violence which the fierce excitement of Nicholas appeared to threaten.

'Dear Nicholas,' cried his sister, clinging to him. 'Be calm,
consider--'

'Consider, Kate!' cried Nicholas, clasping her hand so tight in the
tumult of his anger, that she could scarcely bear the pain. 'When I
consider all, and think of what has passed, I need be made of iron to
stand before him.'

'Or bronze,' said Ralph, quietly; 'there is not hardihood enough in
flesh and blood to face it out.'

'Oh dear, dear!' cried Mrs Nickleby, 'that things should have come to
such a pass as this!'

'Who speaks in a tone, as if I had done wrong, and brought disgrace on
them?' said Nicholas, looking round.

'Your mother, sir,' replied Ralph, motioning towards her.

'Whose ears have been poisoned by you,' said Nicholas; 'by you--who,
under pretence of deserving the thanks she poured upon you, heaped every
insult, wrong, and indignity upon my head. You, who sent me to a den
where sordid cruelty, worthy of yourself, runs wanton, and youthful
misery stalks precocious; where the lightness of childhood shrinks into
the heaviness of age, and its every promise blights, and withers as it
grows. I call Heaven to witness,' said Nicholas, looking eagerly round,
'that I have seen all this, and that he knows it.'