Ralph Nickleby
suggested, that if they lost time, some more fortunate candidate
might deprive Nicholas of the stepping-stone to fortune which the
advertisement pointed out, and so undermine all their air-built castles.
This timely reminder effectually stopped the conversation. Nicholas,
having carefully copied the address of Mr Squeers, the uncle and nephew
issued forth together in quest of that accomplished gentleman; Nicholas
firmly persuading himself that he had done his relative great injustice
in disliking him at first sight; and Mrs Nickleby being at some pains to
inform her daughter that she was sure he was a much more kindly disposed
person than he seemed; which, Miss Nickleby dutifully remarked, he might
very easily be.

To tell the truth, the good lady's opinion had been not a little
influenced by her brother-in-law's appeal to her better understanding,
and his implied compliment to her high deserts; and although she had
dearly loved her husband, and still doted on her children, he had struck
so successfully on one of those little jarring chords in the human heart
(Ralph was well acquainted with its worst weaknesses, though he knew
nothing of its best), that she had already begun seriously to consider
herself the amiable and suffering victim of her late husband's
imprudence.

CHAPTER 4

Nicholas and his Uncle (to secure the Fortune without loss of time) wait
upon Mr Wackford Squeers, the Yorkshire Schoolmaster

Snow Hill! What kind of place can the quiet townspeople who see the
words emblazoned, in all the legibility of gilt letters and dark
shading, on the north-country coaches, take Snow Hill to be? All
people have some undefined and shadowy notion of a place whose name is
frequently before their eyes, or often in their ears. What a vast number
of random ideas there must be perpetually floating about, regarding this
same Snow Hill. The name is such a good one. Snow Hill--Snow Hill too,
coupled with a Saracen's Head: picturing to us by a double association
of ideas, something stern and rugged! A bleak desolate tract of country,
open to piercing blasts and fierce wintry storms--a dark, cold, gloomy
heath, lonely by day, and scarcely to be thought of by honest folks
at night--a place which solitary wayfarers shun, and where desperate
robbers congregate;--this, or something like this, should be the
prevalent notion of Snow Hill, in those remote and rustic parts, through
which the Saracen's Head, like