Mr Lillyvick, and called upon
them to thank and bless him.

'And now,' said Mr Lillyvick, when a heart-rending scene had ensued and
the children were cleared away again, 'give me some supper. This took
place twenty mile from town. I came up this morning, and have being
lingering about all day, without being able to make up my mind to come
and see you. I humoured her in everything, she had her own way, she
did just as she pleased, and now she has done this. There was twelve
teaspoons and twenty-four pound in sovereigns--I missed them first--it's
a trial--I feel I shall never be able to knock a double knock again,
when I go my rounds--don't say anything more about it, please--the
spoons were worth--never mind--never mind!'

With such muttered outpourings as these, the old gentleman shed a few
tears; but, they got him into the elbow-chair, and prevailed upon him,
without much pressing, to make a hearty supper, and by the time he had
finished his first pipe, and disposed of half-a-dozen glasses out of a
crown bowl of punch, ordered by Mr Kenwigs, in celebration of his return
to the bosom of his family, he seemed, though still very humble, quite
resigned to his fate, and rather relieved than otherwise by the flight
of his wife.

'When I see that man,' said Mr Kenwigs, with one hand round Mrs
Kenwigs's waist: his other hand supporting his pipe (which made him wink
and cough very much, for he was no smoker): and his eyes on Morleena,
who sat upon her uncle's knee, 'when I see that man as mingling, once
again, in the spear which he adorns, and see his affections deweloping
themselves in legitimate sitiwations, I feel that his nature is as
elewated and expanded, as his standing afore society as a public
character is unimpeached, and the woices of my infant children purvided
for in life, seem to whisper to me softly, "This is an ewent at which
Evins itself looks down!"'

CHAPTER 53

Containing the further Progress of the Plot contrived by Mr Ralph
Nickleby and Mr Arthur Gride

With that settled resolution, and steadiness of purpose to which extreme
circumstances so often give birth, acting upon far less excitable and
more sluggish temperaments than that which was the lot of Madeline
Bray's admirer, Nicholas started, at dawn of day, from the restless
couch which no sleep had visited on the previous night, and prepared
to make that last appeal, by whose slight and fragile thread her only
remaining hope of escape depe