'Let me be sure I'm right.

Was it her hairdresser who had escaped from a bear, or was it a bear who had escaped from her hairdresser's?
I declare I can't remember just now, but the hairdresser was a very handsome man, I know, and quite a gentleman in his manners; so that it has nothing to do with the point of the story.' Mrs Nickleby having fallen imperceptibly into one of her retrospective moods, improved in temper from that moment, and glided, by an easy change of the conversation occasionally, into various other anecdotes, no less remarkable for their strict application to the subject in hand.
'Mr Smike is from Yorkshire, Nicholas, my dear ?' said Mrs Nickleby, after dinner, and when she had been silent for some time.
'Certainly, mother,' replied Nicholas.

'I see you have not forgotten his melancholy history.' 'O dear no,' cried Mrs Nickleby.

'Ah! melancholy, indeed.

You don't happen, Mr Smike, ever to have dined with the Grimbles of Grimble Hall, somewhere in the North Riding, do you ?' said the good lady, addressing herself to him.