Charles Dickens: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

CHAPTER 19: Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr Ralph Nickleby's... (continued)

'Let me see,' said the good lady. 'Your black silk frock will be quite dress enough, my dear, with that pretty little scarf, and a plain band in your hair, and a pair of black silk stock--Dear, dear,' cried Mrs Nickleby, flying off at another angle, 'if I had but those unfortunate amethysts of mine--you recollect them, Kate, my love--how they used to sparkle, you know--but your papa, your poor dear papa--ah! there never was anything so cruelly sacrificed as those jewels were, never!' Overpowered by this agonising thought, Mrs Nickleby shook her head, in a melancholy manner, and applied her handkerchief to her eyes.

I don't want them, mama, indeed,' said Kate. 'Forget that you ever had them.'

'Lord, Kate, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, pettishly, 'how like a child you talk! Four-and-twenty silver tea-spoons, brother-in-law, two gravies, four salts, all the amethysts--necklace, brooch, and ear-rings--all made away with, at the same time, and I saying, almost on my bended knees, to that poor good soul, "Why don't you do something, Nicholas? Why don't you make some arrangement?" I am sure that anybody who was about us at that time, will do me the justice to own, that if I said that once, I said it fifty times a day. Didn't I, Kate, my dear? Did I ever lose an opportunity of impressing it on your poor papa?'

'No, no, mama, never,' replied Kate. And to do Mrs Nickleby justice, she never had lost--and to do married ladies as a body justice, they seldom do lose--any occasion of inculcating similar golden percepts, whose only blemish is, the slight degree of vagueness and uncertainty in which they are usually enveloped.

'Ah!' said Mrs Nickleby, with great fervour, 'if my advice had been taken at the beginning--Well, I have always done MY duty, and that's some comfort.'

When she had arrived at this reflection, Mrs Nickleby sighed, rubbed her hands, cast up her eyes, and finally assumed a look of meek composure; thus importing that she was a persecuted saint, but that she wouldn't trouble her hearers by mentioning a circumstance which must be so obvious to everybody.