ave hoped to receive from one so much her senior
something like womanly aid and sympathy? I do not--I cannot believe it!'

If poor Kate had possessed the slightest knowledge of the world, she
certainly would not have ventured, even in the excitement into which she
had been lashed, upon such an injudicious speech as this. Its effect
was precisely what a more experienced observer would have foreseen.
Mrs Wititterly received the attack upon her veracity with exemplary
calmness, and listened with the most heroic fortitude to Kate's account
of her own sufferings. But allusion being made to her being held in
disregard by the gentlemen, she evinced violent emotion, and this blow
was no sooner followed up by the remark concerning her seniority, than
she fell back upon the sofa, uttering dismal screams.

'What is the matter?' cried Mr Wititterly, bouncing into the room.
'Heavens, what do I see? Julia! Julia! look up, my life, look up!'

But Julia looked down most perseveringly, and screamed still louder; so
Mr Wititterly rang the bell, and danced in a frenzied manner round
the sofa on which Mrs Wititterly lay; uttering perpetual cries for Sir
Tumley Snuffim, and never once leaving off to ask for any explanation of
the scene before him.

'Run for Sir Tumley,' cried Mr Wititterly, menacing the page with both
fists. 'I knew it, Miss Nickleby,' he said, looking round with an air of
melancholy triumph, 'that society has been too much for her. This is all
soul, you know, every bit of it.' With this assurance Mr Wititterly took
up the prostrate form of Mrs Wititterly, and carried her bodily off to
bed.

Kate waited until Sir Tumley Snuffim had paid his visit and looked in
with a report, that, through the special interposition of a merciful
Providence (thus spake Sir Tumley), Mrs Wititterly had gone to sleep.
She then hastily attired herself for walking, and leaving word that she
should return within a couple of hours, hurried away towards her uncle's
house.

It had been a good day with Ralph Nickleby--quite a lucky day; and as he
walked to and fro in his little back-room with his hands clasped behind
him, adding up in his own mind all the sums that had been, or would be,
netted from the business done since morning, his mouth was drawn into a
hard stern smile; while the firmness of the lines and curves that made
it up, as well as the cunning glance of his cold, bright eye, seemed to
tell, that if any resolution or cunning would in