as it grows. I call Heaven to witness,' said Nicholas, looking eagerly round, `that I have seen all this, and that he knows it.'

`Refute these calumnies,' said Kate, `and be more patient, so that you may give them no advantage. Tell us what you really did, and show that they are untrue.'

`Of what do they--or of what does he--accuse me?' said Nicholas.

`First, of attacking your master, and being within an ace of qualifying yourself to be tried for murder,' interposed Ralph. `I speak plainly, young man, bluster as you will.'

`I interfered,' said Nicholas, `to save a miserable creature from the vilest cruelty. In so doing, I inflicted such punishment upon a wretch as he will not readily forget, though far less than he deserved from me. If the same scene were renewed before me now, I would take the same part; but I would strike harder and heavier, and brand him with such marks as he should carry to his grave, go to it when he would.'

`You hear?' said Ralph, turning to Mrs Nickleby. `Penitence, this!'

`Oh dear me!' cried Mrs Nickleby, `I don't know what to think, I really don't.'

`Do not speak just now, mamma, I entreat you,' said Kate. `Dear Nicholas, I only tell you, that you may know what wickedness can prompt, but they accuse you of--a ring is missing, and they dare to say that--`

`The woman,' said Nicholas, haughtily, `the wife of the fellow from whom these charges come, dropped-- as I suppose--a worthless ring among some clothes of mine, early in the morning on which I left the house. At least, I know that she was in the bedroom where they lay, struggling with an unhappy child, and that I found it when I opened my bundle on the road. I returned it, at once, by coach, and they have it now.'

`I knew, I knew,' said Kate, looking towards her uncle. `About this boy, love, in whose company they say you left?'

`The boy, a silly, helpless creature, from brutality and hard usage, is with me now,' rejoined Nicholas.

`You hear?' said Ralph, appealing to the mother again, `everything proved, even upon his own confession. Do you choose to restore that boy, sir?'

`No, I do not,' replied Nicholas.

`You do not?' sneered Ralph.

`No,' repeated Nicholas, `not to the man with whom I found him. I would that I knew on whom he has the claim of birth: I might wring something from his sense of shame, if he were dead to every tie of nature.'

`Indeed!' said Ralph. `Now, sir, will you hear a word or two from me?'

`You can speak when and what you please,' replied Nicholas, embracing his sister. `I take little heed of what you say or threaten.'

`Mighty well, sir,' retorted Ralph; `but perhaps it may concern others, who may think it worth their while to listen, and consider what I tell them. I will address your mother, sir, who knows the world.'

`Ah! and I only too dearly wish I didn't,' sobbed Mrs Nickleby.

There really was no necessity for the good lady to be much distressed upon this particular head; the extent of her worldly knowledge being, to say the least, very questionable; and so Ralph seemed to think,