Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

How Mr Ralph Nickleby provided for his Niece and Sister-in-Law

On the second morning after the departure of Nicholas for Yorkshire,
Kate Nickleby sat in a very faded chair raised upon a very dusty
throne in Miss La Creevy's room, giving that lady a sitting for the
portrait upon which she was engaged; and towards the full perfection
of which, Miss La Creevy had had the street-door case brought
upstairs, in order that she might be the better able to infuse into
the counterfeit countenance of Miss Nickleby, a bright salmon flesh-
tint which she had originally hit upon while executing the miniature
of a young officer therein contained, and which bright salmon flesh-
tint was considered, by Miss La Creevy's chief friends and patrons,
to be quite a novelty in art: as indeed it was.

'I think I have caught it now,' said Miss La Creevy. 'The very
shade! This will be the sweetest portrait I have ever done,
certainly.'

'It will be your genius that makes it so, then, I am sure,' replied
Kate, smiling.

'No, no, I won't allow that, my dear,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.
'It's a very nice subject--a very nice subject, indeed--though, of
course, something depends upon the mode of treatment.'

'And not a little,' observed Kate.

'Why, my dear, you are right there,' said Miss La Creevy, 'in the
main you are right there; though I don't allow that it is of such
very great importance in the present case. Ah! The difficulties of
Art, my dear, are great.'

'They must be, I have no doubt,' said Kate, humouring her good-
natured little friend.

'They are beyond anything you can form the faintest conception of,'
replied Miss La Creevy. 'What with bringing out eyes with all one's
power, and keeping down noses with all one's force, and adding to
heads, and taking away teeth altogether, you have no idea of the
trouble one little miniature is.'

'The remuneration can scarcely repay you,' said Kate.

'Why, it does not, and that's the truth,' answered Miss La Creevy;
'and then people are so dissatisfied and unreasonable, that, nine
times out of ten, there's no pleasure in painting them. Sometimes
they say, "Oh, how very serious you have made me look, Miss La
Creevy!" and at others, "La, Miss La Creevy, how very smirking!"
when the very essence of a good portrait is, that it must be either
serious or smirking, or it's no portrait at all.'

'Indeed!' said Kate, laughing.

'Certainly, my dear; because the sitters are always either the one
or the other,' replied Miss La Creevy. 'Look at the Royal Academy!
All those beautiful shiny portraits of gentlemen in black velvet
waistcoats, with their fists doubled up on round tables, or marble
slabs, are