“Hem!” said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk mitten. “A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?”
“You mistake my purpose, I see, ma’am,” replied Mr. Nickleby, in his usual blunt fashion. “I have no money to throw away on miniatures, ma’am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here.”
Miss La Creevy coughed once more—this cough was to conceal her disappointment—and said, “Oh, indeed!”
“I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above belongs to you, ma’am,” said Mr. Nickleby.
Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking.
“A widow, ma’am?” said Ralph.
“Yes, she is a widow,” replied the lady.
“A poor widow, ma’am,” said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that little adjective which conveys so much.
“Well, I’m afraid she is poor,” rejoined Miss La Creevy.
“I happen to know that she is, ma’am,” said Ralph. “Now, what business has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma’am?”
“Very true,” replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this implied compliment to the apartments. “Exceedingly true.”
“I know her circumstances intimately, ma’am,” said Ralph; “in fact, I am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to keep them here, ma’am.”
“I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the pecuniary obligations,” said Miss La Creevy with another cough, “that the lady’s family would—”
“No they wouldn’t, ma’am,” interrupted Ralph, hastily. “Don’t think it.”
“If I am to understand that,” said Miss La Creevy, “the case wears a very different appearance.”
“You may understand it then, ma’am,” said Ralph, “and make your arrangements accordingly. I am the family, ma’am—at least, I believe I am the only relation they have, and I think it right that you should know I can’t support them in their extravagances. How long have they taken these lodgings for?”
“Only from week to week,” replied Miss La Creevy. “Mrs. Nickleby paid the first week in advance.”
“Then you had better get them out at the end of it,” said Ralph. “They can’t do better than go back to the country, ma’am; they are in everybody’s way here.”
“Certainly,” said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands, “if Mrs. Nickleby took the apartments without the means of paying for them, it was very unbecoming a lady.”
“Of course it was, ma’am,” said Ralph.
“And naturally,” continued Miss La Creevy, “I who am, at present—hem—an unprotected female, cannot afford to lose by the apartments.”
“Of course you can’t, ma’am,” replied Ralph.
“Though at the same time,” added Miss La Creevy, who was plainly wavering between her good-nature and her interest, “I have nothing whatever to say against the lady, who is extremely pleasant and affable, though, poor thing, she seems terribly low in her spirits; nor against the young people either, for nicer, or better-behaved young people cannot be.”
“Very well, ma’am,” said Ralph, turning to the door, for these encomiums on poverty irritated him; “I have done my duty, and perhaps more than I ought: of course nobody will thank me for saying what I have.”
“I am sure I am very much obliged to you at least, sir,” said Miss La Creevy in a gracious manner. “Would you do me the favour to look at a few specimens of my portrait painting?”
“You’re very good, ma’am,” said Mr. Nickleby, making off with great speed; “but as I have a visit to pay upstairs, and my time is precious, I really can’t.”
“At any other time when you are passing, I shall be most happy,” said Miss La Creevy. “Perhaps you will have the kindness to take a card of terms with you? Thank you—good morning!”
“Good morning, ma’am,” said Ralph, shutting the door abruptly after him to prevent any further conversation. “Now for my sister-in-law. Bah!”
Climbing up another perpendicular flight, composed with great mechanical ingenuity of nothing but corner stairs, Mr. Ralph Nickleby stopped to take breath on the landing, when he was overtaken by the handmaid, whom the politeness of Miss La Creevy had dispatched to announce him, and who had apparently been making a variety of unsuccessful attempts, since their last interview, to wipe her dirty face clean, upon an apron much dirtier.
“What name?” said the girl.
“Nickleby,” replied Ralph.
“Oh! Mrs. Nickleby,” said the girl, throwing open the door, “here’s Mr. Nickleby.”
A lady in deep mourning rose as Mr. Ralph Nickleby entered, but appeared incapable of advancing to meet him, and leant upon the arm of a slight but very beautiful girl of about seventeen, who had been sitting by her. A youth, who appeared a year or two older, stepped forward and saluted Ralph as his uncle.
“Oh,” growled Ralph, with an ill-favoured frown, “you are Nicholas, I suppose?”
“That is my name, sir,” replied the youth.
“Put my hat down,” said Ralph, imperiously. “Well, ma’am, how do you do? You must bear up against sorrow, ma’am; I always do.”
“Mine was no common loss!” said Mrs. Nickleby, applying her handkerchief to her eyes.
“It was no uncommon loss, ma’am,” returned Ralph, as he coolly unbuttoned his spencer. “Husbands die every day, ma’am, and wives too.”
“And brothers also, sir,” said Nicholas, with a glance of indignation.
“Yes, sir, and puppies, and pug-dogs likewise,” replied his uncle, taking a chair. “You didn’t mention in your letter what my brother’s complaint was, ma’am.”
“The doctors could attribute it to no particular disease,” said Mrs. Nickleby; shedding tears. “We have too much reason to fear that he died of a broken heart.”
“Pooh!” said Ralph, “there’s no such thing. I can understand a man’s dying of a broken neck, or suffering from a broken arm, or a broken head, or a
