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106 "There; he says it was not his fault, my dear," remarked the wicked Miss Price. "Perhaps you were too jealous or too hasty with him? He says it was not his fault, you hear; I think that's apology enough."

"You will not understand me," said Nicholas. "Pray dispense with this jesting, for I have no time, and really no inclination, to be the subject or promoter of mirth just now."

"What do you mean?" asked Miss Price, affecting amazement.

"Don't ask him, 'Tilda," cried Miss Squeers; "I forgive him."

"Dear me," said Nicholas, as the brown bonnet went down on his shoulder again, "this is more serious than I supposed; allow me. Will you have the goodness to hear me speak?"

Here he raised up the brown bonnet, and regarding with most unfeigned astonishment a look of tender reproach from Miss Squeers, shrunk back a few paces to be out of the reach of the fair burden, and went on to say— "I am very sorry—truly and sincerely sorry—for having been the cause of any difference among you last night. I reproach myself most bitterly for having been so unfortunate as to cause the dissension that occurred, although I did so, I assure you, most unwittingly and heedlessly."

"Well; that's not all you have got to say surely," exclaimed Miss Price as Nicholas paused.

"I fear there is something more," stammered Nicholas with a half smile, and looking towards Miss Squeers, "it is a most awkward thing to say—but—the very mention of such a supposition makes one look like a puppy—still—may I ask if that lady supposes that I entertain any—in short does she think that I am in love with her?"

"Delightful embarrassment," thought Miss Squeers, "I have brought him to it at last. Answer for me, dear," she whispered to her friend.

"Does she think so?" rejoined Miss Price; "of course she does."

"She does!" exclaimed Nicholas with such energy of utterance as might have been for the moment mistaken for rapture.

"Certainly," replied Miss Price.

"If Mr. Nickleby has doubted that, 'Tilda," said the blushing Miss Squeers in soft accents, "he may set his mind at rest. His sentiments are rccipro—"

"Stop," cried Nicholas hurriedly; "pray hear me. This is the grossest and wildest delusion, the completest and most signal mistake, that ever human being laboured under or committed. I have scarcely seen the young lady half a dozen times, but if I had seen her sixty times, or am destined to see her sixty thousand, it would be and will be precisely the same. I have not one thought, wish, or hope, connected with her unless it be—and I say this, not to hurt her feelings, but to impress her with the real state of my own—unless it be the one object dear to my heart as life itself, of being one day able to turn my back upon this accursed place, never to set foot in it again or to think of it—even think of it—but with loathing and disgust."

With this particularly plain and straight-forward declaration, which he made with all the vehemence that his indignant and excited feelings