'Can it be possible ?' 'Oh, I hope not!' cried Miss Snevellicci.

'You surely are not so cruel--oh, dear me!--Well, I--to think of that now, after all one's looking forward to it!' 'Mr Johnson will not persist, my dear,' said Mrs Crummles.

'Think better of him than to suppose it.

Gallantry, humanity, all the best feelings of his nature, must be enlisted in this interesting cause.' 'Which moves even a manager,' said Mr Crummles, smiling.
'And a manager's wife,' added Mrs Crummles, in her accustomed tragedy tones.

'Come, come, you will relent, I know you will.' 'It is not in my nature,' said Nicholas, moved by these appeals, 'to resist any entreaty, unless it is to do something positively wrong; and, beyond a feeling of pride, I know nothing which should prevent my doing this.