'She must take her chance. She must take her
chance.'
CHAPTER 27
Mrs Nickleby becomes acquainted with Messrs Pyke and Pluck, whose
Affection and Interest are beyond all Bounds
Mrs Nickleby had not felt so proud and important for many a day, as
when, on reaching home, she gave herself wholly up to the pleasant
visions which had accompanied her on her way thither. Lady Mulberry
Hawk--that was the prevalent idea. Lady Mulberry Hawk!--On Tuesday last,
at St George's, Hanover Square, by the Right Reverend the Bishop
of Llandaff, Sir Mulberry Hawk, of Mulberry Castle, North Wales, to
Catherine, only daughter of the late Nicholas Nickleby, Esquire, of
Devonshire. 'Upon my word!' cried Mrs Nicholas Nickleby, 'it sounds very
well.'
Having dispatched the ceremony, with its attendant festivities, to the
perfect satisfaction of her own mind, the sanguine mother pictured to
her imagination a long train of honours and distinctions which could
not fail to accompany Kate in her new and brilliant sphere. She would be
presented at court, of course. On the anniversary of her birthday, which
was upon the nineteenth of July ('at ten minutes past three o'clock in
the morning,' thought Mrs Nickleby in a parenthesis, 'for I recollect
asking what o'clock it was'), Sir Mulberry would give a great feast to
all his tenants, and would return them three and a half per cent on the
amount of their last half-year's rent, as would be fully described and
recorded in the fashionable intelligence, to the immeasurable delight
and admiration of all the readers thereof.
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