le look--at that sweet face. Ah!
here it is. Unmoved, unchanged!' This, by the way, was a very
remarkable circumstance, miniatures being liable to so many changes of
expression--'Oh, Pluck! Pluck!'

Mr Pluck made no other reply than kissing Mrs Nickleby's hand with a
great show of feeling and attachment; Mr Pyke having done the same, both
gentlemen hastily withdrew.

Mrs Nickleby was commonly in the habit of giving herself credit for a
pretty tolerable share of penetration and acuteness, but she had never
felt so satisfied with her own sharp-sightedness as she did that day.
She had found it all out the night before. She had never seen Sir
Mulberry and Kate together--never even heard Sir Mulberry's name--and
yet hadn't she said to herself from the very first, that she saw how the
case stood? and what a triumph it was, for there was now no doubt
about it. If these flattering attentions to herself were not sufficient
proofs, Sir Mulberry's confidential friend had suffered the secret
to escape him in so many words. 'I am quite in love with that dear Mr
Pluck, I declare I am,' said Mrs Nickleby.

There was one great source of uneasiness in the midst of this good
fortune, and that was the having nobody by, to whom she could confide
it. Once or twice she almost resolved to walk straight to Miss La
Creevy's and tell it all to her. 'But I don't know,' thought Mrs
Nickleby; 'she is a very worthy person, but I am afraid too much beneath
Sir Mulberry's station for us to make a companion of. Poor thing!'
Acting upon this grave consideration she rejected the idea of taking the
little portrait painter into her confidence, and contented herself
with holding out sundry vague and mysterious hopes of preferment to the
servant girl, who received these obscure hints of dawning greatness with
much veneration and respect.

Punctual to its time came the promised vehicle, which was no hackney
coach, but a private chariot, having behind it a footman, whose legs,
although somewhat large for his body, might, as mere abstract legs,
have set themselves up for models at the Royal Academy. It was quite
exhilarating to hear the clash and bustle with which he banged the door
and jumped up behind after Mrs Nickleby was in; and as that good lady
was perfectly unconscious that he applied the gold-headed end of his
long stick to his nose, and so telegraphed most disrespectfully to the
coachman over her very head, she sat in a state of much stiffness and