Charles Dickens: The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

CHAPTER 19: Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr Ralph Nickleby's... (continued)

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.

Ralph Nickleby, who was proof against all appeals of blood and kindred--who was steeled against every tale of sorrow and distress-- staggered while he looked, and went back into his house, as a man who had seen a spirit from some world beyond the grave.