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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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464 Snevellicci of course--Miss Ledrook--’ ‘The--the phenomenon,’ groaned the collector. ‘Ha, ha!’ cried Nicholas. ‘I beg your pardon, I don’t know what I’m laughing at--yes, that’ll be very pretty--the phenomenon-- who else?’ ‘Some young woman or other,’ replied the collector, rising; ‘some other friend of Henrietta Petowker’s. Well, you’ll be careful not to say anything about it, will you?’ ‘You may safely depend upon me,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Won’t you take anything to eat or drink?’ ‘No,’ said the collector; ‘I haven’t any appetite. I should think it was a very pleasant life, the married one, eh?’ ‘I have not the least doubt of it,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Yes,’ said the collector; ‘certainly. Oh yes. No doubt. Good night.’ With these words, Mr Lillyvick, whose manner had exhibited through the whole of this interview a most extraordinary compound of precipitation, hesitation, confidence and doubt, fondness, misgiving, meanness, and self-importance, turned his back upon the room, and left Nicholas to enjoy a laugh by himself if he felt so disposed. Without stopping to inquire whether the intervening day appeared to Nicholas to consist of the usual number of hours of the ordinary length, it may be remarked that, to the parties more directly interested in the forthcoming ceremony, it passed with great rapidity, insomuch that when Miss Petowker awoke on the succeeding morning in the chamber of Miss Snevellicci, she declared that nothing should ever persuade her that that really was the day which was to behold a change in her condition. |
