about. You are faint with the closeness of the room, and the heat of
these lamps. You will be better now, if you make the slightest effort.'

'I will do anything,' replied Kate, 'if you will only send me home.'

'Well, well, I will,' said Ralph; 'but you must get back your own looks;
for those you have, will frighten them, and nobody must know of this but
you and I. Now let us walk the other way. There. You look better even
now.'

With such encouragements as these, Ralph Nickleby walked to and fro,
with his niece leaning on his arm; actually trembling beneath her touch.

In the same manner, when he judged it prudent to allow her to depart, he
supported her downstairs, after adjusting her shawl and performing such
little offices, most probably for the first time in his life. Across
the hall, and down the steps, Ralph led her too; nor did he withdraw his
hand until she was seated in the coach.

As the door of the vehicle was roughly closed, a comb fell from Kate's
hair, close at her uncle's feet; and as he picked it up, and returned it
into her hand, the light from a neighbouring lamp shone upon her face.
The lock of hair that had escaped and curled loosely over her brow, the
traces of tears yet scarcely dry, the flushed cheek, the look of sorrow,
all fired some dormant train of recollection in the old man's breast;
and the face of his dead brother seemed present before him, with the
very look it bore on some occasion of boyish grief, of which every
minutest circumstance flashed upon his mind, with the distinctness of a
scene of yesterday.