r term of mourning had expired, Madeline gave her hand and
fortune to Nicholas; and, on the same day and at the same time, Kate
became Mrs Frank Cheeryble. It was expected that Tim Linkinwater and
Miss La Creevy would have made a third couple on the occasion, but
they declined, and two or three weeks afterwards went out together one
morning before breakfast, and, coming back with merry faces, were found
to have been quietly married that day.

The money which Nicholas acquired in right of his wife he invested in
the firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Frank had become a partner.
Before many years elapsed, the business began to be carried on in the
names of 'Cheeryble and Nickleby,' so that Mrs Nickleby's prophetic
anticipations were realised at last.

The twin brothers retired. Who needs to be told that THEY were happy?
They were surrounded by happiness of their own creation, and lived but
to increase it.

Tim Linkinwater condescended, after much entreaty and brow-beating, to
accept a share in the house; but he could never be prevailed upon to
suffer the publication of his name as a partner, and always persisted in
the punctual and regular discharge of his clerkly duties.

He and his wife lived in the old house, and occupied the very bedchamber
in which he had slept for four-and-forty years. As his wife grew older,
she became even a more cheerful and light-hearted little creature; and
it was a common saying among their friends, that it was impossible
to say which looked the happier, Tim as he sat calmly smiling in his
elbow-chair on one side of the fire, or his brisk little wife chatting
and laughing, and constantly bustling in and out of hers, on the other.

Dick, the blackbird, was removed from the counting-house and promoted
to a warm corner in the common sitting-room. Beneath his cage hung two
miniatures, of Mrs Linkinwater's execution; one representing herself,
and the other Tim; and both smiling very hard at all beholders. Tim's
head being powdered like a twelfth cake, and his spectacles copied with
great nicety, strangers detected a close resemblance to him at the first
glance, and this leading them to suspect that the other must be his
wife, and emboldening them to say so without scruple, Mrs Linkinwater
grew very proud of these achievements in time, and considered them
among the most successful likenesses she had ever painted. Tim had
the profoundest faith in them, likewise; for on this, as on all
other su