Page:Nicholas Nickleby.djvu/122

88 "And when," said Miss La Creevy, after a long silence, to wit, an interval of full a minute and a half, "when do you expect to see your uncle again?"

"I scarcely know; I had expected to have seen him before now," replied Kate. "Soon I hope, for this state of uncertainty is worse than anything."

"I suppose he has money, hasn't he?" inquired Miss La Creevy.

"He is very rich I have heard," rejoined Kate. "I don't know that he is, but I believe so."

"Ah, you may depend upon it he is, or he wouldn't be so surly," remarked Miss La Creevy, who was an odd little mixture of shrewdness and simplicity. "When a man's a bear he is generally pretty independent."

"His manner is rough," said Kate.

"Rough!" cried Miss La Creevy, "a porcupine's a feather-bed to him. I never met with such a cross-grained old savage."

"It is only his manner, I believe," observed Kate, timidly, "he was disappointed in early life I think I have heard, or has had his temper soured by some calamity. I should be sorry to think ill of him until I knew he deserved it."

"Well; that's very right and proper," observed the miniature painter, "and Heaven forbid that I should be the cause of your doing so. But now mightn't he, without feeling it himself, make you and your mama some nice little allowance that would keep you both comfortable until you were well married, and be a little fortune to her afterwards? What would a hundred a year, for instance, be to him?"

"I don't know what it would be to him," said Kate, with great energy, "but it would be that to me I would rather die than take."

"Heyday!" cried Miss La Creevy.

"A dependence upon him," said Kate, "would embitter my whole life. I should feel begging a far less degradation."

"Well!" exclaimed Miss La Creevy. "This of a relation whom you will not hear an indifferent person speak ill of, my dear, sounds oddly enough, I confess."

"I dare say it does," replied Kate, speaking more gently, "indeed I am sure it must. I—I—only mean that with the feelings and recollection of better times upon me, I could not bear to live on anybody's bounty—not his particularly, but anybody's."

Miss La Creevy looked slyly at her companion, as if she doubted whether Ralph himself were not the subject of dislike, but seeing that her young friend was distressed, made no remark.

"I only ask of him," continued Kate, whose tears fell while she spoke, "that he will move so little out of his way in my behalf, as to enable me by his recommendation—only by his recommendation—to earn, literally, my bread and remain with my mother. Whether we shall ever taste happiness again, depends upon the fortunes of my dear brother; but if he will do this, and Nicholas only tells us that he is well and cheerful, I shall be contented."

As she ceased to speak there was a rustling behind the screen which