ssion as on a young heart stored with
every pure and true affection that women cherish; almost a stranger to
the endearments and devotion of its own sex, save as it learnt them from
itself; and rendered, by calamity and suffering, keenly susceptible of
the sympathy so long unknown and so long sought in vain? What wonder
that days became as years in knitting them together! What wonder,
if with every hour of returning health, there came some stronger and
sweeter recognition of the praises which Kate, when they recalled old
scenes--they seemed old now, and to have been acted years ago--would
lavish on her brother! Where would have been the wonder, even, if those
praises had found a quick response in the breast of Madeline, and if,
with the image of Nicholas so constantly recurring in the features of
his sister that she could scarcely separate the two, she had sometimes
found it equally difficult to assign to each the feelings they had first
inspired, and had imperceptibly mingled with her gratitude to Nicholas,
some of that warmer feeling which she had assigned to Kate?

'My dear,' Mrs Nickleby would say, coming into the room with an
elaborate caution, calculated to discompose the nerves of an invalid
rather more than the entry of a horse-soldier at full gallop; 'how do
you find yourself tonight? I hope you are better.'

'Almost well, mama,' Kate would reply, laying down her work, and taking
Madeline's hand in hers.

'Kate!' Mrs Nickleby would say, reprovingly, 'don't talk so loud' (the
worthy lady herself talking in a whisper that would have made the blood
of the stoutest man run cold in his veins).

Kate would take this reproof very quietly, and Mrs Nickleby, making
every board creak and every thread rustle as she moved stealthily about,
would add:

'My son Nicholas has just come home, and I have come, according to
custom, my dear, to know, from your own lips, exactly how you are; for
he won't take my account, and never will.'

'He is later than usual to-night,' perhaps Madeline would reply. 'Nearly
half an hour.'

'Well, I never saw such people in all my life as you are, for time, up
here!' Mrs Nickleby would exclaim in great astonishment; 'I declare I
never did! I had not the least idea that Nicholas was after his time,
not the smallest. Mr Nickleby used to say--your poor papa, I am speaking
of, Kate my dear--used to say, that appetite was the best clock in the
world, but you have no appetite, my dear Miss Bray