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.

"Whatever it be," said Nicholas, flushed with anger, "I shall not look to you to make it more."

"Nicholas, my dear, recollect yourself," remonstrated Mrs Nickleby.

"Dear Nicholas, pray"- urged the young lady.

"Hold your tongue, sir!" said Ralph. "Upon my word! Fine beginnings, Mrs Nickleby,-fine beginnings!"

Mrs Nickleby made no other reply than entreating Nicholas by a gesture to keep silent; and the uncle and nephew looked at each other for some seconds without speaking. The face of the old man was stern, hardfeatured, and forbidding; that of the young one, open, handsome, and ingenuous. The old man's eye was keen with the twinklings of avarice and cunning; the young

man's bright with the light of intelligence and spirit. His figure was somewhat slight, but manly and well formed; and apart from all the grace of youth and comeliness, there was an emotion from the warm young heart in his look and bearing which kept the old man down.

The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close by Ralph withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, and calling Nicholas "a boy."

"Well, ma'am," said Ralph, impatiently, "the creditors have administered, you tell me, and there is nothing left for you?"

"Nothing," replied Mrs Nickleby.

"And you spent what little money you had, in coming all the way to London, to see what I could do for you?" pursued Ralph.

"I hoped," faltered Mrs Nickleby, "that you might have an opportunity of doing something for your brother's children. It was his dying wish that I should appeal to you in their behalf.”

"I don't know how it is," muttered Ralph, walking

up and down the room, “but whenever a man dies without any property of his own, he always seems to think he has a right to dispose of other people's. What is your daughter fit for, ma'am?"

"Kate has been well educated," sobbed Mrs Nickleby. "Tell your uncle, my dear, how far you went in French and extras."

The poor girl was about to murmur something, when her uncle stopped her, very unceremoniously.

"We must try and get you apprenticed at some board

ing-school," said Ralph. "You have not been brought up too delicately for that, I hope ?"

'No, indeed, uncle," replied the weeping girl. "I will try to do anything that will gain me a home and bread."

66

'Well, well," said Ralph, a little softened, either by his niece's beauty or her distress, (stretch a point and say the latter.) "You must try it, and if the life is too hard, perhaps dressmaking or tambour-work will come lighter. Have you ever done anything, sir?" (turning to his nephew).

"No," replied Nicholas, bluntly.

"No, I thought not!" said Ralph. "This is the way my brother brought up his children, maʼam ?”

"Nicholas has not long completed such education as his poor father could give him," rejoined Mrs Nickleby, "and he was thinking of"

"Of making something of him some day," said Ralph. "The old story; always thinking, and never doing. . . . Are you willing to work, sir?" he said, frowning on his nephew.

"Of course I am," replied Nicholas, haughtily. "Then, see here, sir," said his uncle. "This caught my eye this morning, and you may thank your stars for it."

With this exordium, Mr Ralph Nickleby took a newspaper from his pocket, and after unfolding it, and looking for a short time among the advertisements, read as follows:

"EDUCATION.-At Mr Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys,

near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single-stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen's Head, Snow Hill.

Annual Salary,

"N.B.-An able assistant wanted. £5. A Master of Arts would be preferred.'

"There!" said Ralph, folding the paper again. "Let him get that situation, and his fortune is made."CHARLES DICKENS.

100. GRIFFITH AND CALEB.

"He must be a genius, Caleb !”

"May be, may be, brother Griffith "."

"Must be, sir!"

"We are but weak, short-sighted mortals, Griffith, and must not "

"Pshaw! speak for yourself, brother Caleb. The boy, I repeat, must be a genius."

"Well, well! if he must be, he must; I can't help it.” "Help it! why"

"Let him be anything, my good brother, but one of your thing-o-my-alogists, or ologists."

"Pooh, Caleb ! you are ignorant of the use or applica tion of terms."

"Like enow, like enow, Griffith; but I know his uncle Wintletrap was one of the crew, and you

Hold, Caleb! Of me you may think or speak as you shall see fit, in your plentiful lack of judgment; but of Dr Wintletrap"

"What of him ?"

"He was indeed a philosopher."

"Didn't I say so? it's all one and same thing—a fellow

"Ay, Caleb, a fellow of every learned body (pl.), sect (pl.), and society (pl.), from Drontheim* to Bologna."

"All of a kidney-all hang together, I dare swear; fellows like himself, kicked out of society at home, and sent packing to these outlandish parts!”

"Caleb, Caleb, thou art little better than an old dunce!"

"Dunce in your teeth-but no; I forgive you. I daresay you are quite right; you are more learned in these matters than I can pretend to be; but, for the soul of me, I never could understand their use."

"Use! pshaw, Caleb."

"I'm not saying it to anger you, brother Griffith— you know I am not; it's all my ignorance, no doubt; I am sure it is; but it was this plaguy Doctor Wintletrap who first set your wits a wool-gathering, after these boxes of dead bones and painted porringers."

"Vases, vases, Caleb-Egyptian, Etruscan."

"Never mind their names, Griffith; I can't remember them. There they stand to speak for themselves; call 'em what ye will, they are still nothing but pots, pans, and coffins after all."