Chapter 38 - Page 2

has brought the tears into my eyes many times.
It is not a very difficult matter to do that, certainly, for I am
easily melted; still I think these came with good cause and
reason. I am sure that since he has been here, he has grown, from
some strong cause, more conscious of his weak intellect. He feels
it more. It gives him greater pain to know that he wanders
sometimes, and cannot understand very simple things. I have
watched him when you have not been by, my dear, sit brooding by
himself, with such a look of pain as I could scarcely bear to see,
and then get up and leave the room: so sorrowfully, and in such
dejection, that I cannot tell you how it has hurt me. Not three
weeks ago, he was a light-hearted busy creature, overjoyed to be
in a bustle, and as happy as the day was long. Now, he is another
being--the same willing, harmless, faithful, loving creature--but
the same in nothing else.'

'Surely this will all pass off,' said Kate. 'Poor fellow!'

'I hope,' returned her little friend, with a gravity very unusual
in her, 'it may. I hope, for the sake of that poor lad, it may.
However,' said Miss La Creevy, relapsing into the cheerful,
chattering tone, which was habitual to her, 'I have said my say,
and a very long say it is, and a very wrong say too, I shouldn't
wonder at all. I shall cheer him up tonight, at all events, for
if he is to be my squire all the way to the Strand, I shall talk
on, and on, and on, and never leave off, till I have roused him
into a laugh at something. So the sooner he goes, the better for
him, and the sooner I go, the better for me, I am sure, or else I
shall have my maid gallivanting with somebody who may rob the
house--though what there is to take away, besides tables and
chairs, I don't know, except the miniatures: and he is a clever
thief who can dispose of them to any great advantage, for I can't,
I know, and that's the honest truth.'

So saying, little Miss La Creevy hid her face in a very flat
bonnet, and herself in a very big shawl; and fixing herself
tightly into the latter, by means of a large pin, declared that
the omnibus might come as soon as it pleased, for she was quite
ready.

But there was still Mrs Nickleby to take leave of; and long before
that good lady had concluded some reminiscences bearing upon, and
appropriate to, the occasion, the omnibus arrived. This put Miss
La Creevy in a great bustle, in consequence whereof, as she
secretly rewarded the servant girl with eighteen-pence behind the
street-door, she pulled out of her reticule ten-pennyworth of
halfpence, which rolled into all possible corners of the passage,
and occupied some considerable time in the picking up. This
ceremony had, of course, to be succeeded by a