the name of Lillyvick Kenwigs, was instantly almost suffocated under the caresses of the audience, and squeezed to his mother’s bosom until he roared again.  Then, after drinking the health of the child’s preserver, the company made the discovery that it was nigh two o’clock, whereat they took their leave, with flattering expressions of the pleasure they had enjoyed, to which Mr. and Mrs. Kenwigs replied by thanking them, and hoping they had enjoyed themselves only half as well as they said they had.

The young man, Nicholas Nickleby by name, who had rescued the baby, made such an impression upon Mrs. Kenwigs that she felt impelled to propose through the friend whom he had been visiting, that he should instruct the four little Kenwigses in the French language at the weekly stipend of five shillings; being at the rate of one shilling per week, per each Miss Kenwigs, and one shilling over until such time as the baby might be able to take it out in grammar.

This proposition was accepted with alacrity by Nicholas, who betook himself to the Kenwigs’ apartment with all speed.  Here he found the four Miss Kenwigses on their form of audience, and the baby in a dwarf porter’s chair, with a deal tray before it, amusing himself with a toy horse, while Mrs. Kenwigs spoke to the little girls of the superior advantages they enjoyed above other children.  “But I hope,” she said, “that that will not make them proud; but that they will bless their own good fortune which has born them superior to common people’s children.  And when you go out in the streets, or elsewhere, I desire that you don’t boast of it to the other children,” continued Mrs. Kenwigs, “and that if you must say anything about it, you don’t say no more than ’we’ve got a private master comes to teach us at home, but we ain’t proud, because Ma says its sinful,’ Do you hear, Morleena?”

Upon the eldest Miss Kenwigs replying meekly that she did, permission was conceded for the lesson to commence, and accordingly the four Miss Kenwigses again arranged themselves upon their form, in a row, with their tails all one way, while Nicholas Nickleby began his preliminary explanations.

Some months after this, the Kenwigses were thrown into a fever of rage and disappointment, by receiving the cruel news of their Uncle Lillyvick’s marriage, which blow was a terrible one to Mrs. Kenwigs, blighting her hopes for her children’s future.  After weeping and wailing in the most agonized fashion, Mrs. Kenwigs drew herself up in proud defiance, and denounced her uncle in terms direct and plain, stating that he should never again darken her doors.  In this terrible state of affairs, it remained for Morleena of the flaxen tails, to bring about a family re-union, and in this way: