When her term of mourning had expired, Madeline gave her hand andfortune to Nicholas; and, on the same day and at the same time, Katebecame Mrs Frank Cheeryble. It was expected that Tim Linkinwater andMiss La Creevy would have made a third couple on the occasion, butthey declined, and two or three weeks afterwards went out together onemorning before breakfast, and, coming back with merry faces, were foundto have been quietly married that day.

The money which Nicholas acquired in right of his wife he invested inthe firm of Cheeryble Brothers, in which Frank had become a partner.Before many years elapsed, the business began to be carried on in thenames of 'Cheeryble and Nickleby,' so that Mrs Nickleby's propheticanticipations were realised at last.

The twin brothers retired. Who needs to be told that THEY were happy?They were surrounded by happiness of their own creation, and lived butto increase it.

Tim Linkinwater condescended, after much entreaty and brow-beating, toaccept a share in the house; but he could never be prevailed upon tosuffer the publication of his name as a partner, and always persisted inthe punctual and regular discharge of his clerkly duties.

He and his wife lived in the old house, and occupied the very bedchamberin which he had slept for four-and-forty years. As his wife grew older,she became even a more cheerful and light-hearted little creature; andit was a common saying among their friends, that it was impossibleto say which looked the happier, Tim as he sat calmly smiling in hiselbow-chair on one side of the fire, or his brisk little wife chattingand laughing, and constantly bustling in and out of hers, on the other.

Dick, the blackbird, was removed from the counting-house and promotedto a warm corner in the common sitting-room. Beneath his cage hung twominiatures, of Mrs Linkinwater's execution; one representing herself,and the other Tim; and both smiling very hard at all beholders. Tim'shead being powdered like a twelfth cake, and his spectacles copied withgreat nicety, strangers detected a close resemblance to him at the firstglance, and this leading them to suspect that the other must be hiswife, and emboldening them to say so without scruple, Mrs Linkinwatergrew very proud of these achievements in time, and considered themamong the most successful likenesses she had ever painted. Tim hadthe profoundest faith in them, likewise; for on this, as on allother subjects, they held but one opinion; and if ever there were a'comfortable couple' in the world, it was Mr and Mrs Linkinwater.

Ralph, having died intestate, and having no relations but those withwhom he had lived in such enmity, they would have become in legal coursehis heirs. But they could not bear the thought of growing rich on moneyso acquired, and felt as though they could never hope to prosper withit. They made no claim to his wealth; and the riches for which he hadtoiled all his days, and burdened his soul with so many evil deeds, wereswept at last into the coffers of the state, and no man was the betteror the happier for them.

Arthur Gride was tried for the unlawful possession of the will, whichhe had either procured to be stolen, or had dishonestly acquired andretained by other means as bad. By dint of an ingenious counsel, anda legal flaw, he escaped; but only to undergo a worse punishment;for, some years afterwards, his house was broken open in the night byrobbers, tempted by the rumours of his great wealth, and he was foundmurdered in his bed.

Mrs Sliderskew went beyond the seas at nearly the same time as MrSqueers, and in the course of nature never returned. Brooker diedpenitent. Sir Mulberry Hawk lived abroad for some years, courted andcaressed, and in high repute as a fine dashing fellow. Ultimately,returning to this country, he was thrown into jail for debt, and thereperished miserably, as such high spirits generally do.

The first act of Nicholas, when he became a rich and prosperousmerchant, was to buy his father's old house. As time crept on, and therecame gradually about him a group of lovely children, it was altered andenlarged; but none of the old rooms were ever pulled down, no old treewas ever rooted up, nothing with which there was any association ofbygone times was ever removed or changed.

Within a stone's throw was another retreat, enlivened by children'spleasant voices too; and here was Kate, with many new cares andoccupations, and many new faces courting her sweet smile (and one solike her own, that to her mother she seemed a child again), the sametrue gentle creature, the same fond sister, the same in the love of allabout her, as in her girlish days.

Mrs Nickleby lived, sometimes with her daughter, and sometimes with herson, accompanying one or other of them to London at those periods whenthe cares of business obliged both families to reside there, and alwayspreserving a great appearance of dignity, and relating her experiences(especially on points connected with the management and bringing-up ofchildren) with much solemnity and importance. It was a very long timebefore she could be induced to receive Mrs Linkinwater into favour, andit is even doubtful whether she ever thoroughly forgave her.

There was one grey-haired, quiet, harmless gentleman, who, winter andsummer, lived in a little cottage hard by Nicholas's house, and, whenhe was not there, assumed the superintendence of affairs. His chiefpleasure and delight was in the children, with whom he was a childhimself, and master of the revels. The little people could do nothingwithout dear Newman Noggs.

The grass was green above the dead boy's grave, and trodden by feetso small and light, that not a daisy drooped its head beneath theirpressure. Through all the spring and summertime, garlands of freshflowers, wreathed by infant hands, rested on the stone; and, when thechildren came to change them lest they should wither and be pleasantto him no longer, their eyes filled with tears, and they spoke low andsoftly of their poor dead cousin.