'
'Oh! mama,' said Kate, raising her face again, 'you know I do.'
'Well then, my dear, why don't you praise the neatness and prettiness
with which it's kept?' said Mrs Nickleby. 'How very odd you are, Kate!'
'I do praise it, mama,' answered Kate, gently. 'Poor fellow!'
'I scarcely ever hear you, my dear,' retorted Mrs Nickleby; 'that's all
I've got to say.' By this time the good lady had been a long while upon
one topic, so she fell at once into her daughter's little trap, if trap
it were, and inquired what she had been going to say.
'About what, mama?' said Kate, who had apparently quite forgotten her
diversion.
'Lor, Kate, my dear,' returned her mother, 'why, you're asleep or
stupid! About the time before I was married.'
'Oh yes!' said Kate, 'I remember. I was going to ask, mama, before you
were married, had you many suitors?'
'Suitors, my dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful
complacency. 'First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at least.'
'Mama!' returned Kate, in a tone of remonstrance.
'I had indeed, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'not including your poor
papa, or a young gentleman who used to go, at that time, to the same
dancing school, and who WOULD send gold watches and bracelets to
our house in gilt-edged paper, (which were always returned,) and who
afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet ship--a
convict ship I mean--and escaped into a bush and killed sheep, (I don't
know how they got there,) and was going to be hung, only he accidentally
choked himself, and the government pardoned him.
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