one, rendered Kate Nickleby unable to resume
her duties at the dressmaker's for three days, at the expiration of
which interval she betook herself at the accustomed hour, and with
languid steps, to the temple of fashion where Madame Mantalini reigned
paramount and supreme.

The ill-will of Miss Knag had lost nothing of its virulence in
the interval. The young ladies still scrupulously shrunk from all
companionship with their denounced associate; and when that exemplary
female arrived a few minutes afterwards, she was at no pains to conceal
the displeasure with which she regarded Kate's return.

'Upon my word!' said Miss Knag, as the satellites flocked round, to
relieve her of her bonnet and shawl; 'I should have thought some people
would have had spirit enough to stop away altogether, when they know
what an incumbrance their presence is to right-minded persons. But it's
a queer world; oh! it's a queer world!'

Miss Knag, having passed this comment on the world, in the tone in which
most people do pass comments on the world when they are out of temper,
that is to say, as if they by no means belonged to it, concluded
by heaving a sigh, wherewith she seemed meekly to compassionate the
wickedness of mankind.

The attendants were not slow to echo the sigh, and Miss Knag was
apparently on the eve of favouring them with some further moral
reflections, when the voice of Madame Mantalini, conveyed through
the speaking-tube, ordered Miss Nickleby upstairs to assist in the
arrangement of the show-room; a distinction which caused Miss Knag to
toss her head so much, and bite her lips so hard, that her powers of
conversation were, for the time, annihilated.

'Well, Miss Nickleby, child,' said Madame Mantalini, when Kate presented
herself; 'are you quite well again?'

'A great deal better, thank you,' replied Kate.

'I wish I could say the same,' remarked Madame Mantalini, seating
herself with an air of weariness.

'Are you ill?' asked Kate. 'I am very sorry for that.'

'Not exactly ill, but worried, child--worried,' rejoined Madame.

'I am still more sorry to hear that,' said Kate, gently. 'Bodily illness
is more easy to bear than mental.'

'Ah! and it's much easier to talk than to bear either,' said Madame,
rubbing her nose with much irritability of manner. 'There, get to your
work, child, and put the things in order, do.'

While Kate was wondering within herself what these symptoms of unusual
vexation portended, Mr M