was overtaken by the handmaid, whom
the politeness of Miss La Creevy had dispatched to announce him, and
who had apparently been making a variety of 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.