第88章

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 the 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, Ishall 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 mamma--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, mamma; what of him?'