''Tis true, and you shall find it so. I have no more words to waste.
Stand from the door. Kate, do you go first. Lay not a hand on her, or on
that woman, or on me, or so much a brush their garments as they pass you
by!--You let them pass, and he blocks the door again!'
Arthur Gride happened to be in the doorway, but whether intentionally
or from confusion was not quite apparent. Nicholas swung him away, with
such violence as to cause him to spin round the room until he was caught
by a sharp angle of the wall, and there knocked down; and then taking
his beautiful burden in his arms rushed out. No one cared to stop him,
if any were so disposed. Making his way through a mob of people, whom a
report of the circumstances had attracted round the house, and carrying
Madeline, in his excitement, as easily as if she were an infant, he
reached the coach in which Kate and the girl were already waiting, and,
confiding his charge to them, jumped up beside the coachman and bade him
drive away.
CHAPTER 55
Of Family Matters, Cares, Hopes, Disappointments, and Sorrows
Although Mrs Nickleby had been made acquainted by her son and daughter
with every circumstance of Madeline Bray's history which was known to
them; although the responsible situation in which Nicholas stood had
been carefully explained to her, and she had been prepared, even for
the possible contingency of having to receive the young lady in her
own house, improbable as such a result had appeared only a few minutes
before it came about, still, Mrs Nickleby, from the moment when this
confidence was first reposed in her, late on the previous evening, had
remained in an unsatisfactory and profoundly mystified state, from which
no explanations or arguments could relieve her, and which every fresh
soliloquy and reflection only aggravated more and more.
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