'Oh! as soft as possible, if you please.' With which words, Miss Squeers sighed.

It might be, to give Nicholas to understand that her heart was soft, and that the pen was wanted to match.
Upon these instructions Nicholas made the pen; when he gave it to Miss Squeers, Miss Squeers dropped it; and when he stooped to pick it up, Miss Squeers stopped also, and they knocked their heads together; whereat five-and-twenty little boys laughed aloud: being positively for the first and only time that half-year.
'Very awkward of me,' said Nicholas, opening the door for the young lady's retreat.
'Not at all, sir,' replied Miss Squeers; 'it was my fault.

It was all my foolish--a--a--good-morning!' 'Goodbye,' said Nicholas.

'The next I make for you, I hope will be made less clumsily.

Take care! You are biting the nib off now.' 'Really,' said Miss Squeers; 'so embarrassing that I scarcely know what I--very sorry to give you so much trouble.' 'Not the least trouble in the world,' replied Nicholas, closing the schoolroom door.
'I never saw such legs in the whole course of my life!' said Miss Squeers, as she walked away.
In fact, Miss Squeers was in love with Nicholas Nickleby.
To account for the rapidity with which this young lady had conceived a passion for Nicholas, it may be necessary to state, that the friend from whom she had so recently returned, was a miller's daughter of only eighteen, who had contracted herself unto the son of a small corn-factor, resident in the nearest market town.