unsuccessful attempts since their last interview, to wipe her dirty face clean upon an apron much dirtier.
"What name?" said the girl.
"Nickleby," replied Ralph.
"Oh! Mrs. Nickleby," said the girl, throwing open the door, "here's Mr. Nickleby."
A lady in deep mourning rose as Mr. Ralph Nickleby entered, but appeared incapable of advancing to meet him, and leant upon the arm of a slight but very beautiful girl of about seventeen, who had been sitting by her. A youth, who appeared a year or two older, stepped forward and saluted Ralph as his uncle.
"Oh," growled Ralph, with an ill-favoured frown, "you are Nicholas, I suppose?"
"That is my name, Sir," replied the youth.
"Put my hat down," said Ralph, imperiously. "Well, ma'am, how do you do? You must bear up against sorrow, ma'am; I always do."
"Mine was no common loss!" said Mrs. Nickleby, applying her handkerchief to her eyes.
"It was no uncommon loss, ma'am," returned Ralph, as he coolly unbuttoned his spencer. "Husbands die every day, ma'am, and wives too."
"And brothers also, Sir," said Nicholas, with a glance of indignation.
"Yes, Sir, and puppies, and pug-dogs likewise," replied his uncle, taking a chair. "You didn't mention in your letter what my brother's complaint was, ma'am."
"The doctors could attribute it to no particular disease," said Mrs. Nickleby, shedding tears. "We have too much reason to fear that he died of a broken heart."
"Pooh!" said Ralph, "there's no such thing. I can understand a man's dying of a broken neck, or suffering from a broken arm, or a broken head, or a broken leg, or a broken nose; but a broken heart—nonsense, it's the cant of the day. If a man can't pay his debts, he dies of a broken heart, and his widow's a martyr."
"Some people, I believe, have no hearts to break," observed Nicholas, quietly.
"How old is this boy, for God's sake?" inquired Ralph, wheeling back his chair, and surveying his nephew from head to foot with intense scorn.
"Nicholas is very nearly nineteen," replied the widow.
"Nineteen, eh!" said Ralph, "and what do you mean to do for your bread, Sir?"
"Not to live upon my mother," replied Nicholas, his heart swelling as he spoke.
"You'd have little enough to live upon, if you did," retorted the uncle, eyeing him contemptuously.
"Whatever it be," said Nicholas, flushed with anger, "I shall not look to you to make it more."
"Nicholas, my dear, recollect yourself," remonstrated Mrs. Nickleby.
