earing proud, 'must live where they
can.'

'Ah! very true, so they must; very proper indeed!' rejoined Miss Knag
with that sort of half-sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight
nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society; 'and that's
what I very often tell my brother, when our servants go away ill, one
after another, and he thinks the back-kitchen's rather too damp for
'em to sleep in. These sort of people, I tell him, are glad to sleep
anywhere! Heaven suits the back to the burden. What a nice thing it is
to think that it should be so, isn't it?'

'Very,' replied Kate.

'I'll walk with you part of the way, my dear,' said Miss Knag, 'for
you must go very near our house; and as it's quite dark, and our last
servant went to the hospital a week ago, with St Anthony's fire in her
face, I shall be glad of your company.'

Kate would willingly have excused herself from this flattering
companionship; but Miss Knag having adjusted her bonnet to her entire
satisfaction, took her arm with an air which plainly showed how much
she felt the compliment she was conferring, and they were in the street
before she could say another word.

'I fear,' said Kate, hesitating, 'that mama--my mother, I mean--is
waiting for me.'

'You needn't make the least apology, my dear,' said Miss Knag, smiling
sweetly as she spoke; 'I dare say she is a very respectable old person,
and I shall be quite--hem--quite pleased to know her.'

As poor Mrs Nickleby was cooling--not her heels alone, but her limbs
generally at the street corner, Kate had no alternative but to make
her known to Miss Knag, who, doing the last new carriage customer
at second-hand, acknowledged the introduction with condescending
politeness. The three then walked away, arm in arm: with Miss Knag in
the middle, in a special state of amiability.

'I have taken such a fancy to your daughter, Mrs Nickleby, you can't
think,' said Miss Knag, after she had proceeded a little distance in
dignified silence.

'I am delighted to hear it,' said Mrs Nickleby; 'though it is nothing
new to me, that even strangers should like Kate.'

'Hem!' cried Miss Knag.

'You will like her better when you know how good she is,' said Mrs
Nickleby. 'It is a great blessing to me, in my misfortunes, to have a
child, who knows neither pride nor vanity, and whose bringing-up might
very well have excused a little of both at first. You don't know what it
is to lose a husband, Miss Knag.'