'Oh yes,' rejoined Mrs Browdie. 'John ha' done. John fixed tonight,
because she had settled that she would go and drink tea with her father.
And to make quite sure of there being nothing amiss, and of your being
quite alone with us, he settled to go out there and fetch her home.'
'That was a very good arrangement,' said Nicholas, 'though I am sorry to
be the occasion of so much trouble.'
'Not the least in the world,' returned Mrs Browdie; 'for we have
looked forward to see you--John and I have--with the greatest possible
pleasure. Do you know, Mr Nickleby,' said Mrs Browdie, with her archest
smile, 'that I really think Fanny Squeers was very fond of you?'
'I am very much obliged to her,' said Nicholas; 'but upon my word, I
never aspired to making any impression upon her virgin heart.'
'How you talk!' tittered Mrs Browdie. 'No, but do you know that
really--seriously now and without any joking--I was given to understand
by Fanny herself, that you had made an offer to her, and that you two
were going to be engaged quite solemn and regular.'
'Was you, ma'am--was you?' cried a shrill female voice, 'was you given
to understand that I--I--was going to be engaged to an assassinating
thief that shed the gore of my pa? Do you--do you think, ma'am--that I
was very fond of such dirt beneath my feet, as I couldn't condescend to
touch with kitchen tongs, without blacking and crocking myself by the
contract? Do you, ma'am--do you? Oh! base and degrading 'Tilda!'
With these reproaches Miss Squeers flung the door wide open, and
disclosed to the eyes of the astonished Browdies and Nicholas, not only
her own symmetrical form, arrayed in the chaste white garments before
described (a little dirtier), but the form of her brother and father,
the pair of Wackfords.
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