He is not to be supposed to know it's hopeless.

Poor fellow! He is to be pitied, I think!' Having made these reflections, Mrs Nickleby looked in her little dressing-glass, and walking backward a few steps from it, tried to remember who it was who used to say that when Nicholas was one-and-twenty he would have more the appearance of her brother than her son.

Not being able to call the authority to mind, she extinguished her candle, and drew up the window-blind to admit the light of morning, which had, by this time, begun to dawn.
'It's a bad light to distinguish objects in,' murmured Mrs Nickleby, peering into the garden, 'and my eyes are not very good--I was short-sighted from a child--but, upon my word, I think there's another large vegetable marrow sticking, at this moment, on the broken glass bottles at the top of the wall!'.