Chapter 45 - Page 2

doubt he'd take 'em for a pot of porter,) by
this young man, to the Saracen with Two Necks. If the waiter took
him for a gentleman's servant, so much the better. Then all Mrs
Browdie would have to do would be to send her card back by the
carrier (he could easily come with a double knock), and there's an
end of it.'

'My dear mother,' said Nicholas, 'I don't suppose such
unsophisticated people as these ever had a card of their own, or
ever will have.'

'Oh that, indeed, Nicholas, my dear,' returned Mrs Nickleby, 'that's
another thing. If you put it upon that ground, why, of course, I
have no more to say, than that I have no doubt they are very good
sort of persons, and that I have no kind of objection to their
coming here to tea if they like, and shall make a point of being
very civil to them if they do.'

The point being thus effectually set at rest, and Mrs Nickleby duly
placed in the patronising and mildly-condescending position which
became her rank and matrimonial years, Mr and Mrs Browdie were
invited and came; and as they were very deferential to Mrs Nickleby,
and seemed to have a becoming appreciation of her greatness, and
were very much pleased with everything, the good lady had more than
once given Kate to understand, in a whisper, that she thought they
were the very best-meaning people she had ever seen, and perfectly
well behaved.

And thus it came to pass, that John Browdie declared, in the parlour
after supper, to wit, and twenty minutes before eleven o'clock p.m.,
that he had never been so happy in all his days.

Nor was Mrs Browdie much behind her husband in this respect, for
that young matron, whose rustic beauty contrasted very prettily with
the more delicate loveliness of Kate, and without suffering by the
contrast either, for each served as it were to set off and decorate
the other, could not sufficiently admire the gentle and winning
manners of the young lady, or the engaging affability of the elder
one. Then Kate had the art of turning the conversation to subjects
upon which the country girl, bashful at first in strange company,
could feel herself at home; and if Mrs Nickleby was not quite so
felicitous at times in the selection of topics of discourse, or if
she did seem, as Mrs Browdie expressed it, 'rather high in her
notions,' still nothing could be kinder, and that she took
considerable interest in the young couple was manifest from the very
long lectures on housewifery with which she was so obliging as to
entertain Mrs Browdie's private ear, which were illustrated by
various references to the domestic economy of the cottage, in which
(those duties falling exclusively upon Kate) the good lady had about
as much share, either in theory or