Page:Nicholas Nickleby.djvu/695

Rh what you knew was right and honourable, that I should shrink from mine?" said Nicholas tenderly.

"Oh, no! not if your position had been the same, but—" "But it is the same," interrupted Nicholas; "Madeline is not the near relation of our benefactors, but she is closely bound to them by ties as dear, and I was first entrusted with her history, specially because they reposed unbounded confidence in me, and believed that I was true as steel. How base would it be of me to take advantage of the circumstances which placed her here, or of the slight service I was happily able to render her, and to seek to engage her affections when the result must be, if I succeeded, that the brothers would be disappointed in their darling wish of establishing her as their own child, and that I must seem to hope to build my fortunes on their compassion for the young creature whom I had so meanly and unworthily entrapped, turning her very gratitude and warmth of heart to my own purpose and account, and trading in her misfortunes! I, too, whose duty and pride and pleasure, Kate, it is, to have other claims upon me which I will never forget, and who have the means of a comfortable and happy life already, and have no right to look beyond it! I have determined to remove this weight from my mind; I doubt whether I have not done wrong even now; and to-day I will without reserve or equivocation disclose my real reasons to Mr. Cheeryble, and implore him to take immediate measures for removing this young lady to the shelter of some other roof."

"To-day? 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 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 to-morrow that we are staid old people looking back then 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—shall 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