ind.

'Don't hurry, don't hurry,' said Sir Mulberry, as Kate hastened on, and
attempted to release her arm.

She made no reply, but still pressed forward.

'Nay, then--' coolly observed Sir Mulberry, stopping her outright.

'You had best not seek to detain me, sir!' said Kate, angrily.

'And why not?' retorted Sir Mulberry. 'My dear creature, now why do you
keep up this show of displeasure?'

'SHOW!' repeated Kate, indignantly. 'How dare you presume to speak to
me, sir--to address me--to come into my presence?'

'You look prettier in a passion, Miss Nickleby,' said Sir Mulberry Hawk,
stooping down, the better to see her face.

'I hold you in the bitterest detestation and contempt, sir,' said Kate.
'If you find any attraction in looks of disgust and aversion, you--let
me rejoin my friends, sir, instantly. Whatever considerations may have
withheld me thus far, I will disregard them all, and take a course that
even YOU might feel, if you do not immediately suffer me to proceed.'

Sir Mulberry smiled, and still looking in her face and retaining her
arm, walked towards the door.

'If no regard for my sex or helpless situation will induce you to desist
from this coarse and unmanly persecution,' said Kate, scarcely knowing,
in the tumult of her passions, what she said,--'I have a brother who
will resent it dearly, one day.'

'Upon my soul!' exclaimed Sir Mulberry, as though quietly communing with
himself; passing his arm round her waist as he spoke, 'she looks more
beautiful, and I like her better in this mood, than when her eyes are
cast down, and she is in perfect repose!'

How Kate reached the lobby where her friends were waiting she never
knew, but she hurried across it without at all regarding them, and
disengaged herself suddenly from her companion, sprang into the coach,
and throwing herself into its darkest corner burst into tears.

Messrs Pyke and Pluck, knowing their cue, at once threw the party into
great commotion by shouting for the carriages, and getting up a violent
quarrel with sundry inoffensive bystanders; in the midst of which tumult
they put the affrighted Mrs Nickleby in her chariot, and having got her
safely off, turned their thoughts to Mrs Wititterly, whose attention
also they had now effectually distracted from the young lady, by
throwing her into a state of the utmost bewilderment and consternation.
At length, the conveyance in which she had come rolled off too with its
load, and the fo