`Lor, Kate, my dear,' returned her mother, `why, you're asleep or stupid! About the time before I was married.'

`Oh yes!' said Kate, `I remember. I was going to ask, mamma, before you were married, had you many suitors?'

`Suitors, my dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, with a smile of wonderful complacency. `First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at least.'

`Mamma!' returned Kate, in a tone of remonstrance.

`I had indeed, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby; `not including your poor papa, or a young gentleman who used to go, at that time, to the same dancing school, and who would send gold watches and bracelets to our house in gilt-edged paper, (which were always returned,) and who afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet ship--a convict ship I mean--and escaped into a bush and killed sheep, (I don't know how they got there,) and was going to be hung, only he accidentally choked himself, and the government pardoned him. Then there was young Lukin,' said Mrs Nickleby, beginning with her left thumb and checking off the names on her fingers--Mogley--Tipslark--Cabbery--Smifser--'

Having now reached her little finger, Mrs Nickleby was carrying the account over to the other hand, when a loud `Hem!' which appeared to come from the very foundation of the garden-wall, gave both herself and her daughter a violent start.

`Mamma! what was that?' said Kate, in a low tone of voice.

`Upon my word, my dear,' returned Mrs Nickleby, considerably startled, `unless it was the gentleman belonging to the next house, I don't know what it could possibly--'

`A--hem!' cried the same voice; and that, not in the tone of an ordinary clearing of the throat, but in a kind of bellow, which woke up all the echoes in the neighbourhood, and was prolonged to an extent which must have made the unseen bellower quite black in the face.

`I understand it now, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, laying her hand on Kate's; `don't be alarmed, my love, it's not directed to you, and is not intended to frighten anybody. Let us give everybody their due, Kate; I am bound to say that.'

So saying, Mrs Nickleby nodded her head, and patted the back of her daughter's hand, a great many times, and looked as if she could tell something vastly important if she chose, but had self-denial, thank Heaven; and wouldn't do it.

`What do you mean, mamma?' demanded Kate, in evident surprise.

`Don't be flurried, my dear,' replied Mrs Nickleby, looking towards the garden-wall, `for you see I'm not, and if it would be excusable in anybody to be flurried, it certainly would--under all the circumstances--be excusable in me, but I am not, Kate--not at all.'

`It seems designed to attract our attention, mamma,' said Kate.

`It is designed to attract our attention, my dear--at least,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, drawing herself up, and patting her daughter's hand more blandly than before, `to attract the attention of one of us. Hem! you needn't be at all uneasy, my dear.'

Kate looked very much perplexed, and was apparently about to ask for further explanation, when a shouting and scuffling noise, as of an elderly gentleman whooping, and kicking up his legs on loose gravel, with great violence, was heard to proceed from the same direction as the former sounds; and before they had subsided, a large cucumber was seen to shoot up in the air with the velocity of a sky-rocket, whence it descended, tumbling over and over, until it fell at Mrs Nickleby's feet.