ss 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
the morning. Happy Mrs Nickleby! A project had but to be new, and it
came home to her mind, brightly varnished and gilded as a glittering
toy.

This question disposed of, Kate communicated her uncle's desire about
the empty house, to which Mrs Nickleby assented with equal readiness,
characteristically remarking, that, on the fine evenings, it would be a
pleasant amusement for her to walk to the West end to fetch her daughter
home; and no less characteristically forgetting, that there were such
things as wet nights and bad weather to be encountered in almost every
week of the year.

'I shall be sorry--truly sorry to leave you, my kind friend,' said Kate,
on whom the good feeling of the poor miniature painter had made a deep
impression.

'You shall not shake me off, for all that,' replied Miss La Creevy, with
as much sprightliness as she could assume. 'I shall see you very often,
and come and hear how you get on; and if, in all London, or all the wide
world besides, there is no other heart that takes an interest in your
welfare, there will be one little lo