hat you should suppose me capable of such a thing. All
I say is, what step is the best to take, so as to reject these advances
civilly and delicately, and without hurting his feelings too much,
and driving him to despair, or anything of that kind? My goodness me!'
exclaimed Mrs Nickleby, with a half-simper, 'suppose he was to go doing
anything rash to himself. Could I ever be happy again, Nicholas?'

Despite his vexation and concern, Nicholas could scarcely help smiling,
as he rejoined, 'Now, do you think, mother, that such a result would be
likely to ensue from the most cruel repulse?'

'Upon my word, my dear, I don't know,' returned Mrs Nickleby; 'really,
I don't know. I am sure there was a case in the day before yesterday's
paper, extracted from one of the French newspapers, about a journeyman
shoemaker who was jealous of a young girl in an adjoining
village, because she wouldn't shut herself up in an air-tight
three-pair-of-stairs, and charcoal herself to death with him; and who
went and hid himself in a wood with a sharp-pointed knife, and rushed
out, as she was passing by with a few friends, and killed himself first,
and then all the friends, and then her--no, killed all the friends
first, and then herself, and then HIMself--which it is quite frightful
to think of. Somehow or other,' added Mrs Nickleby, after a momentary
pause, 'they always ARE journeyman shoemakers who do these things in
France, according to the papers. I don't know how it is--something in
the leather, I suppose.'

'But this man, who is not a shoemaker--what has he done, mother, what
has he said?' inquired Nicholas, fretted almost beyond endurance, but
looking nearly as resigned and patient as Mrs Nickleby herself. 'You
know, there is no language of vegetables, which converts a cucumber into
a formal declaration of attachment.'

'My dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, tossing her head and looking at the
ashes in the grate, 'he has done and said all sorts of things.'

'Is there no mistake on your part?' asked Nicholas.

'Mistake!' cried Mrs Nickleby. 'Lord, Nicholas my dear, do you suppose I
don't know when a man's in earnest?'

'Well, well!' muttered Nicholas.

'Every time I go to the window,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'he kisses one hand,
and lays the other upon his heart--of course it's very foolish of him
to do so, and I dare say you'll say it's very wrong, but he does it very
respectfully--very respectfully indeed--and very tenderly, extremely
ten