Part 25 (1/2)

'Mr Nicholas!' cried Miss La Creevy, starting in great astonishottenhis hand

'Why, I think I should even have known you if I had met you in the street,' said Miss La Creevy, with a smile 'Hannah, another cup and saucer Now, I'll tell you what, young man; I'll trouble you not to repeat the i you went away'

'You would not be very angry, would you?' asked Nicholas

'Wouldn't I!' said Miss La Creevy 'You had better try; that's all!'

Nicholas, with becoallantry, immediately took Miss La Creevy at her word, who uttered a faint scream and slapped his face; but it was not a very hard slap, and that's the truth

'I never saw such a rude creature!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy

'You toldironically,' rejoined Miss La Creevy

'Oh! that's another thing,' said Nicholas; 'you should have told me that, too'

'I dare say you didn't know, indeed!' retorted Miss La Creevy 'But, now I look at you again, you seeard and pale And how come you to have left Yorkshi+re?'

She stopped here; for there was so much heart in her altered tone and manner, that Nicholas was quite ed,' he said, after a short silence; 'for I have undergone so, both of mind and body, since I left London I have been very poor, too, and have even suffered from want'

'Good Heaven, Mr Nicholas!' exclai which need distress you quite so htly air; 'neither did I come here to bewail my lot, but on matter more to the purpose I wish to meet my uncle face to face I should tell you that first'

'Then all I have to say about that is,' interposed Miss La Creevy, 'that I don't envy you your taste; and that sitting in the same room with his very boots, would put ht'

'In the reat difference of opinion between you and me, so far; but you will understand, that I desire to confront him, to justify myself, and to cast his duplicity and malice in his throat'

'That's quite another ive me; but I shouldn't cry my eyes quite out of my head, if they choked hi,' said Nicholas 'He only returned to town on Saturday, and I knew nothing of his arrival until late last night'

'And did you see him?' asked Miss La Creevy

'No,' replied Nicholas 'He had gone out'

'Hah!' said Miss La Creevy; 'on some kind, charitable business, I dare say'

'I have reason to believe,' pursued Nicholas, 'from what has been told me, by a friend of mine who is acquainted with histhem his version of the occurrences that have befallen ht,' said Miss La Creevy, rubbing her hands 'And yet, I don't know,' she added, 'there is ht of-others to be considered'

'I have considered others,' rejoined Nicholas; 'but as honesty and honour are both at issue, nothing shall deter me'

'You should know best,' said Miss La Creevy

'In this case I hope so,' answered Nicholas 'And all I want you to do forway off, and if I holly unexpected, I should frighten them If you can spare time to tell them that you have seen me, and that I shall be with thereat service'

'I wish I could do you, or any of you, a greater,' said Miss La Creevy; 'but the power to serve, is as seldom joined with the will, as the will is with the power, I think'

Talking on very fast and very reat expedition, put away the tea-caddy and hid the key under the fender, resu Nicholas's arm, sallied forth at once to the city Nicholas left her near the door of his mother's house, and promised to return within a quarter of an hour

It so chanced that Ralph Nickleby, at length seeing fit, for his own purposes, to couilty, had (instead of first proceeding to another quarter of the town on business, as Newht to his sister-in-law Hence, when Miss La Creevy, ad the house, -room, she found Mrs Nickleby and Kate in tears, and Ralph just concluding his statement of his nephew's misdemeanours Kate beckoned her not to retire, and Miss La Creevy took a seat in silence

'You are here already, are you, ht the little woman 'Then he shall announce himself, and see what effect that has on you'

'This is pretty,' said Ralph, folding up Miss Squeers's note; 'very pretty I recoainst all ood-to a ht have remained, in coht hold up his hand at the Old Bailey'

'I never will believe it,' said Kate, indignantly; 'never It is some base conspiracy, which carries its own falsehood with it'

'My dear,' said Ralph, 'you wrong the worthy man These are not inventions The man is assaulted, your brother is not to be found; this boy, of whooes with him-remember, remember'

'It is impossible,' said Kate 'Nicholas!-and a thief too! Mama, how can you sit and hear such statements?'

Poor Mrs Nickleby, who had, at no time, been re, and who had been reduced by the late changes in her affairs to a most complicated state of perplexity, made no other reply to this earnest re from behind a mass of pocket-handkerchief, that she never could have believed it-therebyher hearers to suppose that she did believe it

'It would be my duty, if he came in my way, to deliver him up to justice,' said Ralph, 'my bounden duty; I should have no other course, as a man of the world and ain a veryfurtively, but fixedly, at Kate, 'and yet I would not I would spare the feelings of his-of his sister And his ht, and with far less emphasis

Kate very well understood that this was held out as an additional induce the events of the preceding night She looked involuntarily towards Ralph as he ceased to speak, but he had turned his eyes another way, and seemed for the ,' said Ralph, after a long silence, broken only by Mrs Nickleby's sobs, 'everything combines to prove the truth of this letter, if indeed there were any possibility of disputing it Do innocent ht of honest folks, and skulk in hiding-places, like outlaws? Do innocent abonds, and proith them about the country as idle robbers do? assault, riot, theft, what do you call these?'

'A lie!' cried a voice, as the door was dashed open, and Nicholas came into the room

In the first moment of surprise, and possibly of alarm, Ralph rose frouard by this unexpected apparition In another arding his nepheith a scohile Kate and Miss La Creevy threw themselves between the two, to prevent the personal violence which the fierce excitement of Nicholas appeared to threaten

'Dear Nicholas,' cried his sister, clinging to him 'Be cal her hand so tight in the tuer, that she could scarcely bear the pain 'When I consider all, and think of what has passed, I need be made of iron to stand before him'

'Or bronze,' said Ralph, quietly; 'there is not hardihood enough in flesh and blood to face it out'

'Oh dear, dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, 'that things should have come to such a pass as this!'

'Who speaks in a tone, as if I had done wrong, and brought disgrace on the round

'Yourtowards her

'Whose ears have been poisoned by you,' said Nicholas; 'by you-who, under pretence of deserving the thanks she poured upon you, heaped every insult, wrong, and indignity upon my head You, who sent me to a den where sordid cruelty, worthy of yourself, runs wanton, and youthful htness of childhood shrinks into the heaviness of age, and its every prorows I call Heaven to witness,' said Nicholas, looking eagerly round, 'that I have seen all this, and that he knows it'

'Refute these caluive thee Tell us what you really did, and show that they are untrue'

'Of what do they-or of what does he-accuseyouryourself to be tried forman, bluster as you will'