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PinkMonkey.com-Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens



303

Chapter 17

Follows the Fortunes of Miss Nickleby.

It was with a heavy heart, and many sad forebodings which no
effort could banish, that Kate Nickleby, on the morning
appointed for the commencement of her engagement with
Madame Mantalini, left the city when its clocks yet wanted a
quarter of an hour of eight, and threaded her way alone, amid the
noise and bustle of the streets, towards the west end of London.

At this early hour many sickly girls, whose business, like that of
the poor worm, is to produce, with patient toil, the finery that
bedecks the thoughtless and luxurious, traverse our streets,
making towards the scene of their daily labour, and catching, as if
by stealth, in their hurried walk, the only gasp of wholesome air
and glimpse of sunlight which cheer their monotonous existence
during the long train of hours that make a working day. As she
drew nigh to the more fashionable quarter of the town, Kate
marked many of this class as they passed by, hurrying like herself
to their painful occupation, and saw, in their unhealthy looks and
feeble gait, but too clear an evidence that her misgivings were not
wholly groundless.

She arrived at Madame Mantalini’s some minutes before the
appointed hour, and after walking a few times up and down, in the
hope that some other female might arrive and spare her the
embarrassment of stating her business to the servant, knocked
timidly at the door: which, after some delay, was opened by the
footman, who had been putting on his striped jacket as he came

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PinkMonkey.com-Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens



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