We shall be very glad to have you for
a neighbour--very glad; delighted, I'm sure--but in any other character
it's quite impossible, quite. As to my being young enough to marry
again, that perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn't think
of it for an instant, not on any account whatever. I said I never would,
and I never will. It's a very painful thing to have to reject proposals,
and I would much rather that none were made; at the same time this is
the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this is the answer I
shall always give.'
These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman, partly to
Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy. Towards their conclusion, the
suitor evinced a very irreverent degree of inattention, and Mrs Nickleby
had scarcely finished speaking, when, to the great terror both of that
lady and her daughter, he suddenly flung off his coat, and springing on
the top of the wall, threw himself into an attitude which displayed his
small-clothes and grey worsteds to the fullest advantage, and concluded
by standing on one leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with
increased vehemence.
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