th; for the friend's father and mother were quite agreeable
to her being married, and the whole courtship was in consequence as flat
and common-place an affair as it was possible to imagine.

'How I should like to see him!' exclaimed the friend.

'So you shall, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers. 'I should consider myself
one of the most ungrateful creatures alive, if I denied you. I think
mother's going away for two days to fetch some boys; and when she does,
I'll ask you and John up to tea, and have him to meet you.'

This was a charming idea, and having fully discussed it, the friends
parted.

It so fell out, that Mrs Squeers's journey, to some distance, to fetch
three new boys, and dun the relations of two old ones for the balance
of a small account, was fixed that very afternoon, for the next day but
one; and on the next day but one, Mrs Squeers got up outside the coach,
as it stopped to change at Greta Bridge, taking with her a small bundle
containing something in a bottle, and some sandwiches, and carrying
besides a large white top-coat to wear in the night-time; with which
baggage she went her way.

Whenever such opportunities as these occurred, it was Squeers's custom
to drive over to the market town, every evening, on pretence of urgent
business, and stop till ten or eleven o'clock at a tavern he much
affected. As the party was not in his way, therefore, but rather
afforded a means of compromise with Miss Squeers, he readily yielded his
full assent thereunto, and willingly communicated to Nicholas that
he was expected to take his tea in the parlour that evening, at five
o'clock.

To be sure Miss Squeers was in a desperate flutter as the time
approached, and to be sure she was dressed out to the best advantage:
with her hair--it had more than a tinge of red, and she wore it in a
crop--curled in five distinct rows, up to the very top of her head, and
arranged dexterously over the doubtful eye; to say nothing of the
blue sash which floated down her back, or the worked apron or the long
gloves, or the green gauze scarf worn over one shoulder and under the
other; or any of the numerous devices which were to be as so many arrows
to the heart of Nicholas. She had scarcely completed these arrangements
to her entire satisfaction, when the friend arrived with a whity-brown
parcel--flat and three-cornered--containing sundry small adornments
which were to be put on upstairs, and which the friend put on, talking
incessan