Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Newman Noggs inducts Mrs and Miss Nickleby into their New Dwelling
in the City

Miss Nickleby's reflections, as she wended her way homewards, were
of that desponding nature which the occurrences of the morning had
been sufficiently calculated to awaken. Her uncle's was not a
manner likely to dispel any doubts or apprehensions she might have
formed, in the outset, neither was the glimpse she had had of Madame
Mantalini's establishment by any means encouraging. It was with
many gloomy forebodings and misgivings, therefore, that she looked
forward, with a heavy heart, to the opening of her new career.

If her mother's consolations could have restored her to a pleasanter
and more enviable state of mind, there were abundance of them to
produce the effect. By the time Kate reached home, the good lady
had called to mind two authentic cases of milliners who had been
possessed of considerable property, though whether they had acquired
it all in business, or had had a capital to start with, or had been
lucky and married to advantage, she could not exactly remember.
However, as she very logically remarked, there must have been SOME
young person in that way of business who had made a fortune without
having anything to begin with, and that being taken for granted, why
should not Kate do the same? Miss La Creevy, who was a member of
the little council, ventured to insinuate some doubts relative to
the probability of Miss Nickleby's arriving at this happy
consummation in the compass of an ordinary lifetime; but the good
lady set that question entirely at rest, by informing them that she
had a presentiment on the subject--a species of second-sight with
which she had been in the habit of clenching every argument with the
deceased Mr Nickleby, and, in nine cases and three-quarters out of
every ten, determining it the wrong way.

'I am afraid it is an unhealthy occupation,' said Miss La Creevy.
'I recollect getting three young milliners to sit to me, when I
first began to paint, and I remember that they were all very pale
and sickly.'

'Oh! that's not a general rule by any means,' observed Mrs Nickleby;
'for I remember, as well as if it was only yesterday, employing one
that I was particularly recommended to, to make me a scarlet cloak
at the time when scarlet cloaks were fashionable, and she had a very
red face--a very red face, indeed.'

'Perhaps she drank,' suggested Miss La Creevy.

'I don't know how that may have been,' returned Mrs Nickleby: 'but I
know she had a very red face, so your argument goes for nothing.'

In this manner, and with like powerful reasoning, did the worthy
matron meet every little objection that presented itself to the new
scheme of