag, and smiling
contemptuously.

'Madame Mantalini,' said the young lady.

'Ma'am,' said Madame Mantalini.

'Pray have up that pretty young creature we saw yesterday.'

'Oh yes, do,' said the sister.

'Of all things in the world, Madame Mantalini,' said the lord's
intended, throwing herself languidly on a sofa, 'I hate being waited
upon by frights or elderly persons. Let me always see that young
creature, I beg, whenever I come.'

'By all means,' said the old lord; 'the lovely young creature,
by all means.'

'Everybody is talking about her,' said the young lady, in the
same careless manner; 'and my lord, being a great admirer of beauty,
must positively see her.'

'She is universally admired,' replied Madame Mantalini. 'Miss
Knag, send up Miss Nickleby. You needn't return.'

'I beg your pardon, Madame Mantalini, what did you say last?'
asked Miss Knag, trembling.

'You needn't return,' repeated the superior, sharply. Miss Knag
vanished without another word, and in all reasonable time was
replaced by Kate, who took off the new bonnets and put on the old
ones: blushing very much to find that the old lord and the two young
ladies were staring her out of countenance all the time.

'Why, how you colour, child!' said the lord's chosen bride.

'She is not quite so accustomed to her business, as she will be
in a week or two,' interposed Madame Mantalini with a gracious
smile.

'I am afraid you have been giving her some of your wicked looks,
my lord,' said the intended.

'No, no, no,' replied the old lord, 'no, no, I'm going to be
married, and lead a new life. Ha, ha, ha! a new life, a new life!
ha, ha, ha!'

It was a satisfactory thing to hear that the old gentleman was
going to lead a new life, for it was pretty evident that his old one
would not last him much longer. The mere exertion of protracted
chuckling reduced him to a fearful ebb of coughing and gasping; it
was some minutes before he could find breath to remark that the girl
was too pretty for a milliner.

'I hope you don't think good looks a disqualification for the
business, my lord,' said Madame Mantalini, simpering.

'Not by any means,' replied the old lord, 'or you would have
left it long ago.'

'You naughty creature,' said the lively lady, poking the peer
with her parasol; 'I won't have you talk so. How dare you?'

This playful inquiry was accompanied with another poke, and
another, and then the old lord caught the parasol, and wouldn't give
it up again, which induced the other lady to come to the rescue, and
some very pretty sportiveness ensued.

'You will see that those little alterations are made, Madame
Mantalini,' said the lady. 'Nay, you bad man, you positively shall
go first; I wouldn't leave you behind with that pretty girl, not for
half a second. I know you too well. Jane, my dear, let him go
first, and we shall be quite sure of him.'

The old lord, evidently much flattered by this suspicion,
bestowed a grotesque leer upon Kate as he passed; and, receiving
another tap with the parasol for his wickedness, tottered downstairs
to the door, where his sprightly body was hoisted into the carriage
by two stout footmen.

'Foh!' said Madame Mantalini, 'how he ever gets into a carriage
without thinking of a hearse, I can't think. There, take the things
away, my dear, take them away.'

Kate, who had remained during the whole scene with her eyes
modestly fixed upon the ground, was only too happy to avail herself
of the permission to retire, and hasten joyfully downstairs to Miss
Knag's dominion.

The circumstances of the little kingdom had greatly changed,
however, during the short period of her absence. In place of Miss
Knag being stationed in her accustomed seat, preserving all the
dignity and greatness of Madame Mantalini's representative, that
worthy soul was reposing on a large box, bathed in tears, while three
or four of the young ladies in close attendance upon her, together
with the presence of hartshorn, vinegar, and other restoratives,
would have borne ample testimony, even without the derangement of the
head-dress and front row of curls, to her having fainted
desperately.

'Bless me!' said Kate, stepping hastily forward, 'what is the
matter?'

This inquiry produced in Miss Knag violent symptoms of a
relapse; and several young ladies, darting angry looks at Kate,
applied more vinegar and hartshorn, and said it was 'a shame.'

'What is a shame?' demanded Kate. 'What is the matter? What
has happened? tell me.'

'Matter!' cried Miss Knag, coming, all at once, bolt upright, to
the great consternation of the assembled maidens; 'matter! Fie upon
you, you nasty creature!'

'Gracious!' cried Kate, almost paralysed by the violence with
which the adjective had been jerked out from between Miss Knag's
closed teeth; 'have I offended you?'

'You offended me!' retorted Miss Knag, 'You! a chit, a child, an
upstart nobody! Oh, indeed! Ha, ha!'

Now, it was evident, as Miss Knag laughed, that something struck
her as being exceedingly funny; and as the young ladies took their
tone from Miss Knag--she being the chief--they all got up a laugh
without a moment's delay, and nodded their heads a little, and smiled
sarcastically to each other, as much as to say how very good that
was!

'Here she is,' continued Miss Knag, getting off the box, and
introducing Kate with much ceremony and many low curtseys to the
delighted throng; 'here she is--everybody is talking about her--the
belle, ladies--the beauty, the--oh, you bold-faced thing!'

At this crisis, Miss Knag was unable to repress a virtuous
shudder, which immediately communicated itself to all the young
ladies; after which, Miss Knag laughed, and after that, cried.

'For fifteen years,' exclaimed Miss Knag, sobbing in a most
affecting manner, 'for fifteen years have I been the credit and
ornament of this room and the one upstairs. Thank God,' said Miss
Knag, stamping first her right foot and then her left with remarkable
energy, 'I have never in all that time, till now, been exposed to the
arts, the vile arts, of a creature, who disgraces us with all her
proceedings, and makes proper people blush for themselves. But I
feel it, I do feel it, although I am disgusted.'

Miss Knag here relapsed into softness, and the young ladies
renewing their attentions, murmured that she ought to be superior to
such things, and that for their part they despised them, and
considered them beneath their notice; in witness whereof, they called
out, more emphatically than before, that it was a shame, and that
they felt so angry, they did, they hardly knew what to do with
themselves.

'Have I lived to this day to be called a fright!' cried Miss
Knag, suddenly becoming convulsive, and making an effort to tear her
front off.

'Oh no, no,' replied the chorus, 'pray don't say so; don't
now!'

'Have I deserved to be called an elderly person?' screamed Miss
Knag, wrestling with the supernumeraries.

'Don't think of such things, dear,' answered the chorus.

'I hate her,' cried Miss Knag; 'I detest and hate her. Never
let her speak to me again; never let anybody who is a friend of mine
speak to her; a slut, a hussy, an impudent artful hussy!' Having
denounced the object of her wrath, in these terms, Miss Knag screamed
once, hiccuped thrice, gurgled in her throat several times,
slumbered, shivered, woke, came to, composed her head-dress, and
declared herself quite well again.

Poor Kate had regarded these proceedings, at first, in perfect
bewilderment. She had then turned red and pale by turns, and once or
twice essayed to speak; but, as the true motives of this altered
behaviour developed themselves, she retired a few paces, and looked
calmly on without deigning a reply. Nevertheless, although she
walked proudly to her seat, and turned her back upon the group of
little satellites who clustered round their ruling planet in the
remotest corner of the room, she gave way, in secret, to some such
bitter tears as would have gladdened Miss Knag's inmost soul, if she
could have seen them fall.