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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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342 presented his crafty face. ‘I couldn’t see you before, my dear,’ he said, in a low tone, and pointing, as he spoke, to the next room. ‘I was engaged in receiving them. Now--shall I take you in?’ ‘Pray, uncle,’ said Kate, a little flurried, as people much more conversant with society often are, when they are about to enter a room full of strangers, and have had time to think of it previously, ‘are there any ladies here?’ ‘No,’ said Ralph, shortly, ‘I don’t know any.’ ‘Must I go in immediately?’ asked Kate, drawing back a little. ‘As you please,’ said Ralph, shrugging his shoulders. ‘They are all come, and dinner will be announced directly afterwards--that’s all.’ Kate would have entreated a few minutes’ respite, but reflecting that her uncle might consider the payment of the hackney-coach fare a sort of bargain for her punctuality, she suffered him to draw her arm through his, and to lead her away. Seven or eight gentlemen were standing round the fire when they went in, and, as they were talking very loud, were not aware of their entrance until Mr Ralph Nickleby, touching one on the coat-sleeve, said in a harsh emphatic voice, as if to attract general attention-- ‘Lord Frederick Verisopht, my niece, Miss Nickleby.’ The group dispersed, as if in great surprise, and the gentleman addressed, turning round, exhibited a suit of clothes of the most superlative cut, a pair of whiskers of similar quality, a moustache, a head of hair, and a young face. ‘Eh!’ said the gentleman. ‘What--the--deyvle!’ With which broken ejaculations, he fixed his glass in his eye, |
