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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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1004 will have the opportunity, now that a constant round of pleasure and enjoyment opens upon you), and, occupying yourself a little more by day, have no time to think of what you dream by night.’ Ralph followed him, with a steady look, to the door; and, turning to the bridegroom, when they were again alone, said, ‘Mark my words, Gride, you won’t have to pay his annuity very long. You have the devil’s luck in bargains, always. If he is not booked to make the long voyage before many months are past and gone, I wear an orange for a head!’ To this prophecy, so agreeable to his ears, Arthur returned no answer than a cackle of great delight. Ralph, throwing himself into a chair, they both sat waiting in profound silence. Ralph was thinking, with a sneer upon his lips, on the altered manner of Bray that day, and how soon their fellowship in a bad design had lowered his pride and established a familiarity between them, when his attentive ear caught the rustling of a female dress upon the stairs, and the footstep of a man. ‘Wake up,’ he said, stamping his foot impatiently upon the ground, ‘and be something like life, man, will you? They are here. Urge those dry old bones of yours this way. Quick, man, quick!’ Gride shambled forward, and stood, leering and bowing, close by Ralph’s side, when the door opened and there entered in haste--not Bray and his daughter, but Nicholas and his sister Kate. If some tremendous apparition from the world of shadows had suddenly presented itself before him, Ralph Nickleby could not have been more thunder-stricken than he was by this surprise. His hands fell powerless by his side, he reeled back; and with open mouth, and a face of ashy paleness, stood gazing at them in |
