ter was announced, Miss Squeers betook herself to the
parlour in a Christian frame of spirit, perfectly beautiful to behold.

'Well, Fanny,' said the miller's daughter, 'you see I have come to see
you, although we HAD some words last night.'

'I pity your bad passions, 'Tilda,' replied Miss Squeers, 'but I bear no
malice. I am above it.'

'Don't be cross, Fanny,' said Miss Price. 'I have come to tell you
something that I know will please you.'

'What may that be, 'Tilda?' demanded Miss Squeers; screwing up her lips,
and looking as if nothing in earth, air, fire, or water, could afford
her the slightest gleam of satisfaction.

'This,' rejoined Miss Price. 'After we left here last night John and I
had a dreadful quarrel.'

'That doesn't please me,' said Miss Squeers--relaxing into a smile
though.

'Lor! I wouldn't think so bad of you as to suppose it did,' rejoined her
companion. 'That's not it.'

'Oh!' said Miss Squeers, relapsing into melancholy. 'Go on.'

'After a great deal of wrangling, and saying we would never see each
other any more,' continued Miss Price, 'we made it up, and this morning
John went and wrote our names down to be put up, for the first time,
next Sunday, so we shall be married in three weeks, and I give you
notice to get your frock made.'

There was mingled gall and honey in this intelligence. The prospect of
the friend's being married so soon was the gall, and the certainty of
her not entertaining serious designs upon Nicholas was the honey. Upon
the whole, the sweet greatly preponderated over the bitter, so Miss
Squeers said she would get the frock made, and that she hoped 'Tilda
might be happy, though at the same time she didn't know, and would not
have her build too much upon it, for men were strange creatures, and
a great many married women were very miserable, and wished themselves
single again with all their hearts; to which condolences Miss Squeers
added others equally calculated to raise her friend's spirits and
promote her cheerfulness of mind.

'But come now, Fanny,' said Miss Price, 'I want to have a word or two
with you about young Mr Nickleby.'

'He is nothing to me,' interrupted Miss Squeers, with hysterical
symptoms. 'I despise him too much!'

'Oh, you don't mean that, I am sure?' replied her friend. 'Confess,
Fanny; don't you like him now?'

Without returning any direct reply, Miss Squeers, all at once, fell into
a paroxysm of spiteful tears, and exclaimed that she