“No, sir.  I interested myself in the recovery of that instrument, believing that her hand was already pledged elsewhere.  In this, it seems, I judged hastily.”

“As you always do, sir!” cried brother Charles.  “How dare you think, Frank, that we could have you marry for money?  How dare you go and make love to Mr. Nickleby’s sister without telling us first, and letting us speak for you.  Mr. Nickleby, sir, Frank judged hastily, but he judged, for once, correctly.  Madeline’s heart is occupied—­give me your hand—­it is occupied by you and worthily.  She chooses you, Mr. Nickleby, as we, her dearest friends, would have her choose.  Frank chooses as we would have him choose.  He should have your sister’s little hand, sir, if she had refused it a score of times—­ay, he should, and he shall!  What?  You are the children of a worthy gentleman.  The time was, sir, when my brother Ned and I were two poor, simple-hearted boys, wandering almost barefoot to seek bur fortunes.  Oh, Ned, Ned, Ned, what a happy day this is for you and me!  If our poor mother had only lived to see us now, Ned, how proud it would have made her dear heart at last!”

So Madeline gave her heart and fortune to Nicholas, and on the same day, and at the same time, Kate became Mrs. Frank Cheeryble.  Madeline’s money was invested in the firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Nicholas had become a partner, and before many years elapsed the business was carried on in the names of “Cheeryble and Nickleby.”

Tim Linkinwater condescended, after much entreating 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 partner, and always persisted in the punctual and regular discharge of his clerkly duties.

The twin brothers retired.  Who needs to be told that they were happy?

The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and prosperous merchant, was to buy his father’s old house.  As time crept on, and there came gradually about him a group of lovely children, it was altered and enlarged; but no tree was rooted up, nothing with which there was any association of bygone times was ever removed or changed.  Mr. Squeers, having come within the meshes of the law over some nefarious scheme of Ralph Nickleby’s, suffered transportation beyond the seas, and with his disappearance Dotheboys Hall was broken up for good.

* * * * *

Oliver Twist

      “The Adventures of Oliver Twist,” published serially in
     “Bentley’s Miscellany,” 1837-39, and in book form in 1838, was
     the second of Dickens’s novels.  It lacks the exuberance of
     “Pickwick,” and is more limited in its scenes and characters
     than any other novel he wrote, excepting “Hard Times” and
     “Great Expectations.”  But the description of the workhouse,
     its inmates and governors,