e of
admiration, strongly guarded by Tim Linkinwater on one side, and Frank
himself on the other.

'Kate,' murmured Mrs Nickleby, reviving when the coast was clear, 'is he
gone?'

She was assured that he was.

'I shall never forgive myself, Kate,' said Mrs Nickleby. 'Never! That
gentleman has lost his senses, and I am the unhappy cause.'

'YOU the cause!' said Kate, greatly astonished.

'I, my love,' replied Mrs Nickleby, with a desperate calmness. 'You saw
what he was the other day; you see what he is now. I told your brother,
weeks and weeks ago, Kate, that I hoped a disappointment might not be
too much for him. You see what a wreck he is. Making allowance for
his being a little flighty, you know how rationally, and sensibly, and
honourably he talked, when we saw him in the garden. You have heard the
dreadful nonsense he has been guilty of this night, and the manner in
which he has gone on with that poor unfortunate little old maid. Can
anybody doubt how all this has been brought about?'

'I should scarcely think they could,' said Kate mildly.

'I should scarcely think so, either,' rejoined her mother. 'Well! if
I am the unfortunate cause of this, I have the satisfaction of knowing
that I am not to blame. I told Nicholas, I said to him, "Nicholas, my
dear, we should be very careful how we proceed." He would scarcely hear
me. If the matter had only been properly taken up at first, as I wished
it to be! But you are both of you so like your poor papa. However, I
have MY consolation, and that should be enough for me!'

Washing her hands, thus, of all responsibility under this head, past,
present, or to come, Mrs Nickleby kindly added that she hoped her
children might never have greater cause to reproach themselves than she
had, and prepared herself to receive the escort, who soon returned with
the intelligence that the old gentleman was safely housed, and that
they found his custodians, who had been making merry with some friends,
wholly ignorant of his absence.

Quiet being again restored, a delicious half-hour--so Frank called it,
in the course of subsequent conversation with Tim Linkinwater as they
were walking home--was spent in conversation, and Tim's watch at length
apprising him that it was high time to depart, the ladies were left
alone, though not without many offers on the part of Frank to remain
until Nicholas arrived, no matter what hour of the night it might be,
if, after the late neighbourly irrup