that Mrs La what's-her-name?'

'Creevy--La Creevy,' replied the voice, as a yellow headdress bobbed
over the banisters.

'I'll speak to you a moment, ma'am, with your leave,' said Ralph.

The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked
up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by
the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to correspond, and
was of much the same colour herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing
young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy's apartment was the gilt frame
downstairs on a larger scale and something dirtier.

'Hem!' said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk
mitten. 'A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for
the purpose, sir. Have you ever sat before?'

'You mistake my purpose, I see, ma'am,' replied Mr Nickleby, in his
usual blunt fashion. 'I have no money to throw away on miniatures,
ma'am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the
stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here.'

Miss La Creevy coughed once more--this cough was to conceal her
disappointment--and said, 'Oh, indeed!'

'I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above
belongs to you, ma'am,' said Mr Nickleby.

Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged
to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just
then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady
from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking.

'A widow, ma'am?' said Ralph.

'Yes, she is a widow,' replied the lady.

'A POOR widow, ma'am,' said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that
little adjective which conveys so much.

'Well, I'm afraid she IS poor,' rejoined Miss La Creevy.

'I happen to know that she is, ma'am,' said Ralph. 'Now, what business
has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma'am?'

'Very true,' replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this
implied compliment to the apartments. 'Exceedingly true.'

'I know her circumstances intimately, ma'am,' said Ralph; 'in fact, I
am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to keep them
here, ma'am.'

'I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the pecuniary
obligations,' said Miss La Creevy with another cough, 'that the lady's
family would--'

'No they wouldn't, ma'am,' interrupted Ralph, hastily. 'Don't think it.'

'If