ughing heartily, gratified his
hearers with a very long, very loud, and most melodious bellow.

But still Mrs Nickleby, in reply to the significant looks of all about
her, shook her head as though to assure them that she saw nothing
whatever in all this, unless, indeed, it were a slight degree of
eccentricity. She might have remained impressed with these opinions
down to the latest moment of her life, but for a slight train of
circumstances, which, trivial as they were, altered the whole complexion
of the case.

It happened that Miss La Creevy, finding her patient in no very
threatening condition, and being strongly impelled by curiosity to see
what was going forward, bustled into the room while the old gentleman
was in the very act of bellowing. It happened, too, that the instant the
old gentleman saw her, he stopped short, skipped suddenly on his feet,
and fell to kissing his hand violently: a change of demeanour which
almost terrified the little portrait painter out of her senses, and
caused her to retreat behind Tim Linkinwater with the utmost expedition.

'Aha!' cried the old gentleman, folding his hands, and squeezing them
with great force against each other. 'I see her now; I see her now! My
love, my life, my bride, my peerless beauty. She is come at last--at
last--and all is gas and gaiters!'

Mrs Nickleby looked rather disconcerted for a moment, but immediately
recovering, nodded to Miss La Creevy and the other spectators several
times, and frowned, and smiled gravely, giving them to understand that
she saw where the mistake was, and would set it all to rights in a
minute or two.

'She is come!' said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon his heart.
'Cormoran and Blunderbore! She is come! All the wealth I have is hers
if she will take me for her slave. Where are grace, beauty, and
blandishments, like those? In the Empress of Madagascar? No. In the
Queen of Diamonds? No. In Mrs Rowland, who every morning bathes in
Kalydor for nothing? No. Melt all these down into one, with the three
Graces, the nine Muses, and fourteen biscuit-bakers' daughters from
Oxford Street, and make a woman half as lovely. Pho! I defy you.'

After uttering this rhapsody, the old gentleman snapped his fingers
twenty or thirty times, and then subsided into an ecstatic contemplation
of Miss La Creevy's charms. This affording Mrs Nickleby a favourable
opportunity of explanation, she went about it straight.

'I am sure,' said the wort