`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 was a wretched, neglected, miserable castaway.

`I hate everybody,' said Miss Squeers, `and I wish that everybody was dead--that I do.'

`Dear, dear,' said Miss Price, quite moved by this avowal of misanthropical sentiments. `You are not serious, I am sure.'

`Yes, I am,' rejoined Miss Squeers, tying tight knots in her pocket-handkerchief and clenching her teeth. `And I wish I was dead too. There!'

`Oh! you'll think very differently in another five minutes,' said Matilda. `How much better to take him into favour again, than to hurt yourself by going on in that way. Wouldn't it be much nicer, now, to have him all to yourself on good terms, in a company-keeping, love-making, pleasant sort of manner?'

`I don't know but what it would,' sobbed Miss Squeers. `Oh! 'Tilda, how could you have acted so mean and dishonourable! I wouldn't have believed it of you, if anybody had told me.'

`Heyday!' exclaimed Miss Price, giggling. `One would suppose I had been murdering somebody at least.'