‘Quite ridiculous,’ cried the doctor.
‘She looks a deal more like her own daughter,’ said the married lady.
‘So she does,’ assented Mr. Lumbey. ‘A great deal more.’
Mr. Kenwigs was about to make some further observations, most probably in confirmation of this opinion, when another married lady, who had looked in to keep up Mrs. Kenwigs’s spirits, and help to clear off anything in the eating and drinking way that might be going about, put in her head to announce that she had just been down to answer the bell, and that there was a gentleman at the door who wanted to see Mr. Kenwigs ‘most particular.’
Shadowy visions of his distinguished relation flitted through the brain of Mr. Kenwigs, as this message was delivered; and under their influence, he dispatched Morleena to show the gentleman up straightway.
‘Why, I do declare,’ said Mr. Kenwigs, standing opposite the door so as to get the earliest glimpse of the visitor, as he came upstairs, ‘it’s Mr Johnson! How do you find yourself, sir?’
Nicholas shook hands, kissed his old pupils all round, intrusted a large parcel of toys to the guardianship of Morleena, bowed to the doctor and the married ladies, and inquired after Mrs. Kenwigs in a tone of interest, which went to the very heart and soul of the nurse, who had come in to warm some mysterious compound, in a little saucepan over the fire.
‘I ought to make a hundred apologies to you for calling at such a season,’ said Nicholas, ‘but I was not aware of it until I had rung the bell, and my time is so fully occupied now, that I feared it might be some days before I could possibly come again.’
‘No time like the present, sir,’ said Mr. Kenwigs. ‘The sitiwation of Mrs Kenwigs, sir, is no obstacle to a little conversation between you and me, I hope?’
‘You are very good,’ said Nicholas.