"Somebody went out just now, but I think it was the attic which had been a cleaning of himself," replied the girl.
"You had better see," said the invisible female. "Show the gentleman where the bell is, and tell him he mustn't knock double knocks for the second floor; I can't allow a knock except when the bell's broke, and then it must be two single ones."
"Here," said Ralph, walking in without more parley, "I beg your pardon; is that Mrs. La what's-her-name?"
"Creevy—La Creevy," replied the voice, as a yellow head-dress bobbed over the bannisters.
"I'll speak to you a moment, ma'am, with your leave," said Ralph.
The voice replied that the gentleman was to walk up; but he had walked up before it spoke, and stepping into the first floor, was received by the wearer of the yellow head-dress, who had a gown to correspond, and was of much the same colour herself. Miss La Creevy was a mincing young lady of fifty, and Miss La Creevy's apartment was the gilt frame down stairs on a larger scale and something dirtier.
"Hem!" said Miss La Creevy, coughing delicately behind her black silk mitten. "A miniature, I presume. A very strongly-marked countenance for the purpose, Sir. Have you ever sat before?"
"You mistake my purpose, I see, Ma'am," replied Mr. Nickleby, in his usual blunt fashion. "I have no money to throw away on miniatures, ma'am, and nobody to give one to (thank God) if I had. Seeing you on the stairs, I wanted to ask a question of you, about some lodgers here."
Miss La Creevy coughed once more—this cough was to conceal her disappointment—and said, "Oh, indeed!"
"I infer from what you said to your servant, that the floor above belongs to you, ma'am?" said Mr, Nickleby.
Yes it did, Miss La Creevy replied. The upper part of the house belonged to her, and as she had no necessity for the second-floor rooms just then, she was in the habit of letting them. Indeed, there was a lady from the country and her two children in them, at that present speaking.
"A widow, ma'am?" said Ralph.
"Yes, she is a widow," replied the lady.
"A poor widow, ma'am?" said Ralph, with a powerful emphasis on that little adjective which conveys so much.
"Well, I am afraid she is poor," rejoined Miss La Creevy.
"I happen to know that she is, ma'am," said Ralph. "Now what business has a poor widow in such a house as this, ma'am?"
"Very true," replied Miss La Creevy, not at all displeased with this implied compliment to the apartments. "Exceedingly true."
"I know her circumstances intimately, ma'am," said Ralph; "in fact, I am a relation of the family; and I should recommend you not to keep them here, ma'am."
"I should hope, if there was any incompatibility to meet the pecuniary obligations," said Miss La Creevy with another cough, "that the lady's family would——"
