ect and sorrow for
the dead, they became converted into signals of very slaughterous and
killing designs upon the living.

Mrs Nickleby might have been stimulated to this proceeding by a lofty
sense of duty, and impulses of unquestionable excellence. She might, by
this time, have become impressed with the sinfulness of long indulgence
in unavailing woe, or the necessity of setting a proper example of
neatness and decorum to her blooming daughter. Considerations of duty
and responsibility apart, the change might have taken its rise in
feelings of the purest and most disinterested charity. The gentleman
next door had been vilified by Nicholas; rudely stigmatised as a dotard
and an idiot; and for these attacks upon his understanding, Mrs Nickleby
was, in some sort, accountable. She might have felt that it was the act
of a good Christian to show by all means in her power, that the abused
gentleman was neither the one nor the other. And what better means could
she adopt, towards so virtuous and laudable an end, than proving to
all men, in her own person, that his passion was the most rational and
reasonable in the world, and just the very result, of all others, which
discreet and thinking persons might have foreseen, from her incautiously
displaying her matured charms, without reserve, under the very eye, as
it were, of an ardent and too-susceptible man?

'Ah!' said Mrs Nickleby, gravely shaking her head; 'if Nicholas knew
what his poor dear papa suffered before we were engaged, when I used to
hate him, he would have a little more feeling. Shall I ever forget the
morning I looked scornfully at him when he offered to carry my parasol?
Or that night, when I frowned at him? It was a mercy he didn't emigrate.
It very nearly drove him to it.'

Whether the deceased might not have been better off if he had emigrated
in his bachelor days, was a question which his relict did not stop to
consider; for Kate entered the room, with her workbox, in this stage of
her reflections; and a much slighter interruption, or no interruption at
all, would have diverted Mrs Nickleby's thoughts into a new channel at
any time.

'Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'I don't know how it is, but a fine
warm summer day like this, with the birds singing in every direction,
always puts me in mind of roast pig, with sage and onion sauce, and made
gravy.'

'That's a curious association of ideas, is it not, mama?'

'Upon my word, my dear, I don't know,' r