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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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213 awkward thing to say--but--the very mention of such a supposition makes one look like a puppy--still--may I ask if that lady supposes that I entertain any--in short, does she think that I am in love with her?’ ‘Delightful embarrassment,’ thought Miss Squeers, ‘I have brought him to it, at last. Answer for me, dear,’ she whispered to her friend. ‘Does she think so?’ rejoined Miss Price; ‘of course she does.’ ‘She does!’ exclaimed Nicholas with such energy of utterance as might have been, for the moment, mistaken for rapture. ‘Certainly,’ replied Miss Price ‘If Mr Nickleby has doubted that, ’Tilda,’ said the blushing Miss Squeers in soft accents, ‘he may set his mind at rest. His sentiments are recipro--’ ‘Stop,’ cried Nicholas hurriedly; ‘pray hear me. This is the grossest and wildest delusion, the completest and most signal mistake, that ever human being laboured under, or committed. I have scarcely seen the young lady half-a-dozen times, but if I had seen her sixty times, or am destined to see her sixty thousand, it would be, and will be, precisely the same. I have not one thought, wish, or hope, connected with her, unless it be--and I say this, not to hurt her feelings, but to impress her with the real state of my own--unless it be the one object, dear to my heart as life itself, of being one day able to turn my back upon this accursed place, never to set foot in it again, or think of it--even think of it--but with loathing and disgust.’ With this particularly plain and straightforward declaration, which he made with all the vehemence that his indignant and excited feelings could bring to bear upon it, Nicholas waiting to |
