spite of you.'

'I am not afraid of that,' replied Nicholas, shrugging his shoulders
contemptuously, and turning away.

'Ain't you!' retorted Squeers, with a diabolical look. 'Now then, come
along.'

'I leave such society, with my pa, for Hever,' said Miss Squeers,
looking contemptuously and loftily round. 'I am defiled by breathing
the air with such creatures. Poor Mr Browdie! He! he! he! I do pity him,
that I do; he's so deluded. He! he! he!--Artful and designing 'Tilda!'

With this sudden relapse into the sternest and most majestic wrath, Miss
Squeers swept from the room; and having sustained her dignity until the
last possible moment, was heard to sob and scream and struggle in the
passage.

John Browdie remained standing behind the table, looking from his wife
to Nicholas, and back again, with his mouth wide open, until his hand
accidentally fell upon the tankard of ale, when he took it up, and
having obscured his features therewith for some time, drew a long
breath, handed it over to Nicholas, and rang the bell.

'Here, waither,' said John, briskly. 'Look alive here. Tak' these things
awa', and let's have soomat broiled for sooper--vary comfortable and
plenty o' it--at ten o'clock. Bring soom brandy and soom wather, and a
pair o' slippers--the largest pair in the house--and be quick aboot it.
Dash ma wig!' said John, rubbing his hands, 'there's no ganging oot to
neeght, noo, to fetch anybody whoam, and ecod, we'll begin to spend the
evening in airnest.'

CHAPTER 43

Officiates as a kind of Gentleman Usher, in bringing various People
together

The storm had long given place to a calm the most profound, and the
evening was pretty far advanced--indeed supper was over, and the
process of digestion proceeding as favourably as, under the influence of
complete tranquillity, cheerful conversation, and a moderate allowance
of brandy-and-water, most wise men conversant with the anatomy and
functions of the human frame will consider that it ought to have
proceeded, when the three friends, or as one might say, both in a civil
and religious sense, and with proper deference and regard to the holy
state of matrimony, the two friends, (Mr and Mrs Browdie counting as
no more than one,) were startled by the noise of loud and angry
threatenings below stairs, which presently attained so high a pitch,
and were conveyed besides in language so towering, sanguinary, and
ferocious, that it could hardly have been surpass