and object of her life, but that, overwhelmed by accumulated difficulties and disappointments, she had been compelled to seek out her mother's old friend, and, with a bursting heart, to confide in him at last.

`If I had been poor,' said brother Charles, with sparkling eyes; `if I had been poor, Mr Nickleby, my dear sir, which thank God I am not, I would have denied myself--of course anybody would under such circumstances-- the commonest necessaries of life, to help her. As it is, the task is a difficult one. If her father were dead, nothing could be easier, for then she should share and cheer the happiest home that brother Ned and I could have, as if she were our child or sister. But he is still alive. Nobody can help him--that has been tried a thousand times; he was not abandoned by all without good cause, I know.'

`Cannot she be persuaded to--' Nicholas hesitated when he had got thus far.

`To leave him?' said brother Charles. `Who could entreat a child to desert her parent? Such entreaties, limited to her seeing him occasionally, have been urged upon her--not by me--but always with the same result.'

`Is he kind to her?' said Nicholas. `Does he requite her affection?'

`True kindness, considerate self-denying kindness, is not in his nature,' returned Mr Cheeryble. `Such kindness as he knows, he regards her with, I believe. The mother was a gentle, loving, confiding creature, and although he wounded her from their marriage till her death as cruelly and wantonly as ever man did, she never ceased to love him. She commended him on her death-bed to her child's care. Her child has never forgotten it, and never will.'

`Have you no influence over him?' asked Nicholas.

`I, my dear sir! The last man in the world. Such are his jealousy and hatred of me, that if he knew his daughter had opened her heart to me, he would render her life miserable with his reproaches; although-- this is the inconsistency and selfishness of his character--although if he knew that every penny she had came from me, he would not relinquish one personal desire that the most reckless expenditure of her scanty stock could gratify.'

`An unnatural scoundrel!' said Nicholas, indignantly.

`We will use no harsh terms,' said brother Charles, in a gentle voice; `but accommodate ourselves to the circumstances in which this young lady is placed. Such assistance as I have prevailed upon her to accept, I have been obliged, at her own earnest request, to dole out in the smallest portions, lest he, finding how easily money was procured, should squander it even more lightly than he is accustomed to do. She has come to and fro, to and fro, secretly and by night, to take even this; and I cannot bear that things should go on in this way, Mr Nickleby--I really cannot bear it.'

Then it came out by little and little, how that the twins had been revolving in their good old heads manifold plans and schemes for helping this young lady in the most delicate and considerate way, and so that her father should not suspect the source whence the aid was derived; and how they had at last come to the conclusion, that the best course would be to make a feint of purchasing her little drawings and ornamental work at a high price, and keeping up a constant demand for the same. For the furtherance of which end and object it was necessary that somebody should represent the dealer in such commodities, and after great deliberation they had pitched upon Nicholas to support this character.

`He knows me,' said brother Charles, `and he knows my brother Ned. Neither of us would do. Frank is a very good fellow--a very fine fellow--but we are afraid that he might be a little flighty and thoughtless in such a delicate matter, and that he might, perhaps--that he might, in short, be too susceptible (for she is a beautiful creature, sir; just what her poor mother was), and falling in love with her before he knew well his own mind, carry pain and sorrow into that innocent breast, which we would be the humble instruments of gradually making happy. He took an extraordinary interest in her fortunes when he first