After that, love, bliss and rapture; rapture, love and bliss. Be mine, be mine!'

Repeating these last words with great rapture and enthusiasm, the old gentleman put on his black velvet cap again, and looking up into the sky in a hasty manner, said something that was not quite intelligible concerning a balloon he expected, and which was rather after its time.

'Be mine, be mine!' repeated the old gentleman.

'Kate, my dear,' said Mrs Nickleby, 'I have hardly the power to speak; but it is necessary for the happiness of all parties that this matter should be set at rest for ever.'

'Surely there is no necessity for you to say one word, mama?' reasoned Kate.

'You will allow me, my dear, if you please, to judge for myself,' said Mrs Nickleby.

'Be mine, be mine!' cried the old gentleman.

'It can scarcely be expected, sir,' said Mrs Nickleby, fixing her eyes modestly on the ground, 'that I should tell a stranger whether I feel flattered and obliged by such proposals, or not. They certainly are made under very singular circumstances; still at the same time, as far as it goes, and to a certain extent of course' (Mrs Nickleby's customary qualification), 'they must be gratifying and agreeable to one's feelings.'

'Be mine, be mine,' cried the old gentleman. 'Gog and Magog, Gog and Magog. Be mine, be mine!'

'It will be sufficient for me to say, sir,' resumed Mrs Nickleby, with perfect seriousness--'and I'm sure you'll see the propriety of taking an answer and going away--that I have made up my mind to remain a widow, and to devote myself to my children. You may not suppose I am the mother of two children--indeed many people have doubted it, and said that nothing on earth could ever make 'em believe it possible--but it is the case, and they are both grown up. We shall be very glad to have you for a neighbour--very glad; delighted, I'm sure--but in any other character it's quite impossible, quite. As to my being young enough to marry again, that perhaps may be so, or it may not be; but I couldn't think of it for an instant, not on any account whatever. I said I never would, and I never will. It's a very painful thing to have to reject proposals, and I would much rather that none were made; at the same time this is the answer that I determined long ago to make, and this is the answer I shall always give.'

These observations were partly addressed to the old gentleman, partly to Kate, and partly delivered in soliloquy. Towards their conclusion, the suitor evinced a very irreverent degree of inattention, and Mrs Nickleby had scarcely finished speaking, when, to the great terror both of that lady and her daughter, he suddenly flung off his coat, and springing on the top of the wall, threw himself into an attitude which displayed his small-clothes and grey worsteds to the fullest advantage, and concluded by standing on one leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with increased vehemence.

While he was still dwelling on the last note, and embellishing it with a prolonged flourish, a dirty hand was observed to glide stealthily and swiftly along the top of the wall, as if in pursuit of a fly, and then to clasp with the utmost dexterity one of the old gentleman's ankles. This done, the companion hand appeared, and clasped the other ankle.