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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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640 his hat from his head, and looked very grave. ‘What’s the matter? What is it? How did it all come about?’ said the old man, laying his hand on the shoulder of Nicholas, and walking him up the street. ‘You’re--Eh?’ laying his finger on the sleeve of his black coat. ‘Who’s it for, eh?’ ‘My father,’ replied Nicholas. ‘Ah!’ said the old gentleman quickly. ‘Bad thing for a young man to lose his father. Widowed mother, perhaps?’ Nicholas sighed. ‘Brothers and sisters too? Eh?’ ‘One sister,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Poor thing, poor thing! You are a scholar too, I dare say?’ said the old man, looking wistfully into the face of the young one. ‘I have been tolerably well educated,’ said Nicholas. ‘Fine thing,’ said the old gentleman, ‘education a great thing: a very great thing! I never had any. I admire it the more in others. A very fine thing. Yes, yes. Tell me more of your history. Let me hear it all. No impertinent curiosity--no, no, no.’ There was something so earnest and guileless in the way in which all this was said, and such a complete disregard of all conventional restraints and coldnesses, that Nicholas could not resist it. Among men who have any sound and sterling qualities, there is nothing so contagious as pure openness of heart. Nicholas took the infection instantly, and ran over the main points of his little history without reserve: merely suppressing names, and touching as lightly as possible upon his uncle’s treatment of Kate. The old man listened with great attention, and when he had concluded, drew his arm eagerly through his own. ‘Don’t say another word. Not another word’ said he. ‘Come |
