twinkling at the
idea. 'He'll be in luck, he will.'

'You see, Mr Nickleby,' said his wife, 'that it was in consequence of
her being here, that John wrote to you and fixed tonight, because we
thought that it wouldn't be pleasant for you to meet, after what has
passed.'

'Unquestionably. You were quite right in that,' said Nicholas,
interrupting.

'Especially,' observed Mrs Browdie, looking very sly, 'after what we
know about past and gone love matters.'

'We know, indeed!' said Nicholas, shaking his head. 'You behaved rather
wickedly there, I suspect.'

'O' course she did,' said John Browdie, passing his huge forefinger
through one of his wife's pretty ringlets, and looking very proud of
her. 'She wur always as skittish and full o' tricks as a--'

'Well, as a what?' said his wife.

'As a woman,' returned John. 'Ding! But I dinnot know ought else that
cooms near it.'

'You were speaking about Miss Squeers,' said Nicholas, with the view of
stopping some slight connubialities which had begun to pass between Mr
and Mrs Browdie, and which rendered the position of a third party in
some degree embarrassing, as occasioning him to feel rather in the way
than otherwise.

'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--th