Chapter 18 - Page 2

right,
when so many people are so often wrong, is to me a mystery indeed.'

'Beyond putting a very excellent client out of humour, Miss Nickleby
has not done anything very remarkable today--that I am aware of, at
least,' said Madame Mantalini in reply.

'Oh, dear!' said Miss Knag; 'but you must allow a great deal for
inexperience, you know.'

'And youth?' inquired Madame.

'Oh, I say nothing about that, Madame Mantalini,' replied Miss Knag,
reddening; 'because if youth were any excuse, you wouldn't have--'

'Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,' suggested Madame.

'Well, I never did know anybody like you, Madame Mantalini,'
rejoined Miss Knag most complacently, 'and that's the fact, for you
know what one's going to say, before it has time to rise to one's
lips. Oh, very good! Ha, ha, ha!'

'For myself,' observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with affected
carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in her sleeve,
'I consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl I ever saw in my
life.'

'Poor dear thing,' said Miss Knag, 'it's not her fault. If it was,
we might hope to cure it; but as it's her misfortune, Madame
Mantalini, why really you know, as the man said about the blind
horse, we ought to respect it.'

'Her uncle told me she had been considered pretty,' remarked Madame
Mantalini. 'I think her one of the most ordinary girls I ever met
with.'

'Ordinary!' cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight; 'and
awkward! Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite
love the poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-
looking, and twice as awkward as she is, I should be only so much
the more her friend, and that's the truth of it.'

In fact, Miss Knag had conceived an incipient affection for Kate
Nickleby, after witnessing her failure that morning, and this short
conversation with her superior increased the favourable
prepossession to a most surprising extent; which was the more
remarkable, as when she first scanned that young lady's face and
figure, she had entertained certain inward misgivings that they
would never agree.

'But now,' said Miss Knag, glancing at the reflection of herself in
a mirror at no great distance, 'I love her--I quite love her--I
declare I do!'

Of such a highly disinterested quality was this devoted friendship,
and so superior was it to the little weaknesses of flattery or ill-
nature, that the kind-hearted Miss Knag candidly informed Kate
Nickleby, next day, that she saw she would never do for the
business, but that she need not give herself the slightest
uneasiness on this account, for that she (Miss Knag), by increased
exertions on her own part, would keep