I shall
rebound, Smike. But come; my errand here is to take you home.'

'Home!' faltered Smike, drawing timidly back.

'Ay,' rejoined Nicholas, taking his arm. 'Why not?'

'I had such hopes once,' said Smike; 'day and night, day and night,
for many years. I longed for home till I was weary, and pined away with
grief, but now--'

'And what now?' asked Nicholas, looking kindly in his face. 'What now,
old friend?'

'I could not part from you to go to any home on earth,' replied Smike,
pressing his hand; 'except one, except one. I shall never be an old man;
and if your hand placed me in the grave, and I could think, before I
died, that you would come and look upon it sometimes with one of your
kind smiles, and in the summer weather, when everything was alive--not
dead like me--I could go to that home almost without a tear.'

'Why do you talk thus, poor boy, if your life is a happy one with me?'
said Nicholas.

'Because I should change; not those about me. And if they forgot me,
I should never know it,' replied Smike. 'In the churchyard we are all
alike, but here there are none like me. I am a poor creature, but I know
that.'

'You are a foolish, silly creature,' said Nicholas cheerfully. 'If
that is what you mean, I grant you that. Why, here's a dismal face for
ladies' company!--my pretty sister too, whom you have so often asked me
about. Is this your Yorkshire gallantry? For shame! for shame!'

Smike brightened up and smiled.

'When I talk of home,' pursued Nicholas, 'I talk of mine--which is yours
of course. If it were defined by any particular four walls and a roof,
God knows I should be sufficiently puzzled to say whereabouts it lay;
but that is not what I mean. When I speak of home, I speak of the place
where--in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and
if that place were a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should call it by the
same good name notwithstanding. And now, for what is my present home,
which, however alarming your expectations may be, will neither terrify
you by its extent nor its magnificence!'

So saying, Nicholas took his companion by the arm, and saying a great
deal more to the same purpose, and pointing out various things to amuse
and interest him as they went along, led the way to Miss La Creevy's
house.

'And this, Kate,' said Nicholas, entering the room where his sister sat
alone, 'is the faithful friend and affectionate fellow-traveller whom I
prepared you to receive.'