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


 ful stateliness. This gentleman will un' derstand mo when I tell him that repeat the answer I gave him the other day. though I believe him to be sincere when I find him placing himself in such dreadful situations on my account l am obliged to him, very much obliged to him, but I cannot listen to his addresses for moment"
 The gentleman, whose nose and cheeks were embellished with large patches of soot, honored Mrs. Nickleby with a long stare and asked her if she had finished. Laughing heartily. he gratifed his hear. CTS with a most melodious below.
 Mrs. Nickleby shook her head at her guests, 10 intimate that there was noth- ing at all in this except a slight degres of eccentrcty. But it happened that Miss La Creevy, one Of the guests, and a lady fully as old as Mrs. Nickleby and not nearly so young in looks, as Mrs. Nickleby had often observed, got into the l old gentlemans view when he was in the i very act of believing. Instantly he be- gan kissing her hand and cried; 'I sec her now, I see her nowl My love, my life. my bride my peerless heauty!"
 Mrs. Nickleby was disconcerted for only a moment. Recovering her sane common sense almost immediately, she nodded to all around her, and drowned, and smiled gravely, giving them to un- derstand that the saw where the mistake was.
 T am sure" she said, advancing to the old gentleman, ''that it's great re- lief, under such trying circumstances, to have anyone else mistaken for me a very great relief; and it's a circur1- stance that never occurred before, though I have several times been mistaken for, my daughter Kate. have no doubt the people were very foolish, but still they did take me for her. However, in this instance I should do exceedingly wrong if I suffered anybody to be made uncom- fortable on my account. Therefore I think it my duty to tell the gentleman that I am the lady who, he was told by some impertinent person, was niece to the Council of Paving Stones; and I do beg and intreat of him to go quietly away, if it's only,' here Mrs Niekleby hesitated shly. for MY sake!"
 To Mrs. Niekleby's mortified, shocked amazement, the old gentleman, instead of returning a suitable and courteous reply to this touchingly delicate appeal. stared at her with his rolling eyes and replied loudly: "Avaunt! Cat!"
 Sir" cried Mrs. Nickleby in a faint tone.
 'cat' repeated the old gentleman ob- ligingly. 'Puss! Tabby! Brindle! Whooshr'
 Mrs. Nickleby wasted neither time nor words. but fainted away at once. 'I shall never forgive myself, nevert" said she when she returned to conscious- ness after the gentleman had been led away. You saw what he was the ether day. You see what he is now. I told your brother, Kate that I hoped disap- pointment might not be too much for him. You see what wreck he is. You See the dreadful nonsense he has been guilty of tonight. and the manner in which he has gone on with that unfortu- nate old maid. Well! If l am the un- fortunate cause of this, I have the satis- faction of knowing I am not to blame. If the matter had only been property taken up at first, as I wished 1t to be! But you both are so like your poor papa"
 Gradually Mrs. Nickleby schooled her self to take comfort in the Knowledge that it was another case in which her sound judgment and discreet counsel had been neglected recklessly. In time the little old gentleman took his place with those other innumerable important in- cidents of Mrs. NicISebys career, such as the exact position and appearance of a certain pair of salt cellars in her fathers house, and the exact number of steps that one had to take to get into the garden from the little store room in her own old house, and Mir Watkins who said that Kate was the finest child he ever saw (she remembered that inci- dent particularly because Mr. Watkins borrowed twenty pounds from MT. Nickleby that same day, and never paid it bacIo and the extraordinary fact that once, on a visit to Stradford. she dream- ed of Shakespeare.
 She succeeded in forgiving her chile dren for having plunged the old gentle ! man into maddening despair; and she would have forgiven even Miss LaCreevy had that shameless spnster not become engaged, altogether to Mrs. Nioklebys astonishment, to a fine young boy of sixty who was one of the Cheeryble Brothers establishment. This, said Mrs. Nickleby. was something that she could not overlook.
 She would say nothing against the man except that he was the weakest and most foolish man she ever knew. But" declared Mrs. NicNleby, more grieved than angry, that he should have gone and offered himself to a woman who must be-ah. half as old again as l am-and that she should have dared to accept him, It don't signify, Katei but I'm dis gusted with herr
 And ever after that Mrs. Nickleby con- ducted herself toward her friend in d stately and dignified manner, designed te mark her sense of the impropriety of hag conduct and to signify her extreme and cutting disapprobation of the misds- mcanor she had committed so flagrantly
 Copyright, 1912. by J.. w. Muller)
 Title of next Sundays article-Sir John Chester. Dickens Most Cruel Character
 Now She Votes