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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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759 said Mrs Nickleby. ‘Be mine, be mine!’ cried the old gentleman. ‘It can scarcely be expected, sir,’ said Mrs Nickleby, fixing her eyes modestly on the ground, ‘that I should tell a stranger whether I feel flattered and obliged by such proposals, or not. They certainly are made under very singular circumstances; still at the same time, as far as it goes, and to a certain extent of course’ (Mrs Nickleby’s customary qualification), ‘they must be gratifying and agreeable to one’s feelings.’ ‘Be mine, be mine,’ cried the old gentleman. ‘Gog and Magog, Gog and Magog. Be mine, be mine!’ ‘It will be sufficient for me to say, sir,’ resumed Mrs Nickleby, with perfect seriousness--‘and I’m sure you’ll see the propriety of taking an answer and going away--that I have made up my mind to remain a widow, and to devote myself to my children. You may not suppose I am the mother of two children--indeed many people have doubted it, and said that nothing on earth could ever make ’em believe it possible--but it is the case, and they are both grown up. We shall be very glad to have you for a neighbour--very glad; delighted, I’m sure--but in any other character it’s quite impossible, quite. As to my being young enough to marry again, that perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn’t think of it for an instant, not on any account whatever. I said I never would, and I never will. It’s a very painful thing to have to reject proposals, and I would much rather that none were made; at the same time this is the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this is the answer I shall always give.’ These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman, partly to Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy. Towards their |
