“Today? so very soon?”
“I have thought of this for weeks, and why should I postpone it? If the scene through which I have just passed has taught me to reflect, and has awakened me to a more anxious and careful sense of duty, why should I wait until the impression has cooled? You would not dissuade me, Kate; now would you?”
“You may grow rich, you know,” said Kate.
“I may grow rich!” repeated Nicholas, with a mournful smile, “ay, and I may grow old! But rich or poor, or old or young, we shall ever be the same to each other, and in that our comfort lies. What if we have but one home? It can never be a solitary one to you and me. What if we were to remain so true to these first impressions as to form no others? It is but one more link to the strong chain that binds us together. It seems but yesterday that we were playfellows, Kate, and it will seem but tomorrow when we are staid old people, looking back to these cares as we look back, now, to those of our childish days: and recollecting with a melancholy pleasure that the time was, when they could move us. Perhaps then, when we are quaint old folks and talk of the times when our step was lighter and our hair not grey, we may be even thankful for the trials that so endeared us to each other, and turned our lives into that current, down which we shall have glided so peacefully and calmly. And having caught some inkling of our story, the young people about us—as young as you and I are now, Kate—may come to us for sympathy, and pour distresses which hope and inexperience could scarcely feel enough for, into the compassionate ears of the old bachelor brother and his maiden sister.”
Kate smiled through her tears as Nicholas drew this picture; but they were not tears of sorrow, although they continued to fall when he had ceased to speak.
“Am I not right, Kate?” he said, after a short silence.
“Quite, quite, dear brother; and I cannot tell you how happy I am that I have acted as you would have had me.”
“You don’t regret?”
“N—n—no,” said Kate timidly, tracing some pattern upon the ground with her little foot. “I don’t regret having done what was honourable and right, of course; but I do regret that this should have ever happened—at least sometimes I regret it, and sometimes I—I don’t know what I say; I am but a weak girl, Nicholas, and it has agitated me very much.”
It is no vaunt to affirm that if Nicholas had had ten thousand pounds at the minute, he would, in his generous affection for the owner of the blushing cheek and downcast eye, have bestowed its utmost farthing, in perfect forgetfulness of himself, to secure her happiness. But all he could do was to comfort and console her by kind words; and words they were of such love and kindness, and cheerful encouragement, that poor Kate threw her arms about his neck, and declared she would weep no more.
“What man,” thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon afterwards, to the brothers’ house, “would not be sufficiently rewarded for any sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a heart as Kate’s, which, but that hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy, is beyond all praise? Frank has money, and wants no more. Where would it buy him such a treasure as Kate? And yet, in unequal marriages, the rich party is always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get a good bargain! But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same.”
Checking thoughts so little adapted to the business on which he was bound, by such self-reproofs as this and many others no less sturdy, he proceeded on his way and presented himself before Tim Linkinwater.
“Ah! Mr. Nickleby!” cried Tim, “God bless you! how d’ye do? Well? Say you’re quite well and never better. Do now.”
“Quite,” said Nicholas, shaking him by both hands.
“Ah!” said Tim, “you look tired though, now I come to look at you. Hark! there he is, d’ye hear him? That was Dick, the blackbird. He hasn’t been himself since you’ve been gone. He’d never get on without you, now; he takes as naturally to you as he does to me.”
“Dick is a far less sagacious fellow than I supposed him, if he thinks I am half so well worthy of his notice as you,” replied Nicholas.
“Why, I’ll tell you what, sir,” said Tim, standing in his favourite attitude and pointing to the cage with the feather of his pen, “it’s a very extraordinary thing about that bird, that the only people he ever takes the smallest notice of, are Mr. Charles, and Mr. Ned, and you, and me.”
Here, Tim stopped and glanced anxiously at Nicholas; then unexpectedly catching his eye repeated, “And you and me, sir, and you and me.” And then he glanced at Nicholas again, and, squeezing his hand, said, “I am a bad one at putting off anything I am interested in. I didn’t mean to ask you, but I should like to hear a few particulars about that poor boy. Did he mention Cheeryble Brothers at all?”
“Yes,” said Nicholas, “many and many a time.”
“That was right of him,” returned Tim, wiping his eyes; “that was very right of him.”
“And he mentioned your name a score of times,” said Nicholas, “and often bade me carry back his love to Mr. Linkinwater.”
“No, no, did he though?” rejoined Tim, sobbing outright. “Poor fellow! I wish we could have had him
