ve in such a--oh, dear--well--but you're always right,
Madame Mantalini, always; and as I very often tell the young ladies,
how you do contrive to be always right, when so many people are so often
wrong, is to me a mystery indeed.'

'Beyond putting a very excellent client out of humour, Miss Nickleby has
not done anything very remarkable today--that I am aware of, at least,'
said Madame Mantalini in reply.

'Oh, dear!' said Miss Knag; 'but you must allow a great deal for
inexperience, you know.'

'And youth?' inquired Madame.

'Oh, I say nothing about that, Madame Mantalini,' replied Miss Knag,
reddening; 'because if youth were any excuse, you wouldn't have--'

'Quite so good a forewoman as I have, I suppose,' suggested Madame.

'Well, I never did know anybody like you, Madame Mantalini,' rejoined
Miss Knag most complacently, 'and that's the fact, for you know what
one's going to say, before it has time to rise to one's lips. Oh, very
good! Ha, ha, ha!'

'For myself,' observed Madame Mantalini, glancing with affected
carelessness at her assistant, and laughing heartily in her sleeve, 'I
consider Miss Nickleby the most awkward girl I ever saw in my life.'

'Poor dear thing,' said Miss Knag, 'it's not her fault. If it was, we
might hope to cure it; but as it's her misfortune, Madame Mantalini,
why really you know, as the man said about the blind horse, we ought to
respect it.'

'Her uncle told me she had been considered pretty,' remarked Madame
Mantalini. 'I think her one of the most ordinary girls I ever met with.'

'Ordinary!' cried Miss Knag with a countenance beaming delight; 'and
awkward! Well, all I can say is, Madame Mantalini, that I quite love the
poor girl; and that if she was twice as indifferent-looking, and twice
as awkward as she is, I should be only so much the more her friend, and
that's the truth of it.'

In fact, Miss Knag had conceived an incipient affection for Kate
Nickleby, after witnessing her failure that morning, and this short
conversation with her superior increased the favourable prepossession
to a most surprising extent; which was the more remarkable, as when she
first scanned that young lady's face and figure, she had entertained
certain inward misgivings that they would never agree.

'But now,' said Miss Knag, glancing at the reflection of herself in a
mirror at no great distance, 'I love her--I quite love her--I declare I
do!'

Of such a highly disinterested quality was this