The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

and one eyed pedagogue, MT. wackford
 Squeers. He reached London just in time
 to learn of Sir Mulberry, and he destroyed
 his mothers practical and excellent plans
 for the future by giving still more tre.
 mendous licking to that virtuous and eli-
 gible nonleman.
 Then he took Kate away from Mrs. Wititterly and hurried with her to his
 mothers house to tell her that they musr
 cast off forever the usurer Ralph, who
 had thus exposed his helpless niece to in
 suit fir his own mercenary purpose.
 Dear, dear!' sobbed Mrs. Nickleby ITO think that Sir Mulberry Hawk should be such an abandoned wretch, when I was thinking every day how easily he could get you a good government place as his brother-in-lawi There are such
 very good places to be got about the
 court. There was that friend of ours Miss Cropley at Exeter, my dear Kate),
 he had one, and I know that it was the
 chief part of his duty to wear silk stock
 ings Now was 1t Miss Cropley? No, 1t
 couldn't have been. But that doesn'r alter the point And now think that 1t should come to this-oh dear dear!'' She | wept piteously. Then her practical mind asserted itself again and she showed her | impractical children a way to smooth it all over. Why" said she triuhphantly, why don't you ask your uncle, Nicholas, l what he means by it?"
 She cried again when they declined to | take her advice, and said it was enough | 4 1rtt 4ot-. deposited her in a coach to take her to | house Nicholas had rented, she lost a shl | ling in the straw, and this occupied her | attention and conversation until they reached their new home, where she be-
 came busy arranging the family posses
 sions and reassumng her dignified place
 as the manager who had guided the fami- I ly successfully through their troubles with l the designing British nobility.
 | Her faith in her wisdom and sagacity
 was restored entirely when Nicholas ob tained an excellent position soon after ward with the firm of Cheeryble Brothers. | For while she had the weakness of fall | ing into a faint when any one happened
 to utter any word, however innocent, that l sounded at all like Hawk or the names | of his distinguished friends. She explained 1 that fainting was a weakness of her fam l fly. Her mother, she said, used to faint | away on the slightest provocation. Once
 as she turned a corner she ran against
 her hairdresser, who was escaping from | a bear, and the suddenness of the en- counter actually made her faint on the
 spot. Let me be sure, though" said Mrs | Nickleby. considering conscientiously,
 after she had told this story. Was it
 her hair dresser who had escaped from a
 bear that she ran into, or was it bear
 who escaped from her hair dresses? I de-
 clare I can't remember just now, but the
 hair dresser was a very handsome man,
 I know, and quite gentleman in his
 manners; so that it has nothing to do | with the point of the story"
 Soon the severed aristocratic connec- | tion took it's place with the other prodl- gious store of experiences that her mem
 ory contained. and Sir Mulberry retired gracefully to join her recollectons of the l hackney coach Cor a charioD that had a
 long number beginning with a nought and ending with nine that had broken
 window that gave her cold; and how she