"I am most anxious that he should, mama," rejoined Kate.
"Well, my dear, if you are anxious that he should, you had better allow your uncle to say what he has to say, without interruption," observed Mrs. Nickleby, with many small nods and frowns. "Your uncle's time is very valuable, my dear; and however desirous you may be—and naturally desirous, as I am sure any affectionate relations who have seen so little of your uncle as we have, must naturally be—to protract the pleasure of having him among us, still we are bound not to be selfish, but to take into consideration the important nature of his occupations in the city."
"I am very much obliged to you, ma'am," said Ralph with a scarcely perceptible sneer. "An absence of business habits in this family leads apparently to a great waste of words before business—when it does come under consideration—is arrived at, at all."
"I fear it is so indeed," replied Mrs. Nickleby with a sigh. "Your poor brother—"
"My poor brother, ma'am," interposed Ralph tartly, "had no idea what business was—was unacquainted, I verily believe, with the very meaning of the word."
"I fear he was," said Mrs. Nickleby, with her handkerchief to her eyes. "If it hadn't been for me, I don't know what would have become of him."
What strange creatures we are! The slight bait so skilfully thrown out by Ralph on their first interview was dangling on the hook yet. At every small deprivation or discomfort which presented itself in the course of the four-and-twenty hours to remind her of her straitened and altered circumstances, peevish visions of her dower of one thousand pounds had arisen before Mrs. Nickleby's mind, until at last she had come to persuade herself that of all her late husband's creditors she was the worst used and the most to be pitied. And yet she had loved him dearly for many years, and had no greater share of selfishness than is the usual lot of mortals. Such is the irritability of sudden poverty. A decent annuity would have restored her thoughts to their old train at once.
"Repining is of no use, ma'am," said Ralph. "Of all fruitless errands, sending a tear to look after a day that is gone is the most fruitless."
"So it is," sobbed Mrs. Nickleby. "So it is."
"As you feel so keenly in your own purse and person the consequences of inattention to business, ma'am," said Ralph, "I am sure you will impress upon your children the necessity of attaching themselves to it early in life."
"Of course I must see that," rejoined Mrs. Nickleby. "Sad experience, you know, brother-in-law. Kate, my dear, put that down in the next letter to Nicholas, or remind me to do it if I write."
Ralph paused for a few moments, and seeing that he had now made pretty sure of the mother in case the daughter objected to his proposition, went on to say—
"The situation that I have made interest to procure, ma'am, is with—with a milliner and dress-maker, in short."
