Dombey And Son / Dickens, Charles

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Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

February, 1997  [Etext #821]

***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Dombey and Son, by Dickens***
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Dombey and Son was contributed by:
Neil McLachlan, nmclachlan@delphi.com
and Ted Davis, 101515.3105@compuserve.com
on behalf of the Talking Newspaper of the UK (TNAUK).

A Kurzweil flatbed scanner and Xerox Discover software were used to
produce the raw text files, which were edited using the TSEJR ASCII
text editor, with a user lexicon specially developed for this purpose.
Words split at the end of lines have been re-united, maintaining
hyphenation where appropriate; except for the Prefaces, the text has
been reformatted to 70 columns.

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Dombey and Son was contributed by:
Neil McLachlan, nmclachlan@delphi.com
and Ted Davis, 101515.3105@compuserve.com
on behalf of the Talking Newspaper of the UK (TNAUK).

Production:
A Kurzweil flatbed scanner and Xerox Discover software was used to
produce the raw text files, which were edited using the TSEJR ASCII
text editor, with a user lexicon specially developed for this purpose.
Words split at the end of lines have been re-united, maintaining
hyphenation where appropriate; except for the Prefaces, the text has
been reformatted to 70 columns.

Structure:
Contents
Chapters 1 to 62
Preface of 1848
Preface of 1867

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

CONTENTS

 1. Dombey and Son
 2. In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that
    will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families
 3. In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the
    Head of the Home-Department
 4. In which some more First Appearances are made on the
    Stage of these Adventures
 5. Paul's Progress and Christening
 6. Paul's Second Deprivation
 7. A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place; also
    of the State of Miss Tox's Affections
 8. Paul's further Progress, Growth, and Character
 9. In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble
10. Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster
11. Paul's Introduction to a New Scene
12. Paul's Education
13. Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
14. Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home
    for the holidays
15. Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit
    for Walter Gay
16. What the Waves were always saying
17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young people
18. Father and Daughter
19. Walter goes away
20. Mr Dombey goes upon a journey
21. New Faces
22. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager
23. Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious
24. The Study of a Loving Heart
25. Strange News of Uncle Sol
26. Shadows of the Past and Future
27. Deeper shadows
28. Alterations
29. The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick
30. The Interval before the Marriage
31. The Wedding
32. The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
33. Contrasts
34. Another Mother and Daughter
35. The Happy Pair
36. Housewarming
37. More Warnings than One
38. Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance
39. Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
40. Domestic Relations
41. New Voices in the Waves
42. Confidential and Accidental
43. The Watches of the Night
44. A Separation
45. The Trusty Agent
46. Recognizant and Reflective
47. The Thunderbolt
48. The Flight of Florence
49. The Midshipman makes a Discovery
50. Mr Toots's Complaint
51. Mr Dombey and the World
52. Secret Intelligence
53. More Intelligence
54. The Fugitives
55. Rob the Grinder loses his Place
56. Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted
57. Another Wedding
58. After a Lapse
59. Retribution
60. Chiefly Matrimonial
61. Relenting
62. Final

CHAPTER 1.

Dombey and Son

Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great
arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little
basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in
front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were
analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown
while he was very new.

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about
eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and
though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance,
to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of
course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his
general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother
Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good
time - remorseless twins they are for striding through their human
forests, notching as they go - while the countenance of Son was
crossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time
would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat
part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper
operations.

Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled
the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue
coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays
of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and
clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for
having come upon him so unexpectedly.

'The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, 'be not
only in name but in fact Dombey and Son;' and he added, in a tone of
luxurious satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were
reading the name in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance
at the same time; 'Dom-bey and Son!'

The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term
of endearment to Mrs Dombey's name (though not without some
hesitation, as being a man but little used to that form of address):
and said, 'Mrs Dombey, my - my dear.'

A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady's face
as she raised her eyes towards him.

'He will be christened Paul, my - Mrs Dombey - of course.'

She feebly echoed, 'Of course,' or rather expressed it by the
motion of her lips, and closed her eyes again.

'His father's name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather's! I wish his
grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the
necessity of writing Junior,' said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious
autograph on his knee; 'but it is merely of a private and personal
complexion. It doesn't enter into the correspondence of the House. Its
signature remains the same.' And again he said 'Dombey and Son, in
exactly the same tone as before.

Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey's life. The
earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon
were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float
their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew
for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their
orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre.
Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole
reference to them. A. D. had no concern with Anno Domini, but stood
for anno Dombey - and Son.

He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life
and death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been
the sole representative of the Firm. Of those years he had been
married, ten - married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give
him; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her
broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such
idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr Dombey, whom it
nearly concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received
it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey
and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that
fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr
Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself
must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any
woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner
in such a House, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring
ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs
Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony: almost
necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without
reference to the perpetuation of family Firms: with her eyes fully
open to these advantages. That Mrs Dombey had had daily practical
knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs Dombey had always sat
at the head of his table, and done the honours of his house in a
remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs Dombey must have
been happy. That she couldn't help it.

Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have
allowed. With only one; but that one certainly involving much. With
the drawback of hope deferred. That hope deferred, which, (as the
Scripture very correctly tells us, Mr Dombey would have added in a
patronising way; for his highest distinct idea even of Scripture, if
examined, would have been found to be; that as forming part of a
general whole, of which Dombey and Son formed another part, it was
therefore to be commended and upheld) maketh the heart sick. They had
been married ten years, and until this present day on which Mr Dombey
sat jingling and jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great
arm-chair by the side of the bed, had had no issue.

- To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some
six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber
unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could
see her mother's face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the
capital of the House's name and dignity, such a child was merely a
piece of base coin that couldn't be invested - a bad Boy - nothing
more.

Mr Dombey's cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment,
however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents,
even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.

So he said, 'Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother,
if you lIke, I daresay. Don't touch him!'

The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat,
which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch,
embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother's
face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.

'Her insensibility is as proof against a brother as against every
thing else,' said Mr Dombey to himself He seemed so confirmed in a
previous opinion by the discovery, as to be quite glad of it'

Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and
the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to
hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate
affection very much at variance with her years.

'Oh Lord bless me!' said Mr Dombey, rising testily. 'A very
illadvised and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. Please to ring
there for Miss Florence's nurse. Really the person should be more
care-'

'Wait! I - had better ask Doctor Peps if he'll have the goodness to
step upstairs again perhaps. I'll go down. I'll go down. I needn't beg
you,' he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire,
'to take particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs - '

'Blockitt, Sir?' suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded
gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely
offered it as a mild suggestion.

'Of this young gentleman, Mrs Blockitt.'

'No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born - '

'Ay, ay, ay,' said Mr Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and
slightly bending his brows at the same time. 'Miss Florence was all
very well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to
accomplish a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!' As he thus
apostrophised the infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and
kissed it; then, seeming to fear that the action involved some
compromise of his dignity, went, awkwardly enough, away.

Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of
immense reputation for assisting at the increase of great families,
was walking up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to
the unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly
puffed the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients,
friends, and acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly
expectation day and night of being summoned, in conjunction with
Doctor Parker Pep.

'Well, Sir,' said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous
voice, muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; 'do you find that
your dear lady is at all roused by your visit?'

'Stimulated as it were?' said the family practitioner faintly:
bowing at the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, 'Excuse my
putting in a word, but this is a valuable connexion.'

Mr Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so
little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He
said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps
would walk upstairs again.

'Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,' said Doctor Parker
Peps, 'that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess - I beg
your pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady.
That there is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of
elasticity, which we would rather - not -

'See,' interposed the family practitioner with another inclination
of the head.

'Quite so,' said Doctor Parker Peps,' which we would rather not
see. It would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby - excuse me: I
should say of Mrs Dombey: I confuse the names of cases - '

'So very numerous,' murmured the family practitioner - 'can't be
expected I'm sure - quite wonderful if otherwise - Doctor Parker
Peps's West-End practice - '

'Thank you,' said the Doctor, 'quite so. It would appear, I was
observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from
which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong - '

'And vigorous,' murmured the family practitioner.

'Quite so,' assented the Doctor - 'and vigorous effort. Mr Pilkins
here, who from his position of medical adviser in this family - no one
better qualified to fill that position, I am sure.'

'Oh!' murmured the family practitioner. '"Praise from Sir Hubert
Stanley!"'

'You are good enough,' returned Doctor Parker Peps, 'to say so. Mr
Pilkins who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient's
constitution in its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us
in forming our opinions in these occasions), is of opinion, with me,
that Nature must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this
instance; and that if our interesting friend the Countess of Dombey -
I beg your pardon; Mrs Dombey - should not be - '

'Able,' said the family practitioner.

'To make,' said Doctor Parker Peps.

'That effort,' said the family practitioner.

'Successfully,' said they both together.

'Then,' added Doctor Parker Peps, alone and very gravely, a crisis
might arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.'

With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground.
Then, on the motion - made in dumb show - of Doctor Parker Peps, they
went upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that
distinguished professional, and following him out, with most
obsequious politeness.

To record of Mr Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this
intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of
whom it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked;
but he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should
sicken and decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a
something gone from among his plate and furniture, and other household
possessions, which was well worth the having, and could not be lost
without sincere regret. Though it would be a cool,. business-like,
gentlemanly, self-possessed regret, no doubt.

His meditations on the subject were soon interrupted, first by the
rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking
into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise but
dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of
her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face
and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around
his neck, and said, in a choking voice,

'My dear Paul! He's quite a Dombey!'

'Well, well!' returned her brother - for Mr Dombey was her brother
- 'I think he is like the family. Don't agitate yourself, Louisa.'

'It's very foolish of me,' said Louisa, sitting down, and taking
out her pocket~handkerchief, 'but he's - he's such a perfect Dombey!'

Mr Dombey coughed.

'It's so extraordinary,' said Louisa; smiling through her tears,
which indeed were not overpowering, 'as to be perfectly ridiculous. So
completely our family. I never saw anything like it in my life!'

'But what is this about Fanny, herself?' said Mr Dombey. 'How is
Fanny?'

'My dear Paul,' returned Louisa, 'it's nothing whatever. Take my
word, it's nothing whatever. There is exhaustion, certainly, but
nothing like what I underwent myself, either with George or Frederick.
An effort is necessary. That's all. If dear Fanny were a Dombey! - But
I daresay she'll make it; I have no doubt she'll make it. Knowing it
to be required of her, as a duty, of course she'll make it. My dear
Paul, it's very weak and silly of me, I know, to be so trembly and
shaky from head to foot; but I am so very queer that I must ask you
for a glass of wine and a morsel of that cake.'

Mr Dombey promptly supplied her with these refreshments from a tray
on the table.

'I shall not drink my love to you, Paul,' said Louisa: 'I shall
drink to the little Dombey. Good gracious me! - it's the most
astonishing thing I ever knew in all my days, he's such a perfect
Dombey.'

Quenching this expression of opinion in a short hysterical laugh
which terminated in tears, Louisa cast up her eyes, and emptied her
glass.

'I know it's very weak and silly of me,' she repeated, 'to be so
trembly and shaky from head to foot, and to allow my feelings so
completely to get the better of me, but I cannot help it. I thought I
should have fallen out of the staircase window as I came down from
seeing dear Fanny, and that tiddy ickle sing.' These last words
originated in a sudden vivid reminiscence of the baby.

They were succeeded by a gentle tap at the door.

'Mrs Chick,' said a very bland female voice outside, 'how are you
now, my dear friend?'

'My dear Paul,' said Louisa in a low voice, as she rose from her
seat, 'it's Miss Tox. The kindest creature! I never could have got
here without her! Miss Tox, my brother Mr Dombey. Paul, my dear, my
very particular friend Miss Tox.'

The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing
such a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what
linen-drapers call 'fast colours' originally, and to have, by little
and little, washed out. But for this she might have been described as
the very pink of general propitiation and politeness. From a long
habit of listening admiringly to everything that was said in her
presence, and looking at the speakers as if she were mentally engaged
in taking off impressions of their images upon her soul, never to part
with the same but with life, her head had quite settled on one side.
Her hands had contracted a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of
their own accord as in involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to
a similar affection. She had the softest voice that ever was heard;
and her nose, stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very
centre or key-stone of the bridge, whence it tended downwards towards
her face, as in an invincible determination never to turn up at
anything.

Miss Tox's dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain
character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear odd
weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were
sometimes perceived in her hair; and it was observed by the curious,
of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer
articles - indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it
intended to unite - that the two ends were never on good terms, and
wouldn't quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for
winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in
rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the
carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like
little pistols when they were shut up; and when full-dressed, she wore
round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye,
with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of
a similar nature, had served to propagate the opinion, that Miss Tox
was a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned
to the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief,
and suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or
three, originated in her habit of making the most of everything.

'I am sure,' said Miss Tox, with a prodigious curtsey, 'that to
have the honour of being presented to Mr Dombey is a distinction which
I have long sought, but very little expected at the present moment. My
dear Mrs Chick - may I say Louisa!'

Mrs Chick took Miss Tox's hand in hers, rested the foot of her
wine-glass upon it, repressed a tear, and said in a low voice, 'God
bless you!'

'My dear Louisa then,' said Miss Tox, 'my sweet friend, how are you
now?'

'Better,' Mrs Chick returned. 'Take some wine. You have been almost
as anxious as I have been, and must want it, I am sure.'

Mr Dombey of course officiated, and also refilled his sister's
glass, which she (looking another way, and unconscious of his
intention) held straight and steady the while, and then regarded with
great astonishment, saying, 'My dear Paul, what have you been doing!'

'Miss Tox, Paul,' pursued Mrs Chick, still retaining her hand,
'knowing how much I have been interested in the anticipation of the
event of to-day, and how trembly and shaky I have been from head to
foot in expectation of it, has been working at a little gift for
Fanny, which I promised to present. Miss Tox is ingenuity itself.'

'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox. 'Don't say so.

'It is only a pincushion for the toilette table, Paul,' resumed his
sister; 'one of those trifles which are insignificant to your sex in
general, as it's very natural they should be - we have no business to
expect they should be otherwise - but to which we attach some
interest.

'Miss Tox is very good,' said Mr Dombey.

'And I do say, and will say, and must say,' pursued his sister,
pressing the foot of the wine-glass on Miss Tox's hand, at each of the
three clauses, 'that Miss Tox has very prettily adapted the sentiment
to the occasion. I call "Welcome little Dombey" Poetry, myself!'

'Is that the device?' inquired her brother.

'That is the device,' returned Louisa.

'But do me the justice to remember, my dear Louisa,' said Miss
Toxin a tone of low and earnest entreaty, 'that nothing but the - I
have some difficulty in expressing myself - the dubiousness of the
result would have induced me to take so great a liberty: "Welcome,
Master Dombey," would have been much more congenial to my feelings, as
I am sure you know. But the uncertainty attendant on angelic
strangers, will, I hope, excuse what must otherwise appear an
unwarrantable familiarity.' Miss Tox made a graceful bend as she
spoke, in favour of Mr Dombey, which that gentleman graciously
acknowledged. Even the sort of recognition of Dombey and Son, conveyed
in the foregoing conversation, was so palatable to him, that his
sister, Mrs Chick - though he affected to consider her a weak
good-natured person - had perhaps more influence over him than anybody
else.

'My dear Paul,' that lady broke out afresh, after silently
contemplating his features for a few moments, 'I don't know whether to
laugh or cry when I look at you, I declare, you do so remind me of
that dear baby upstairs.'

'Well!' said Mrs Chick, with a sweet smile, 'after this, I forgive
Fanny everything!'

It was a declaration in a Christian spirit, and Mrs Chick felt that
it did her good. Not that she had anything particular to forgive in
her sister-in-law, nor indeed anything at all, except her having
married her brother - in itself a species of audacity - and her
having, in the course of events, given birth to a girl instead of a
boy: which, as Mrs Chick had frequently observed, was not quite what
she had expected of her, and was not a pleasant return for all the
attention and distinction she had met with.

Mr Dombey being hastily summoned out of the room at this moment,
the two ladies were left alone together. Miss Tox immediately became
spasmodic.

'I knew you would admire my brother. I told you so beforehand, my
dear,' said Louisa. Miss Tox's hands and eyes expressed how much. 'And
as to his property, my dear!'

'Ah!' said Miss Tox, with deep feeling. 'Im-mense!'

'But his deportment, my dear Louisa!' said Miss Tox. 'His presence!
His dignity! No portrait that I have ever seen of anyone has been half
so replete with those qualities. Something so stately, you know: so
uncompromising: so very wide across the chest: so upright! A pecuniary
Duke of York, my love, and nothing short of it!' said Miss Tox.
'That's what I should designate him.'

'Why, my dear Paul!' exclaimed his sister, as he returned, 'you
look quite pale! There's nothing the matter?'

'I am sorry to say, Louisa, that they tell me that Fanny - '

'Now, my dear Paul,' returned his sister rising, 'don't believe it.
Do not allow yourself to receive a turn unnecessarily. Remember of
what importance you are to society, and do not allow yourself to be
worried by what is so very inconsiderately told you by people who
ought to know better. Really I'm surprised at them.'

'I hope I know, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, stiffly, 'how to bear
myself before the world.'

'Nobody better, my dear Paul. Nobody half so well. They would be
ignorant and base indeed who doubted it.'

'Ignorant and base indeed!' echoed Miss Tox softly.

'But,' pursued Louisa, 'if you have any reliance on my experience,
Paul, you may rest assured that there is nothing wanting but an effort
on Fanny's part. And that effort,' she continued, taking off her
bonnet, and adjusting her cap and gloves, in a business-like manner,
'she must be encouraged, and really, if necessary, urged to make. Now,
my dear Paul, come upstairs with me.'

Mr Dombey, who, besides being generally influenced by his sister
for the reason already mentioned, had really faith in her as an
experienced and bustling matron, acquiesced; and followed her, at
once, to the sick chamber.

The lady lay upon her bed as he had left her, clasping her little
daughter to her breast. The child clung close about her, with the same
intensity as before, and never raised her head, or moved her soft
cheek from her mother's face, or looked on those who stood around, or
spoke, or moved, or shed a tear.

'Restless without the little girl,' the Doctor whispered Mr Dombey.
'We found it best to have her in again.'

'Can nothing be done?' asked Mr Dombey.

The Doctor shook his head. 'We can do no more.'

The windows stood open, and the twilight was gathering without.

The scent of the restoratives that had been tried was pungent in
the room, but had no fragrance in the dull and languid air the lady
breathed.

There was such a solemn stillness round the bed; and the two
medical attendants seemed to look on the impassive form with so much
compassion and so little hope, that Mrs Chick was for the moment
diverted from her purpose. But presently summoning courage, and what
she called presence of mind, she sat down by the bedside, and said in
the low precise tone of one who endeavours to awaken a sleeper:

'Fanny! Fanny!'

There was no sound in answer but the loud ticking of Mr Dombey's
watch and Doctor Parker Peps's watch, which seemed in the silence to
be running a race.

'Fanny, my dear,' said Mrs Chick, with assumed lightness, 'here's
Mr Dombey come to see you. Won't you speak to him? They want to lay
your little boy - the baby, Fanny, you know; you have hardly seen him
yet, I think - in bed; but they can't till you rouse yourself a
little. Don't you think it's time you roused yourself a little? Eh?'

She bent her ear to the bed, and listened: at the same time looking
round at the bystanders, and holding up her finger.

'Eh?' she repeated, 'what was it you said, Fanny? I didn't hear
you.'

No word or sound in answer. Mr Dombey's watch and Dr Parker Peps's
watch seemed to be racing faster.

'Now, really, Fanny my dear,' said the sister-in-law, altering her
position, and speaking less confidently, and more earnestly, in spite
of herself, 'I shall have to be quite cross with you, if you don't
rouse yourself. It's necessary for you to make an effort, and perhaps
a very great and painful effort which you are not disposed to make;
but this is a world of effort you know, Fanny, and we must never
yield, when so much depends upon us. Come! Try! I must really scold
you if you don't!'

The race in the ensuing pause was fierce and furious. The watches
seemed to jostle, and to trip each other up.

'Fanny!' said Louisa, glancing round, with a gathering alarm. 'Only
look at me. Only open your eyes to show me that you hear and
understand me; will you? Good Heaven, gentlemen, what is to be done!'

The two medical attendants exchanged a look across the bed; and the
Physician, stooping down, whispered in the child's ear. Not having
understood the purport of his whisper, the little creature turned her
perfectly colourless face and deep dark eyes towards him; but without
loosening her hold in the least

The whisper was repeated.

'Mama!' said the child.

The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of
consciousness, even at that ebb. For a moment, the closed eye lids
trembled, and the nostril quivered, and the faintest shadow of a smile
was seen.

'Mama!' cried the child sobbing aloud. 'Oh dear Mama! oh dear
Mama!'

The Doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child,
aside from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay
there; how little breath there was to stir them!

Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother
drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the
world.

CHAPTER 2.

In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that
will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families

'I shall never cease to congratulate myself,' said Mrs Chick,' on
having said, when I little thought what was in store for us, - really
as if I was inspired by something, - that I forgave poor dear Fanny
everything. Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!'

Mrs Chick made this impressive observation in the drawing-room,
after having descended thither from the inspection of the
mantua-makers upstairs, who were busy on the family mourning. She
delivered it for the behoof of Mr Chick, who was a stout bald
gentleman, with a very large face, and his hands continually in his
pockets, and who had a tendency in his nature to whistle and hum
tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum of such sounds in a house of
grief, he was at some pains to repress at present.

'Don't you over-exert yourself, Loo,' said Mr Chick, 'or you'll be
laid up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I
forgot! We're here one day and gone the next!'

Mrs Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then
proceeded with the thread of her discourse.

'I am sure,' she said, 'I hope this heart-rending occurrence will
be a warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves,
and to make efforts in time where they're required of us. There's a
moral in everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will
be our own faults if we lose sight of this one.'

Mr Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with
the singularly inappropriate air of 'A cobbler there was;' and
checking himself, in some confusion, observed, that it was undoubtedly
our own faults if we didn't improve such melancholy occasions as the
present.

'Which might be better improved, I should think, Mr C.,' retorted
his helpmate, after a short pause, 'than by the introduction, either
of the college hornpipe, or the equally unmeaning and unfeeling remark
of rump-te-iddity, bow-wow-wow!' - which Mr Chick had indeed indulged
in, under his breath, and which Mrs Chick repeated in a tone of
withering scorn.

'Merely habit, my dear,' pleaded Mr Chick.

'Nonsense! Habit!' returned his wife. 'If you're a rational being,
don't make such ridiculous excuses. Habit! If I was to get a habit (as
you call it) of walking on the ceiling, like the flies, I should hear
enough of it, I daresay.

It appeared so probable that such a habit might be attended with
some degree of notoriety, that Mr Chick didn't venture to dispute the
position.

'Bow-wow-wow!' repeated Mrs Chick with an emphasis of blighting
contempt on the last syllable. 'More like a professional singer with
the hydrophobia, than a man in your station of life!'

'How's the Baby, Loo?' asked Mr Chick: to change the subject.

'What Baby do you mean?' answered Mrs Chick.

'The poor bereaved little baby,' said Mr Chick. 'I don't know of
any other, my dear.'

'You don't know of any other,'retorted Mrs Chick. 'More shame for
you, I was going to say.

Mr Chick looked astonished.

'I am sure the morning I have had, with that dining-room
downstairs, one mass of babies, no one in their senses would believe.'

'One mass of babies!' repeated Mr Chick, staring with an alarmed
expression about him.

'It would have occurred to most men,' said Mrs Chick, 'that poor
dear Fanny being no more, - those words of mine will always be a balm
and comfort to me,' here she dried her eyes; 'it becomes necessary to
provide a Nurse.'

'Oh! Ah!' said Mr Chick. 'Toor-ru! - such is life, I mean. I hope
you are suited, my dear.'

'Indeed I am not,' said Mrs Chick; 'nor likely to be, so far as I
can see, and in the meantime the poor child seems likely to be starved
to death. Paul is so very particular - naturally so, of course, having
set his whole heart on this one boy - and there are so many objections
to everybody that offers, that I don't see, myself, the least chance
of an arrangement. Meanwhile, of course, the child is - '

'Going to the Devil,' said Mr Chick, thoughtfully, 'to be sure.'

Admonished, however, that he had committed himself, by the
indignation expressed in Mrs Chick's countenance at the idea of a
Dombey going there; and thinking to atone for his misconduct by a
bright suggestion, he added:

'Couldn't something temporary be done with a teapot?'

If he had meant to bring the subject prematurely to a close, he
could not have done it more effectually. After looking at him for some
moments in silent resignation, Mrs Chick said she trusted he hadn't
said it in aggravation, because that would do very little honour to
his heart. She trusted he hadn't said it seriously, because that would
do very little honour to his head. As in any case, he couldn't,
however sanguine his disposition, hope to offer a remark that would be
a greater outrage on human nature in general, we would beg to leave
the discussion at that point.

Mrs Chick then walked majestically to the window and peeped through
the blind, attracted by the sound of wheels. Mr Chick, finding that
his destiny was, for the time, against him, said no more, and walked
off. But it was not always thus with Mr Chick. He was often in the
ascendant himself, and at those times punished Louisa roundly. In
their matrimonial bickerings they were, upon the whole, a
well-matched, fairly-balanced, give-and-take couple. It would have
been, generally speaking, very difficult to have betted on the winner.
Often when Mr Chick seemed beaten, he would suddenly make a start,
turn the tables, clatter them about the ears of Mrs Chick, and carry
all before him. Being liable himself to similar unlooked for checks
from Mrs Chick, their little contests usually possessed a character of
uncertainty that was very animating.

Miss Tox had arrived on the wheels just now alluded to, and came
running into the room in a breathless condition. 'My dear Louisa,'said
Miss Tox, 'is the vacancy still unsupplied?'

'You good soul, yes,' said Mrs Chick.

'Then, my dear Louisa,' returned Miss Tox, 'I hope and believe -
but in one moment, my dear, I'll introduce the party.'

Running downstairs again as fast as she had run up, Miss Tox got
the party out of the hackney-coach, and soon returned with it under
convoy.

It then appeared that she had used the word, not in its legal or
business acceptation, when it merely expresses an individual, but as a
noun of multitude, or signifying many: for Miss Tox escorted a plump
rosy-cheeked wholesome apple-faced young woman, with an infant in her
arms; a younger woman not so plump, but apple-faced also, who led a
plump and apple-faced child in each hand; another plump and also
apple-faced boy who walked by himself; and finally, a plump and
apple-faced man, who carried in his arms another plump and apple-faced
boy, whom he stood down on the floor, and admonished, in a husky
whisper, to 'kitch hold of his brother Johnny.'

'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'knowing your great anxiety, and
wishing to relieve it, I posted off myself to the Queen Charlotte's
Royal Married Females,' which you had forgot, and put the question,
Was there anybody there that they thought would suit? No, they said
there was not. When they gave me that answer, I do assure you, my
dear, I was almost driven to despair on your account. But it did so
happen, that one of the Royal Married Females, hearing the inquiry,
reminded the matron of another who had gone to her own home, and who,
she said, would in all likelihood be most satisfactory. The moment I
heard this, and had it corroborated by the matron - excellent
references and unimpeachable character - I got the address, my dear,
and posted off again.'

'Like the dear good Tox, you are!' said Louisa.

'Not at all,' returned Miss Tox. 'Don't say so. Arriving at the
house (the cleanest place, my dear! You might eat your dinner off the
floor), I found the whole family sitting at table; and feeling that no
account of them could be half so comfortable to you and Mr Dombey as
the sight of them all together, I brought them all away. This
gentleman,' said Miss Tox, pointing out the apple-faced man, 'is the
father. Will you have the goodness to come a little forward, Sir?'

The apple-faced man having sheepishly complied with this request,
stood chuckling and grinning in a front row.

'This is his wife, of course,' said Miss Tox, singling out the
young woman with the baby. 'How do you do, Polly?'

'I'm pretty well, I thank you, Ma'am,' said Polly.

By way of bringing her out dexterously, Miss Tox had made the
inquiry as in condescension to an old acquaintance whom she hadn't
seen for a fortnight or so.

'I'm glad to hear it,' said Miss Tox. 'The other young woman is her
unmarried sister who lives with them, and would take care of her
children. Her name's Jemima. How do you do, Jemima?'

'I'm pretty well, I thank you, Ma'am,' returned Jemima.

'I'm very glad indeed to hear it,' said Miss Tox. 'I hope you'll
keep so. Five children. Youngest six weeks. The fine little boy with
the blister on his nose is the eldest The blister, I believe,' said
Miss Tox, looking round upon the family, 'is not constitutional, but
accidental?'

The apple-faced man was understood to growl, 'Flat iron.

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Miss Tox, 'did you?

'Flat iron,' he repeated.

'Oh yes,' said Miss Tox. 'Yes! quite true. I forgot. The little
creature, in his mother's absence, smelt a warm flat iron. You're
quite right, Sir. You were going to have the goodness to inform me,
when we arrived at the door that you were by trade a - '

'Stoker,' said the man.

'A choker!' said Miss Tox, quite aghast.

'Stoker,' said the man. 'Steam ingine.'

'Oh-h! Yes!' returned Miss Tox, looking thoughtfully at him, and
seeming still to have but a very imperfect understanding of his
meaning.

'And how do you like it, Sir?'

'Which, Mum?' said the man.

'That,' replied Miss Tox. 'Your trade.'

'Oh! Pretty well, Mum. The ashes sometimes gets in here;' touching
his chest: 'and makes a man speak gruff, as at the present time. But
it is ashes, Mum, not crustiness.'

Miss Tox seemed to be so little enlightened by this reply, as to
find a difficulty in pursuing the subject. But Mrs Chick relieved her,
by entering into a close private examination of Polly, her children,
her marriage certificate, testimonials, and so forth. Polly coming out
unscathed from this ordeal, Mrs Chick withdrew with her report to her
brother's room, and as an emphatic comment on it, and corroboration of
it, carried the two rosiest little Toodles with her. Toodle being the
family name of the apple-faced family.

Mr Dombey had remained in his own apartment since the death of his
wife, absorbed in visions of the youth, education, and destination of
his baby son. Something lay at the bottom of his cool heart, colder
and heavier than its ordinary load; but it was more a sense of the
child's loss than his own, awakening within him an almost angry
sorrow. That the life and progress on which he built such hopes,
should be endangered in the outset by so mean a want; that Dombey and
Son should be tottering for a nurse, was a sore humiliation. And yet
in his pride and jealousy, he viewed with so much bitterness the
thought of being dependent for the very first step towards the
accomplishment of his soul's desire, on a hired serving-woman who
would be to the child, for the time, all that even his alliance could
have made his own wife, that in every new rejection of a candidate he
felt a secret pleasure. The time had now come, however, when he could
no longer be divided between these two sets of feelings. The less so,
as there seemed to be no flaw in the title of Polly Toodle after his
sister had set it forth, with many commendations on the indefatigable
friendship of Miss Tox.

'These children look healthy,' said Mr Dombey. 'But my God, to
think of their some day claiming a sort of relationship to Paul!'

' But what relationship is there!' Louisa began -

'Is there!' echoed Mr Dombey, who had not intended his sister to
participate in the thought he had unconsciously expressed. 'Is there,
did you say, Louisa!'

'Can there be, I mean - '

'Why none,' said Mr Dombey, sternly. 'The whole world knows that, I
presume. Grief has not made me idiotic, Louisa. Take them away,
Louisa! Let me see this woman and her husband.'

Mrs Chick bore off the tender pair of Toodles, and presently
returned with that tougher couple whose presence her brother had
commanded.

'My good woman,' said Mr Dombey, turning round in his easy chair,
as one piece, and not as a man with limbs and joints, 'I understand
you are poor, and wish to earn money by nursing the little boy, my
son, who has been so prematurely deprived of what can never be
replaced. I have no objection to your adding to the comforts of your
family by that means. So far as I can tell, you seem to be a deserving
object. But I must impose one or two conditions on you, before you
enter my house in that capacity. While you are here, I must stipulate
that you are always known as - say as Richards - an ordinary name, and
convenient. Have you any objection to be known as Richards? You had
better consult your husband.'

'Well?' said Mr Dombey, after a pretty long pause. 'What does your
husband say to your being called Richards?'

As the husband did nothing but chuckle and grin, and continually
draw his right hand across his mouth, moistening the palm, Mrs Toodle,
after nudging him twice or thrice in vain, dropped a curtsey and
replied 'that perhaps if she was to be called out of her name, it
would be considered in the wages.'

'Oh, of course,' said Mr Dombey. 'I desire to make it a question of
wages, altogether. Now, Richards, if you nurse my bereaved child, I
wish you to remember this always. You will receive a liberal stipend
in return for the discharge of certain duties, in the performance of
which, I wish you to see as little of your family as possible. When
those duties cease to be required and rendered, and the stipend ceases
to be paid, there is an end of all relations between us. Do you
understand me?'

Mrs Toodle seemed doubtful about it; and as to Toodle himself, he
had evidently no doubt whatever, that he was all abroad.

'You have children of your own,' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not at all
in this bargain that you need become attached to my child, or that my
child need become attached to you. I don't expect or desire anything
of the kind. Quite the reverse. When you go away from here, you will
have concluded what is a mere matter of bargain and sale, hiring and
letting: and will stay away. The child will cease to remember you; and
you will cease, if you please, to remember the child.'

Mrs Toodle, with a little more colour in her cheeks than she had
had before, said 'she hoped she knew her place.'

'I hope you do, Richards,' said Mr Dombey. 'I have no doubt you
know it very well. Indeed it is so plain and obvious that it could
hardly be otherwise. Louisa, my dear, arrange with Richards about
money, and let her have it when and how she pleases. Mr what's-your
name, a word with you, if you please!'

Thus arrested on the threshold as he was following his wife out of
the room, Toodle returned and confronted Mr Dombey alone. He was a
strong, loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his
clothes sat negligently: with a good deal of hair and whisker,
deepened in its natural tint, perhaps by smoke and coal-dust: hard
knotty hands: and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of
an oak. A thorough contrast in all respects, to Mr Dombey, who was one
of those close-shaved close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and
crisp like new bank-notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and
tightened as by the stimulating action of golden showerbaths.

'You have a son, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.

'Four on 'em, Sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!'

'Why, it's as much as you can afford to keep them!' said Mr Dombey.

'I couldn't hardly afford but one thing in the world less, Sir.'

'What is that?'

'To lose 'em, Sir.'

'Can you read?' asked Mr Dombey.

'Why, not partick'ler, Sir.'

'Write?'

'With chalk, Sir?'

'With anything?'

'I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to
it,' said Toodle after some reflection.

'And yet,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are two or three and thirty, I
suppose?'

'Thereabouts, I suppose, Sir,' answered Toodle, after more
reflection

'Then why don't you learn?' asked Mr Dombey.

'So I'm a going to, Sir. One of my little boys is a going to learn
me, when he's old enough, and been to school himself.'

'Well,' said Mr Dombey, after looking at him attentively, and with
no great favour, as he stood gazing round the room (principally round
the ceiling) and still drawing his hand across and across his mouth.
'You heard what I said to your wife just now?'

'Polly heerd it,' said Toodle, jerking his hat over his shoulder in
the direction of the door, with an air of perfect confidence in his
better half. 'It's all right.'

'But I ask you if you heard it. You did, I suppose, and understood
it?' pursued Mr Dombey.

'I heerd it,' said Toodle, 'but I don't know as I understood it
rightly Sir, 'account of being no scholar, and the words being - ask
your pardon - rayther high. But Polly heerd it. It's all right.'

'As you appear to leave everything to her,' said Mr Dombey,
frustrated in his intention of impressing his views still more
distinctly on the husband, as the stronger character, 'I suppose it is
of no use my saying anything to you.'

'Not a bit,' said Toodle. 'Polly heerd it. She's awake, Sir.'

'I won't detain you any longer then,' returned Mr Dombey,
disappointed. 'Where have you worked all your life?'

'Mostly underground, Sir, 'till I got married. I come to the level
then. I'm a going on one of these here railroads when they comes into
full play.'

As he added in one of his hoarse whispers, 'We means to bring up
little Biler to that line,' Mr Dombey inquired haughtily who little
Biler was.

'The eldest on 'em, Sir,' said Toodle, with a smile. 'It ain't a
common name. Sermuchser that when he was took to church the gen'lm'n
said, it wam't a chris'en one, and he couldn't give it. But we always
calls him Biler just the same. For we don't mean no harm. Not we.

'Do you mean to say, Man,' inquired Mr Dombey; looking at him with
marked displeasure, 'that you have called a child after a boiler?'

'No, no, Sir,' returned Toodle, with a tender consideration for his
mistake. 'I should hope not! No, Sir. Arter a BILER Sir. The
Steamingine was a'most as good as a godfather to him, and so we called
him Biler, don't you see!'

As the last straw breaks the laden camel's back, this piece of
information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr Dombey. He motioned his
child's foster-father to the door, who departed by no means
unwillingly: and then turning the key, paced up and down the room in
solitary wretchedness.

It would be harsh, and perhaps not altogether true, to say of him
that he felt these rubs and gratings against his pride more keenly
than he had felt his wife's death: but certainly they impressed that
event upon him with new force, and communicated to it added weight and
bitterness. It was a rude shock to his sense of property in his child,
that these people - the mere dust of the earth, as he thought them -
should be necessary to him; and it was natural that in proportion as
he felt disturbed by it, he should deplore the occurrence which had
made them so. For all his starched, impenetrable dignity and
composure, he wiped blinding tears from his eyes as he paced up and
down his room; and often said, with an emotion of which he would not,
for the world, have had a witness, 'Poor little fellow!'

It may have been characteristic of Mr Dombey's pride, that he
pitied himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower,
confiding by constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind who has been
working 'mostly underground' all his life, and yet at whose door Death
had never knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit - but
poor little fellow!

Those words being on his lips, it occurred to him - and it is an
instance of the strong attraction with which his hopes and fears and
all his thoughts were tending to one centre - that a great temptation
was being placed in this woman's way. Her infant was a boy too. Now,
would it be possIble for her to change them?

Though he was soon satisfied that he had dismissed the idea as
romantic and unlikely - though possible, there was no denying - he
could not help pursuing it so far as to entertain within himself a
picture of what his condition would be, if he should discover such an
imposture when he was grown old. Whether a man so situated would be
able to pluck away the result of so many years of usage, confidence,
and belief, from the impostor, and endow a stranger with it?

But it was idle speculating thus. It couldn't happen. In a moment
afterwards he determined that it could, but that such women were
constantly observed, and had no opportunity given them for the
accomplishment of such a design, even when they were so wicked as to
entertain it. In another moment, he was remembering how few such cases
seemed to have ever happened. In another moment he was wondering
whether they ever happened and were not found out.

As his unusual emotion subsided, these misgivings gradually melted
away, though so much of their shadow remained behind, that he was
constant in his resolution to look closely after Richards himself,
without appearing to do so. Being now in an easier frame of mind, he
regarded the woman's station as rather an advantageous circumstance
than otherwise, by placing, in itself, a broad distance between her
and the child, and rendering their separation easy and natural. Thence
he passed to the contemplation of the future glories of Dombey and
Son, and dismissed the memory of his wife, for the time being, with a
tributary sigh or two.

Meanwhile terms were ratified and agreed upon between Mrs Chick and
Richards, with the assistance of Miss Tox; and Richards being with
much ceremony invested with the Dombey baby, as if it were an Order,
resigned her own, with many tears and kisses, to Jemima. Glasses of
wine were then produced, to sustain the drooping spirits of the
family; and Miss Tox, busying herself in dispensing 'tastes' to the
younger branches, bred them up to their father's business with such
surprising expedition, that she made chokers of four of them in a
quarter of a minute.

'You'll take a glass yourself, Sir, won't you?' said Miss Tox, as
Toodle appeared.

'Thankee, Mum,' said Toodle, 'since you are suppressing.'

'And you're very glad to leave your dear good wife in such a
comfortable home, ain't you, Sir?'said Miss Tox, nodding and winking
at him stealthily.

'No, Mum,' said Toodle. 'Here's wishing of her back agin.'

Polly cried more than ever at this. So Mrs Chick, who had her
matronly apprehensions that this indulgence in grief might be
prejudicial to the little Dombey ('acid, indeed,' she whispered Miss
Tox), hastened to the rescue.

'Your little child will thrive charmingly with your sister Jemima,
Richards,' said Mrs Chick; 'and you have only to make an effort - this
is a world of effort, you know, Richards - to be very happy indeed.
You have been already measured for your mourning, haven't you,
Richards?'

'Ye - es, Ma'am,' sobbed Polly.

'And it'll fit beautifully. I know,' said Mrs Chick, 'for the same
young person has made me many dresses. The very best materials, too!'

'Lor, you'll be so smart,' said Miss Tox, 'that your husband won't
know you; will you, Sir?'

'I should know her,' said Toodle, gruffly, 'anyhows and anywheres.'

Toodle was evidently not to be bought over.

'As to living, Richards, you know,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'why, the
very best of everything will be at your disposal. You will order your
little dinner every day; and anything you take a fancy to, I'm sure
will be as readily provided as if you were a Lady.'

'Yes to be sure!' said Miss Tox, keeping up the ball with great
sympathy. 'And as to porter! - quite unlimited, will it not, Louisa?'

'Oh, certainly!' returned Mrs Chick in the same tone. 'With a
little abstinence, you know, my dear, in point of vegetables.'

'And pickles, perhaps,' suggested Miss Tox.

'With such exceptions,' said Louisa, 'she'll consult her choice
entirely, and be under no restraint at all, my love.'

'And then, of course, you know,' said Miss Tox, 'however fond she
is of her own dear little child - and I'm sure, Louisa, you don't
blame her for being fond of it?'

'Oh no!' cried Mrs Chick, benignantly.

'Still,' resumed Miss Tox, 'she naturally must be interested in her
young charge, and must consider it a privilege to see a little cherub
connected with the superior classes, gradually unfolding itself from
day to day at one common fountain- is it not so, Louisa?'

'Most undoubtedly!' said Mrs Chick. 'You see, my love, she's
already quite contented and comfortable, and means to say goodbye to
her sister Jemima and her little pets, and her good honest husband,
with a light heart and a smile; don't she, my dear?'

'Oh yes!' cried Miss Tox. 'To be sure she does!'

Notwithstanding which, however, poor Polly embraced them all round
in great distress, and coming to her spouse at last, could not make up
her mind to part from him, until he gently disengaged himself, at the
close of the following allegorical piece of consolation:

'Polly, old 'ooman, whatever you do, my darling, hold up your head
and fight low. That's the only rule as I know on, that'll carry anyone
through life. You always have held up your head and fought low, Polly.
Do it now, or Bricks is no longer so. God bless you, Polly! Me and
J'mima will do your duty by you; and with relating to your'n, hold up
your head and fight low, Polly, and you can't go wrong!'

Fortified by this golden secret, Folly finally ran away to avoid
any more particular leave-taking between herself and the children. But
the stratagem hardly succeeded as well as it deserved; for the
smallest boy but one divining her intent, immediately began swarming
upstairs after her - if that word of doubtful etymology be admissible
- on his arms and legs; while the eldest (known in the family by the
name of Biler, in remembrance of the steam engine) beat a demoniacal
tattoo with his boots, expressive of grief; in which he was joined by
the rest of the family.

A quantity of oranges and halfpence thrust indiscriminately on each
young Toodle, checked the first violence of their regret, and the
family were speedily transported to their own home, by means of the
hackney-coach kept in waiting for that purpose. The children, under
the guardianship of Jemima, blocked up the window, and dropped out
oranges and halfpence all the way along. Mr Toodle himself preferred
to ride behind among the spikes, as being the mode of conveyance to
which he was best accustomed.

CHAPTER 3.

In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the
Head of the Home-Department

The funeral of the deceased lady having been 'performed to the
entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood
at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point,
and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the
ceremonies, the various members of Mr Dombey's household subsided into
their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like
the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its
dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and
the house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had
said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't
hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a
dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their
mourning was wearing rusty too.

On Richards, who was established upstairs in a state of honourable
captivity, the dawn of her new life seemed to break cold and grey. Mr
Dombey's house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark,
dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and
Bryanstone Square.' It was a corner house, with great wide areas
containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by
crooked-eyed doors leading to dustbins. It was a house of dismal
state, with a circular back to it, containing a whole suite of
drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees,
with blackened trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their
leaves were so smoked-dried. The summer sun was never on the street,
but in the morning about breakfast-time, when it came with the
water-carts and the old clothes men, and the people with geraniums,
and the umbrella-mender, and the man who trilled the little bell of
the Dutch clock as he went along. It was soon gone again to return no
more that day; and the bands of music and the straggling Punch's shows
going after it, left it a prey to the most dismal of organs, and white
mice; with now and then a porcupine, to vary the entertainments; until
the butlers whose families were dining out, began to stand at the
house-doors in the twilight, and the lamp-lighter made his nightly
failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas.

It was as blank a house inside as outside. When the funeral was
over, Mr Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up - perhaps to
preserve it for the son with whom his plans were all associated - and
the rooms to be ungarnished, saving such as he retained for himself on
the ground floor. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables
and chairs, heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over
with great winding-sheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and
looking-glasses, being papered up in journals, daily and weekly,
obtruded fragmentary accounts of deaths and dreadful murders. Every
chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear
depending from the ceiling's eye. Odours, as from vaults and damp
places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful
in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose,
brought eddying round the corner from the neighbouring mews, some
fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she
was ill, mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the
neighbourhood: and these, being always drawn by some invisible
attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let immediately
opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr Dombey's windows.

The apartments which Mr Dombey reserved for his own inhabiting,
were attainable from the hall, and consisted of a sitting-room; a
library, which was in fact a dressing-room, so that the smell of
hot-pressed paper, vellum, morocco, and Russia leather, contended in
it with the smell of divers pairs of boots; and a kind of conservatory
or little glass breakfast-room beyond, commanding a prospect of the
trees before mentioned, and, generally speaking, of a few prowling
cats. These three rooms opened upon one another. In the morning, when
Mr Dombey was at his breakfast in one or other of the two
first-mentioned of them, as well as in the afternoon when he came home
to dinner, a bell was rung for Richards to repair to this glass
chamber, and there walk to and fro with her young charge. From the
glimpses she caught of Mr Dombey at these times, sitting in the dark
distance, looking out towards the infant from among the dark heavy
furniture - the house had been inhabited for years by his father, and
in many of its appointments was old-fashioned and grim - she began to
entertain ideas of him in his solitary state, as if he were a lone
prisoner in a cell, or a strange apparition that was not to be
accosted or understood. Mr Dombey came to be, in the course of a few
days, invested in his own person, to her simple thinking, with all the
mystery and gloom of his house. As she walked up and down the glass
room, or sat hushing the baby there - which she very often did for
hours together, when the dusk was closing in, too - she would
sometimes try to pierce the gloom beyond, and make out how he was
looking and what he was doing. Sensible that she was plainly to be
seen by him' however, she never dared to pry in that direction but
very furtively and for a moment at a time. Consequently she made out
nothing, and Mr Dombey in his den remained a very shade.

Little Paul Dombey's foster-mother had led this life herself, and
had carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned
upstairs one day from a melancholy saunter through the dreary rooms of
state (she never went out without Mrs Chick, who called on fine
mornings, usually accompanied by Miss Tox, to take her and Baby for an
airing - or in other words, to march them gravely up and down the
pavement, like a walking funeral); when, as she was sitting in her own
room, the door was slowly and quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little
girl looked in.

'It's Miss Florence come home from her aunt's, no doubt,' thought
Richards, who had never seen the child before. 'Hope I see you well,
Miss.'

'Is that my brother?' asked the child, pointing to the Baby.

'Yes, my pretty,' answered Richards. 'Come and kiss him.'

But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the
face, and said:

'What have you done with my Mama?'

'Lord bless the little creeter!' cried Richards, 'what a sad
question! I done? Nothing, Miss.'

'What have they done with my Mama?' inquired the child, with
exactly the same look and manner.

'I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!' said Richards,
who naturally substituted 'for this child one of her own, inquiring
for herself in like circumstances. 'Come nearer here, my dear Miss!
Don't be afraid of me.'

'I am not afraid of you,' said the child, drawing nearer. 'But I
want to know what they have done with my Mama.'

Her heart swelled so as she stood before the woman, looking into
her eyes, that she was fain to press her little hand upon her breast
and hold it there. Yet there was a purpose in the child that prevented
both her slender figure and her searching gaze from faltering.

'My darling,' said Richards, 'you wear that pretty black frock in
remembrance of your Mama.'

'I can remember my Mama,' returned the child, with tears springing
to her eyes, 'in any frock.'

'But people put on black, to remember people when they're gone.'

'Where gone?' asked the child.

'Come and sit down by me,' said Richards, 'and I'll tell you a
story.'

With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she
had asked, little Florence laid aside the bonnet she had held in her
hand until now, and sat down on a stool at the Nurse's feet, looking
up into her face.

'Once upon a time,' said Richards, 'there was a lady - a very good
lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her.'

'A very good lady and her little daughter dearly loved her,'
repeated the child.

'Who, when God thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill
and died.'

The child shuddered.

'Died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in
the ground where the trees grow.

'The cold ground?' said the child, shuddering again. 'No! The warm
ground,' returned Polly, seizing her advantage, 'where the ugly little
seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and corn, and I
don't know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright
angels, and fly away to Heaven!'

The child, who had dropped her head, raised it again, and sat
looking at her intently.

'So; let me see,' said Polly, not a little flurried between this
earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success,
and her very slight confidence in her own powers.' So, when this lady
died, wherever they took her, or wherever they put her, she went to
GOD! and she prayed to Him, this lady did,' said Polly, affecting
herself beyond measure; being heartily in earnest, 'to teach her
little daughter to be sure of that in her heart: and to know that she
was happy there and loved her still: and to hope and try - Oh, all her
life - to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any
more.'

'It was my Mama!' exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping
her round the neck.

'And the child's heart,' said Polly, drawing her to her breast:
'the little daughter's heart was so full of the truth of this, that
even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it
right, but was a poor mother herself and that was all, she found a
comfort in it - didn't feel so lonely - sobbed and cried upon her
bosom - took kindly to the baby lying in her lap - and - there, there,
there!' said Polly, smoothing the child's curls and dropping tears
upon them. 'There, poor dear!'

'Oh well, Miss Floy! And won't your Pa be angry neither!' cried a
quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown, womanly girl
of fourteen, with a little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads.
'When it was 'tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit
the wet nurse.

'She don't worry me,' was the surprised rejoinder of Polly. 'I am
very fond of children.'

'Oh! but begging your pardon, Mrs Richards, that don't matter, you
know,' returned the black-eyed girl, who was so desperately sharp and
biting that she seemed to make one's eyes water. 'I may be very fond
of pennywinkles, Mrs Richards, but it don't follow that I'm to have
'em for tea. 'Well, it don't matter,' said Polly. 'Oh, thank'ee, Mrs
Richards, don't it!' returned the sharp girl. 'Remembering, however,
if you'll be so good, that Miss Floy's under my charge, and Master
Paul's under your'n.'

'But still we needn't quarrel,' said Polly.

'Oh no, Mrs Richards,' rejoined Spitfire. 'Not at all, I don't wish
it, we needn't stand upon that footing, Miss Floy being a permanency,
Master Paul a temporary.' Spitfire made use of none but comma pauses;
shooting out whatever she had to say in one sentence, and in one
breath, if possible.

'Miss Florence has just come home, hasn't she?' asked Polly.

'Yes, Mrs Richards, just come, and here, Miss Floy, before you've
been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a smearing your wet
face against the expensive mourning that Mrs Richards is a wearing for
your Ma!' With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was
Susan Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench - as
if she were a tooth. But she seemed to do it, more in the excessively
sharp exercise of her official functions, than with any deliberate
unkindness.

'She'll be quite happy, now she has come home again,' said Polly,
nodding to her with an encouraging smile upon her wholesome face, 'and
will be so pleased to see her dear Papa to-night.'

'Lork, Mrs Richards!' cried Miss Nipper, taking up her words with a
jerk. 'Don't. See her dear Papa indeed! I should like to see her do
it!'

'Won't she then?' asked Polly.

'Lork, Mrs Richards, no, her Pa's a deal too wrapped up in somebody
else, and before there was a somebody else to be wrapped up in she
never was a favourite, girls are thrown away in this house, Mrs
Richards, I assure you.

The child looked quickly from one nurse to the other, as if she
understood and felt what was said.

'You surprise me!' cried Folly. 'Hasn't Mr Dombey seen her since -
'

'No,' interrupted Susan Nipper. 'Not once since, and he hadn't
hardly set his eyes upon her before that for months and months, and I
don't think he'd have known her for his own child if he had met her in
the streets, or would know her for his own child if he was to meet her
in the streets to-morrow, Mrs Richards, as to me,' said Spitfire, with
a giggle, 'I doubt if he's aweer of my existence.'

'Pretty dear!' said Richards; meaning, not Miss Nipper, but the
little Florence.

'Oh! there's a Tartar within a hundred miles of where we're now in
conversation, I can tell you, Mrs Richards, present company always
excepted too,' said Susan Nipper; 'wish you good morning, Mrs
Richards, now Miss Floy, you come along with me, and don't go hanging
back like a naughty wicked child that judgments is no example to,
don't!'

In spite of being thus adjured, and in spite also of some hauling
on the part of Susan Nipper, tending towards the dislocation of her
right shoulder, little Florence broke away, and kissed her new friend,
affectionately.

'Oh dear! after it was given out so 'tickerlerly, that Mrs Richards
wasn't to be made free with!' exclaimed Susan. 'Very well, Miss Floy!'

'God bless the sweet thing!' said Richards, 'Good-bye, dear!'

'Good-bye!' returned the child. 'God bless you! I shall come to see
you again soon, and you'll come to see me? Susan will let us. Won't
you, Susan?'

Spitfire seemed to be in the main a good-natured little body,
although a disciple of that school of trainers of the young idea which
holds that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and
jostled about a good deal to keep it bright. For, being thus appealed
to with some endearing gestures and caresses, she folded her small
arms and shook her head, and conveyed a relenting expression into her
very-wide-open black eyes.

'It ain't right of you to ask it, Miss Floy, for you know I can't
refuse you, but Mrs Richards and me will see what can be done, if Mrs
Richards likes, I may wish, you see, to take a voyage to Chaney, Mrs
Richards, but I mayn't know how to leave the London Docks.'

Richards assented to the proposition.

'This house ain't so exactly ringing with merry-making,' said Miss
Nipper, 'that one need be lonelier than one must be. Your Toxes and
your Chickses may draw out my two front double teeth, Mrs Richards,
but that's no reason why I need offer 'em the whole set.'

This proposition was also assented to by Richards, as an obvious
one.

'So I'm able, I'm sure,'said Susan Nipper, 'to live friendly, Mrs
Richards, while Master Paul continues a permanency, if the means can
be planned out without going openly against orders, but goodness
gracious Miss Floy, you haven't got your things off yet, you naughty
child, you haven't, come along!'

With these words, Susan Nipper, in a transport of coercion, made a
charge at her young ward, and swept her out of the room.

The child, in her grief and neglect, was so gentle, so quiet, and
uncomplaining; was possessed of so much affection that no one seemed
to care to have, and so much sorrowful intelligence that no one seemed
to mind or think about the wounding of, that Polly's heart was sore
when she was left alone again. In the simple passage that had taken
place between herself and the motherless little girl, her own motherly
heart had been touched no less than the child's; and she felt, as the
child did, that there was something of confidence and interest between
them from that moment.

Notwithstanding Mr Toodle's great reliance on Polly, she was
perhaps in point of artificial accomplishments very little his
superior. She had been good-humouredly working and drudging for her
life all her life, and was a sober steady-going person, with
matter-of-fact ideas about the butcher and baker, and the division of
pence into farthings. But she was a good plain sample of a nature that
is ever, in the mass, better, truer, higher, nobler, quicker to feel,
and much more constant to retain, all tenderness and pity, self-denial
and devotion, than the nature of men. And, perhaps, unlearned as she
was, she could have brought a dawning knowledge home to Mr Dombey at
that early day, which would not then have struck him in the end like
lightning.

But this is from the purpose. Polly only thought, at that time, of
improving on her successful propitiation of Miss Nipper, and devising
some means of having little Florence aide her, lawfully, and without
rebellion. An opening happened to present itself that very night.

She had been rung down into the glass room as usual, and had walked
about and about it a long time, with the baby in her arms, when, to
her great surprise and dismay, Mr Dombey - whom she had seen at first
leaning on his elbow at the table, and afterwards walking up and down
the middle room, drawing, each time, a little nearer, she thought, to
the open folding doors - came out, suddenly, and stopped before her.

'Good evening, Richards.'

Just the same austere, stiff gentleman, as he had appeared to her
on that first day. Such a hard-looking gentleman, that she
involuntarily dropped her eyes and her curtsey at the same time.

'How is Master Paul, Richards?'

'Quite thriving, Sir, and well.'

'He looks so,' said Mr Dombey, glancing with great interest at the
tiny face she uncovered for his observation, and yet affecting to be
half careless of it. 'They give you everything you want, I hope?'

'Oh yes, thank you, Sir.'

She suddenly appended such an obvious hesitation to this reply,
however, that Mr Dombey, who had turned away; stopped, and turned
round again, inquiringly.

'If you please, Sir, the child is very much disposed to take notice
of things,' said Richards, with another curtsey, 'and - upstairs is a
little dull for him, perhaps, Sir.'

'I begged them to take you out for airings, constantly,' said Mr
Dombey. 'Very well! You shall go out oftener. You're quite right to
mention it.'

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' faltered Polly, 'but we go out quite
plenty Sir, thank you.'

'What would you have then?' asked Mr Dombey.

'Indeed Sir, I don't exactly know,' said Polly, 'unless - '

'Yes?'

'I believe nothing is so good for making children lively and
cheerful, Sir, as seeing other children playing about 'em,' observed
Polly, taking courage.

'I think I mentioned to you, Richards, when you came here,' said Mr
Dombey, with a frown, 'that I wished you to see as little of your
family as possible.'

'Oh dear yes, Sir, I wasn't so much as thinking of that.'

'I am glad of it,' said Mr Dombey hastily. 'You can continue your
walk if you please.'

With that, he disappeared into his inner room; and Polly had the
satisfaction of feeling that he had thoroughly misunderstood her
object, and that she had fallen into disgrace without the least
advancement of her purpose.

Next night, she found him walking about the conservatory when she
came down. As she stopped at the door, checked by this unusual sight,
and uncertain whether to advance or retreat, he called her in. His
mind was too much set on Dombey and Son, it soon appeared, to admit of
his having forgotten her suggestion.

'If you really think that sort of society is good for the child,'
he said sharply, as if there had been no interval since she proposed
it, 'where's Miss Florence?'

'Nothing could be better than Miss Florence, Sir,' said Polly
eagerly, 'but I understood from her maid that they were not to - '

Mr Dombey rang the bell, and walked till it was answered.

'Tell them always to let Miss Florence be with Richards when she
chooses, and go out with her, and so forth. Tell them to let the
children be together, when Richards wishes it.'

The iron was now hot, and Richards striking on it boldly - it was a
good cause and she bold in it, though instinctively afraid of Mr
Dombey - requested that Miss Florence might be sent down then and
there, to make friends with her little brother.

She feigned to be dandling the child as the servant retired on this
errand, but she thought that she saw Mr Dombey's colour changed; that
the expression of his face quite altered; that he turned, hurriedly,
as if to gainsay what he had said, or she had said, or both, and was
only deterred by very shame.

And she was right. The last time he had seen his slighted child,
there had been that in the sad embrace between her and her dying
mother, which was at once a revelation and a reproach to him. Let him
be absorbed as he would in the Son on whom he built such high hopes,
he could not forget that closing scene. He could not forget that he
had had no part in it. That, at the bottom of its clear depths of
tenderness and truth' lay those two figures clasped in each other's
arms, while he stood on the bank above them, looking down a mere
spectator - not a sharer with them - quite shut out.

Unable to exclude these things from his remembrance, or to keep his
mind free from such imperfect shapes of the meaning with which they
were fraught, as were able to make themselves visible to him through
the mist of his pride, his previous feeling of indifference towards
little Florence changed into an uneasiness of an extraordinary kind.
Young as she was, and possessing in any eyes but his (and perhaps in
his too) even more than the usual amount of childish simplicity and
confidence, he almost felt as if she watched and distrusted him. As if
she held the clue to something secret in his breast, of the nature of
which he was hardly informed himself. As if she had an innate
knowledge of one jarring and discordant string within him, and her
very breath could sound it.

His feeling about the child had been negative from her birth. He
had never conceived an aversion to her: it had not been worth his
while or in his humour. She had never been a positively disagreeable
object to him. But now he was ill at ease about her. She troubled his
peace. He would have preferred to put her idea aside altogether, if he
had known how. Perhaps - who shall decide on such mysteries! - he was
afraid that he might come to hate her.

When little Florence timidly presented herself, Mr Dombey stopped
in his pacing up and down and looked towards her. Had he looked with
greater interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her
keen glance the impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate
desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his
embrace, 'Oh father, try to love me! there's no one else!' the dread
of a repulse; the fear of being too bold, and of offending him; the
pitiable need in which she stood of some assurance and encouragement;
and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural
resting-place, for its sorrow and affection.

But he saw nothing of this. He saw her pause irresolutely at the
door and look towards him; and he saw no more.

'Come in,' he said, 'come in: what is the child afraid of?'

She came in; and after glancing round her for a moment with an
uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close
within the door.

'Come here, Florence,' said her father, coldly. 'Do you know who I
am?'

'Yes, Papa.'

'Have you nothing to say to me?'

The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his
face, were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again,
and put out her trembling hand.

Mr Dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon
her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child, what to say or
do.

'There! Be a good girl,' he said, patting her on the head, and
regarding her as it were by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful
look. 'Go to Richards! Go!'

His little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she
would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he
might raise her in his arms and kiss her. She looked up in his face
once more. He thought how like her expression was then, to what it had
been when she looked round at the Doctor - that night - and
instinctively dropped her hand and turned away.

It was not difficult to perceive that Florence was at a great
disadvantage in her father's presence. It was not only a constraint
upon the child's mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of
her actions. As she sported and played about her baby brother that
night, her manner was seldom so winning and so pretty as it naturally
was, and sometimes when in his pacing to and fro, he came near her
(she had, perhaps, for the moment, forgotten him) it changed upon the
instant and became forced and embarrassed.

Still, Polly persevered with all the better heart for seeing this;
and, judging of Mr Dombey by herself, had great confidence in the mute
appeal of poor little Florence's mourning dress.' It's hard indeed,'
thought Polly, 'if he takes only to one little motherless child, when
he has another, and that a girl, before his eyes.'

So, Polly kept her before his eyes, as long as she could, and
managed so well with little Paul, as to make it very plain that he was
all the livelier for his sister's company. When it was time to
withdraw upstairs again, she would have sent Florence into the inner
room to say good-night to her father, but the child was timid and drew
back; and when she urged her again, said, spreading her hands before
her eyes, as if to shut out her own unworthiness, 'Oh no, no! He don't
want me. He don't want me!'

The little altercation between them had attracted the notice of Mr
Dombey, who inquired from the table where he was sitting at his wine,
what the matter was.

'Miss Florence was afraid of interrupting, Sir, if she came in to
say good-night,' said Richards.

'It doesn't matter,' returned Mr Dombey. 'You can let her come and
go without regarding me.'

The child shrunk as she listened - and was gone, before her humble
friend looked round again.

However, Polly triumphed not a little in the success of her
well-intentioned scheme, and in the address with which she had brought
it to bear: whereof she made a full disclosure to Spitfire when she
was once more safely entrenched upstairs. Miss Nipper received that
proof of her confidence, as well as the prospect of their free
association for the future, rather coldly, and was anything but
enthusiastic in her demonstrations of joy.

'I thought you would have been pleased,' said Polly.

'Oh yes, Mrs Richards, I'm very well pleased, thank you,' returned
Susan, who had suddenly become so very upright that she seemed to have
put an additional bone in her stays.

'You don't show it,' said Polly.

'Oh! Being only a permanency I couldn't be expected to show it like
a temporary,' said Susan Nipper. 'Temporaries carries it all before
'em here, I find, but though there's a excellent party-wall between
this house and the next, I mayn't exactly like to go to it, Mrs
Richards, notwithstanding!'

CHAPTER 4.

In which some more First Appearances are made on the Stage of these
Adventures

Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of
the City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their
clashing voices were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet
were there hints of adventurous and romantic story to be observed in
some of the adjacent objects. Gog and Magog held their state within
ten minutes' walk; the Royal Exchange was close at hand; the Bank of
England, with its vaults of gold and silver 'down among the dead men'
underground, was their magnificent neighbour. Just round the corner
stood the rich East India House, teeming with suggestions of precious
stuffs and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs, hookahs, umbrellas,
palm trees, palanquins, and gorgeous princes of a brown complexion
sitting on carpets, with their slippers very much turned up at the
toes. Anywhere in the immediate vicinity there might be seen pictures
of ships speeding away full sail to all parts of the world; outfitting
warehouses ready to pack off anybody anywhere, fully equipped in half
an hour; and little timber midshipmen in obsolete naval uniforms,
eternally employed outside the shop doors of nautical
Instrument-makers in taking observations of the hackney carriages.

Sole master and proprietor of one of these effigies - of that which
might be called, familiar!y, the woodenest - of that which thrust
itself out above the pavement, right leg foremost, with a suavity the
least endurable, and had the shoe buckles and flapped waistcoat the
least reconcileable to human reason, and bore at its right eye the
most offensively disproportionate piece of machinery - sole master and
proprietor of that Midshipman, and proud of him too, an elderly
gentleman in a Welsh wig had paid house-rent, taxes, rates, and dues,
for more years than many a full-grown midshipman of flesh and blood
has numbered in his life; and midshipmen who have attained a pretty
green old age, have not been wanting in the English Navy.

The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers,
barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants,
and specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a
ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the
prosecuting of a ship's discoveries. Objects in brass and glass were
in his drawers and on his shelves, which none but the initiated could
have found the top of, or guessed the use of, or having once examined,
could have ever got back again into their mahogany nests without
assistance. Everything was jammed into the tightest cases, fitted into
the narrowest corners, fenced up behind the most impertinent cushions,
and screwed into the acutest angles, to prevent its philosophical
composure from being disturbed by the rolling of the sea. Such
extraordinary precautions were taken in every instance to save room,
and keep the thing compact; and so much practical navigation was
fitted, and cushioned, and screwed into every box (whether the box was
a mere slab, as some were, or something between a cocked hat and a
star-fish, as others were, and those quite mild and modest boxes as
compared with others); that the shop itself, partaking of the general
infection, seemed almost to become a snug, sea-going, ship-shape
concern, wanting only good sea-room, in the event of an unexpected
launch, to work its way securely to any desert island in the world.

Many minor incidents in the household life of the Ships'

Instrument-maker who was proud of his little Midshipman, assisted
and bore out this fancy. His acquaintance lying chiefly among
ship-chandlers and so forth, he had always plenty of the veritable
ships' biscuit on his table. It was familiar with dried meats and
tongues, possessing an extraordinary flavour of rope yarn. Pickles
were produced upon it, in great wholesale jars, with 'dealer in all
kinds of Ships' Provisions' on the label; spirits were set forth in
case bottles with no throats. Old prints of ships with alphabetical
references to their various mysteries, hung in frames upon the walls;
the Tartar Frigate under weigh, was on the plates; outlandish shells,
seaweeds, and mosses, decorated the chimney-piece; the little
wainscotted back parlour was lighted by a sky-light, like a cabin.

Here he lived too, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew
Walter: a boy of fourteen who looked quite enough like a midshipman,
to carry out the prevailing idea. But there it ended, for Solomon
Gills himself (more generally called old Sol) was far from having a
maritime appearance. To say nothing of his Welsh wig, which was as
plain and stubborn a Welsh wig as ever was worn, and in which he
looked like anything but a Rover, he was a slow, quiet-spoken,
thoughtful old fellow, with eyes as red as if they had been small suns
looking at you through a fog; and a newly-awakened manner, such as he
might have acquired by having stared for three or four days
successively through every optical instrument in his shop, and
suddenly came back to the world again, to find it green. The only
change ever known in his outward man, was from a complete suit of
coffee-colour cut very square, and ornamented with glaring buttons, to
the same suit of coffee-colour minus the inexpressibles, which were
then of a pale nankeen. He wore a very precise shirt-frill, and
carried a pair of first-rate spectacles on his forehead, and a
tremendous chronometer in his fob, rather than doubt which precious
possession, he would have believed in a conspiracy against it on part
of all the clocks and watches in the City, and even of the very Sun
itself. Such as he was, such he had been in the shop and parlour
behind the little Midshipman, for years upon years; going regularly
aloft to bed every night in a howling garret remote from the lodgers,
where, when gentlemen of England who lived below at ease had little or
no idea of the state of the weather, it often blew great guns.

It is half-past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon, when the
reader and Solomon Gills become acquainted. Solomon Gills is in the
act of seeing what time it is by the unimpeachable chronometer. The
usual daily clearance has been making in the City for an hour or more;
and the human tide is still rolling westward. 'The streets have
thinned,' as Mr Gills says, 'very much.' It threatens to be wet
to-night. All the weatherglasses in the shop are in low spirits, and
the rain already shines upon the cocked hat of the wooden Midshipman.

'Where's Walter, I wonder!' said Solomon Gills, after he had
carefully put up the chronometer again. 'Here's dinner been ready,
half an hour, and no Walter!'

Turning round upon his stool behind the counter, Mr Gills looked
out among the instruments in the window, to see if his nephew might be
crossing the road. No. He was not among the bobbing umbrellas, and he
certainly was not the newspaper boy in the oilskin cap who was slowly
working his way along the piece of brass outside, writing his name
over Mr Gills's name with his forefinger.

'If I didn't know he was too fond of me to make a run of it, and go
and enter himself aboard ship against my wishes, I should begin to be
fidgetty,' said Mr Gills, tapping two or three weather-glasses with
his knuckles. 'I really should. All in the Downs, eh! Lots of
moisture! Well! it's wanted.'

I believe,' said Mr Gills, blowing the dust off the glass top of a
compass-case, 'that you don't point more direct and due to the back
parlour than the boy's inclination does after all. And the parlour
couldn't bear straighter either. Due north. Not the twentieth part of
a point either way.'

'Halloa, Uncle Sol!'

'Halloa, my boy!' cried the Instrument-maker, turning briskly
round. 'What! you are here, are you?'

A cheerful looking, merry boy, fresh with running home in the rain;
fair-faced, bright-eyed, and curly-haired.

'Well, Uncle, how have you got on without me all day? Is dinner
ready? I'm so hungry.'

'As to getting on,' said Solomon good-naturedly, 'it would be odd
if I couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better
than with you. As to dinner being ready, it's been ready this half
hour and waiting for you. As to being hungry, I am!'

'Come along then, Uncle!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral!'

'Confound the admiral!' returned Solomon Gills. 'You mean the Lord
Mayor.'

'No I don't!' cried the boy. 'Hurrah for the admiral! Hurrah for
the admiral! For-ward!'

At this word of command, the Welsh wig and its wearer were borne
without resistance into the back parlour, as at the head of a boarding
party of five hundred men; and Uncle Sol and his nephew were speedily
engaged on a fried sole with a prospect of steak to follow.

'The Lord Mayor, Wally,' said Solomon, 'for ever! No more admirals.
The Lord Mayor's your admiral.'

'Oh, is he though!' said the boy, shaking his head. 'Why, the Sword
Bearer's better than him. He draws his sword sometimes.

'And a pretty figure he cuts with it for his pains,' returned the
Uncle. 'Listen to me, Wally, listen to me. Look on the mantelshelf.'

'Why who has cocked my silver mug up there, on a nail?' exclaimed
the boy.

I have,' said his Uncle. 'No more mugs now. We must begin to drink
out of glasses to-day, Walter. We are men of business. We belong to
the City. We started in life this morning.

'Well, Uncle,' said the boy, 'I'll drink out of anything you like,
so long as I can drink to you. Here's to you, Uncle Sol, and Hurrah
for the

'Lord Mayor,' interrupted the old man.

'For the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Common Council, and Livery,' said
the boy. 'Long life to 'em!'

The uncle nodded his head with great satisfaction. 'And now,' he
said, 'let's hear something about the Firm.'

'Oh! there's not much to be told about the Firm, Uncle,' said the
boy, plying his knife and fork.' It's a precious dark set of offices,
and in the room where I sit, there's a high fender, and an iron safe,
and some cards about ships that are going to sail, and an almanack,
and some desks and stools, and an inkbottle, and some books, and some
boxes, and a lot of cobwebs, and in one of 'em, just over my head, a
shrivelled-up blue-bottle that looks as if it had hung there ever so
long.'

'Nothing else?' said the Uncle.

'No, nothing else, except an old birdcage (I wonder how that ever
came there!) and a coal-scuttle.'

'No bankers' books, or cheque books, or bills, or such tokens of
wealth rolling in from day to day?' said old Sol, looking wistfully at
his nephew out of the fog that always seemed to hang about him, and
laying an unctuous emphasis upon the words.

'Oh yes, plenty of that I suppose,' returned his nephew carelessly;
'but all that sort of thing's in Mr Carker's room, or Mr Morfin's, or
MR Dombey's.'

'Has Mr Dombey been there to-day?' inquired the Uncle.

'Oh yes! In and out all day.'

'He didn't take any notice of you, I suppose?'.

'Yes he did. He walked up to my seat, - I wish he wasn't so solemn
and stiff, Uncle, - and said, "Oh! you are the son of Mr Gills the
Ships' Instrument-maker." "Nephew, Sir," I said. "I said nephew, boy,"
said he. But I could take my oath he said son, Uncle.'

'You're mistaken I daresay. It's no matter.

'No, it's no matter, but he needn't have been so sharp, I thought.
There was no harm in it though he did say son. Then he told me that
you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in
the House accordingly, and that I was expected to be attentive and
punctual, and then he went away. I thought he didn't seem to like me
much.'

'You mean, I suppose,' observed the Instrument-maker, 'that you
didn't seem to like him much?'

'Well, Uncle,' returned the boy, laughing. 'Perhaps so; I never
thought of that.'

Solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and
glanced from time to time at the boy's bright face. When dinner was
done, and the cloth was cleared away (the entertainment had been
brought from a neighbouring eating-house), he lighted a candle, and
went down below into a little cellar, while his nephew, standing on
the mouldy staircase, dutifully held the light. After a moment's
groping here and there, he presently returned with a very
ancient-looking bottle, covered with dust and dirt.

'Why, Uncle Sol!' said the boy, 'what are you about? that's the
wonderful Madeira! - there's only one more bottle!'

Uncle Sol nodded his head, implying that he knew very well what he
was about; and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two
glasses and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table.

'You shall drink the other bottle, Wally,' he said, 'when you come
to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when
the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you, as I
pray Heaven it may! - to a smooth part of the course you have to run,
my child. My love to you!'

Some of the fog that hung about old Sol seemed to have got into his
throat; for he spoke huskily. His hand shook too, as he clinked his
glass against his nephew's. But having once got the wine to his lips,
he tossed it off like a man, and smacked them afterwards.

'Dear Uncle,' said the boy, affecting to make light of it, while
the tears stood in his eyes, 'for the honour you have done me, et
cetera, et cetera. I shall now beg to propose Mr Solomon Gills with
three times three and one cheer more. Hurrah! and you'll return
thanks, Uncle, when we drink the last bottle together; won't you?'

They clinked their glasses again; and Walter, who was hoarding his
wine, took a sip of it, and held the glass up to his eye with as
critical an air as he could possibly assume.

His Uncle sat looking at him for some time in silence. When their
eyes at last met, he began at once to pursue the theme that had
occupied his thoughts, aloud, as if he had been speaking all the time.

'You see, Walter,' he said, 'in truth this business is merely a
habit with me. I am so accustomed to the habit that I could hardly
live if I relinquished it: but there's nothing doing, nothing doing.
When that uniform was worn,' pointing out towards the little
Midshipman, 'then indeed, fortunes were to be made, and were made. But
competition, competition - new invention, new invention - alteration,
alteration - the world's gone past me. I hardly know where I am
myself, much less where my customers are.

'Never mind 'em, Uncle!'

'Since you came home from weekly boarding-school at Peckham, for
instance - and that's ten days,' said Solomon, 'I don't remember more
than one person that has come into the shop.'

'Two, Uncle, don't you recollect? There was the man who came to ask
for change for a sovereign - '

'That's the one,' said Solomon.

'Why Uncle! don't you call the woman anybody, who came to ask the
way to Mile-End Turnpike?'

'Oh! it's true,' said Solomon, 'I forgot her. Two persons.'

'To be sure, they didn't buy anything,' cried the boy.

'No. They didn't buy anything,' said Solomon, quietly.

'Nor want anything,' cried the boy.

'No. If they had, they'd gone to another shop,' said Solomon, in
the same tone.

'But there were two of 'em, Uncle,' cried the boy, as if that were
a great triumph. 'You said only one.'

'Well, Wally,' resumed the old man, after a short pause: 'not being
like the Savages who came on Robinson Crusoe's Island, we can't live
on a man who asks for change for a sovereign, and a woman who inquires
the way to Mile-End Turnpike. As I said just now, the world has gone
past me. I don't blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen
are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same,
business is not the same, business commodities are not the same.
Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man
in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I
remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it
again. Even the noise it makes a long way ahead, confuses me.'

Walter was going to speak, but his Uncle held up his hand.

'Therefore, Wally - therefore it is that I am anxious you should be
early in the busy world, and on the world's track. I am only the ghost
of this business - its substance vanished long ago; and when I die,
its ghost will be laid. As it is clearly no inheritance for you then,
I have thought it best to use for your advantage, almost the only
fragment of the old connexion that stands by me, through long habit.
Some people suppose me to be wealthy. I wish for your sake they were
right. But whatever I leave behind me, or whatever I can give you, you
in such a House as Dombey's are in the road to use well and make the
most of. Be diligent, try to like it, my dear boy, work for a steady
independence, and be happy!'

'I'll do everything I can, Uncle, to deserve your affection. Indeed
I will,' said the boy, earnestly

'I know it,' said Solomon. 'I am sure of it,' and he applied
himself to a second glass of the old Madeira, with increased relish.
'As to the Sea,' he pursued, 'that's well enough in fiction, Wally,
but it won't do in fact: it won't do at all. It's natural enough that
you should think about it, associating it with all these familiar
things; but it won't do, it won't do.'

Solomon Gills rubbed his hands with an air of stealthy enjoyment,
as he talked of the sea, though; and looked on the seafaring objects
about him with inexpressible complacency.

'Think of this wine for instance,' said old Sol, 'which has been to
the East Indies and back, I'm not able to say how often, and has been
once round the world. Think of the pitch-dark nights, the roaring
winds, and rolling seas:'

'The thunder, lightning, rain, hail, storm of all kinds,' said the
boy.

'To be sure,' said Solomon, - 'that this wine has passed through.
Think what a straining and creaking of timbers and masts: what a
whistling and howling of the gale through ropes and rigging:'

'What a clambering aloft of men, vying with each other who shall
lie out first upon the yards to furl the icy sails, while the ship
rolls and pitches, like mad!' cried his nephew.

'Exactly so,' said Solomon: 'has gone on, over the old cask that
held this wine. Why, when the Charming Sally went down in the - '

'In the Baltic Sea, in the dead of night; five-and-twenty minutes
past twelve when the captain's watch stopped in his pocket; he lying
dead against the main-mast - on the fourteenth of February, seventeen
forty-nine!' cried Walter, with great animation.

'Ay, to be sure!' cried old Sol, 'quite right! Then, there were
five hundred casks of such wine aboard; and all hands (except the
first mate, first lieutenant, two seamen, and a lady, in a leaky boat)
going to work to stave the casks, got drunk and died drunk, singing
"Rule Britannia", when she settled and went down, and ending with one
awful scream in chorus.'

'But when the George the Second drove ashore, Uncle, on the coast
of Cornwall, in a dismal gale, two hours before daybreak, on the
fourth of March, 'seventy-one, she had near two hundred horses aboard;
and the horses breaking loose down below, early in the gale, and
tearing to and fro, and trampling each other to death, made such
noises, and set up such human cries, that the crew believing the ship
to be full of devils, some of the best men, losing heart and head,
went overboard in despair, and only two were left alive, at last, to
tell the tale.'

'And when,' said old Sol, 'when the Polyphemus - '

'Private West India Trader, burden three hundred and fifty tons,
Captain, John Brown of Deptford. Owners, Wiggs and Co.,' cried Walter.

'The same,' said Sol; 'when she took fire, four days' sail with a
fair wind out of Jamaica Harbour, in the night - '

'There were two brothers on board,' interposed his nephew, speaking
very fast and loud, 'and there not being room for both of them in the
only boat that wasn't swamped, neither of them would consent to go,
until the elder took the younger by the waist, and flung him in. And
then the younger, rising in the boat, cried out, "Dear Edward, think
of your promised wife at home. I'm only a boy. No one waits at home
for me. Leap down into my place!" and flung himself in the sea!'

The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen
from his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to
remind old Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling
mist had hitherto shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more
anecdotes, as he had evidently intended but a moment before, he gave a
short dry cough, and said, 'Well! suppose we change the subject.'

The truth was, that the simple-minded Uncle in his secret
attraction towards the marvellous and adventurous - of which he was,
in some sort, a distant relation, by his trade - had greatly
encouraged the same attraction in the nephew; and that everything that
had ever been put before the boy to deter him from a life of
adventure, had had the usual unaccountable effect of sharpening his
taste for it. This is invariable. It would seem as if there never was
a book written, or a story told, expressly with the object of keeping
boys on shore, which did not lure and charm them to the ocean, as a
matter of course.

But an addition to the little party now made its appearance, in the
shape of a gentleman in a wide suit of blue, with a hook instead of a
hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a
thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with
knobs. He wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and
such a very large coarse shirt collar, that it looked like a small
sail. He was evidently the person for whom the spare wine-glass was
intended, and evidently knew it; for having taken off his rough outer
coat, and hung up, on a particular peg behind the door, such a hard
glazed hat as a sympathetic person's head might ache at the sight of,
and which left a red rim round his own forehead as if he had been
wearing a tight basin, he brought a chair to where the clean glass
was, and sat himself down behind it. He was usually addressed as
Captain, this visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a
privateersman, or all three perhaps; and was a very salt-looking man
indeed.

His face, remarkable for a brown solidity, brightened as he shook
hands with Uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic
disposition, and merely said:

'How goes it?'

'All well,' said Mr Gills, pushing the bottle towards him.

He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with
extraordinary expression:

'The?'

'The,' returned the Instrument-maker.

Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think
they were making holiday indeed.

'Wal'r!' he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his
hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, 'Look at him!
Love! Honour! And Obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that
passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!'

He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his
reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a
low voice, and saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year.

'But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn't
know where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills,' he observed. 'It comes of
not wasting language as some do.'

The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young
Norval's father, '"ncrease his store." At any rate he became silent,
and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up,
when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:

'I suppose he could make a clock if he tried?'

'I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,' returned the boy.

'And it would go!' said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent
in the air with his hook. 'Lord, how that clock would go!'

For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace
of this ideal timepiece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face
were the dial.

'But he's chockful of science,' he observed, waving his hook
towards the stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em.
Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up
in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want
to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it
for you.'

It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's
reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his
philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and
inventing it.

'Ah!' he said, with a sigh, 'it's a fine thing to understand 'em.
And yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which
is best. It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be
weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very
devil with: and never know how.'

Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion
(which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind),
could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance
to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the
manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn
delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlour for ten
years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace.

'Come!' cried the subject of this admiration, returning. 'Before
you have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle.'

'Stand by!' said Ned, filling his glass. 'Give the boy some more.'

'No more, thank'e, Uncle!'

'Yes, yes,' said Sol, 'a little more. We'll finish the bottle, to
the House, Ned - Walter's House. Why it may be his House one of these
days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's
daughter.'

'"Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are
old you will never depart from it,"' interposed the Captain. 'Wal'r!
Overhaul the book, my lad.'

'And although Mr Dombey hasn't a daughter,' Sol began.

'Yes, yes, he has, Uncle,' said the boy, reddening and laughing.

'Has he?' cried the old man. 'Indeed I think he has too.

'Oh! I know he has,' said the boy. 'Some of 'em were talking about
it in the office today. And they do say, Uncle and Captain Cuttle,'
lowering his voice, 'that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's
left, unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all
the while upon having his son in the House, that although he's only a
baby now, he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly,
and the books kept closer than they used to be, and has even been seen
(when he thought he wasn't) walking in the Docks, looking at his ships
and property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he
and his son will possess together. That's what they say. Of course, I
don't know.

'He knows all about her already, you see,' said the
instrument-maker.

'Nonsense, Uncle,' cried the boy, still reddening and laughing,
boy-like. 'How can I help hearing what they tell me?'

'The Son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid, Ned,' said
the old man, humouring the joke.

'Very much,' said the Captain.

'Nevertheless, we'll drink him,' pursued Sol. 'So, here's to Dombey
and Son.'

'Oh, very well, Uncle,' said the boy, merrily. 'Since you have
introduced the mention of her, and have connected me with her and have
said that I know all about her, I shall make bold to amend the toast.
So here's to Dombey - and Son - and Daughter!'

CHAPTER 5.

Paul's Progress and Christening

Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the
Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was
more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so
far appreciated by Mr Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of
great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved
encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not
only bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but
even entrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as 'pray
tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very good,' or 'mention to Miss
Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her;'specialities which made a deep
impression on the lady thus distinguished.

Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates
to welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and
Kirby's Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to
greet him with all other forms of welcome in all other early stages of
his existence - or whether her overflowing goodness induced her to
volunteer into the domestic militia as a substitute in some sort for
his deceased Mama - or whether she was conscious of any other motives
- are questions which in this stage of the Firm's history herself only
could have solved. Nor have they much bearing on the fact (of which
there is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy and zeal were a heavy
discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly under her patronage,
and was in some danger of being superintended to death.

Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing
could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of
that sweet child;' and an observer of Miss Tox's proceedings might
have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would
preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable
satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards
in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and
toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of
infantine doses of physic awakened all the active sympathy of her
character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither
she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the
nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation
for bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards's gown, in a short
and airy linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant
present as to be unable to refrain from crying out, 'Is he not
beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, Sir!' and then almost sinking
behind the closet door with confusion and blushes.

'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, one day, to his sister, 'I really think I
must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of
Paul's christening. She has exerted herself so warmly in the child's
behalf from the first, and seems to understand her position so
thoroughly (a very rare merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that
it would really be agreeable to me to notice her.'

Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that
in Mr Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the
light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the
understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence
for his. It was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as
that they knew him, and bowed low before him.

'My dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'you do Miss Tox but justice,
as a man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if
there are three words in the English language for which she has a
respect amounting almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and
Son.'

'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.'

'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued
his sister, 'all I can say is that anything you give Miss Tox will be
hoarded and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my
dear Paul, of showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still
more flattering and acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined.'

'How is that?' asked Mr Dombey.

'Godfathers, of course,' continued Mrs Chick, 'are important in
point of connexion and influence.'

'I don't know why they should be, to my son, said Mr Dombey,
coldly.

'Very true, my dear Paul,' retorted Mrs Chick, with an
extraordinary show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her
conversion; 'and spoken like yourself. I might have expected nothing
else from you. I might have known that such would have been your
opinion. Perhaps;' here Mrs Chick faltered again, as not quite
comfortably feeling her way; 'perhaps that is a reason why you might
have the less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the
dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for someone else. That
it would be received as a great honour and distinction, Paul, I need
not say.

'Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, after a short pause, 'it is not to be
supposed - '

'Certainly not,' cried Mrs Chick, hastening to anticipate a
refusal, 'I never thought it was.'

Mr Dombey looked at her impatiently.

'Don't flurry me, my dear Paul,' said his sister; 'for that
destroys me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself, since
poor dear Fanny departed.'

Mr Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister
applied to her eyes, and resumed:

'It is not be supposed, I say 'And I say,' murmured Mrs Chick,
'that I never thought it was.'

'Good Heaven, Louisa!' said Mr Dombey.

'No, my dear Paul,' she remonstrated with tearful dignity, 'I must
really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so
eloquent, or so anything, as you are. I know that very well. So much
the worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter - and
last words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear
Fanny - I would still say I never thought it was. And what is more,'
added Mrs Chick with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her
crushing argument until now, 'I never did think it was.' Mr Dombey
walked to the window and back again.

'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed
her colours to the mast, and repeated 'I know it isn't,' but he took
no notice of it), 'but that there are many persons who, supposing that
I recognised any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me
superior to Miss Tox's. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul
and myself will be able, when the time comes, to hold our own - the
House, in other words, will be able to hold its own, and maintain its
own, and hand down its own of itself, and without any such
common-place aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek
for their children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope.
So that Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I see him
becoming qualified without waste of time for the career on which he is
destined to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends
he pleases in after-life, when he is actively maintaining - and
extending, if that is possible - the dignity and credit of the Firm.
Until then, I am enough for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no
wish that people should step in between us. I would much rather show
my sense of the obliging conduct of a deserving person like your
friend. Therefore let it be so; and your husband and myself will do
well enough for the other sponsors, I daresay.'

In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his
breast. An indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between
himself and his son; a haughty dread of having any rival or partner in
the boy's respect and deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired,
that he was not infallible in his power of bending and binding human
wills; as sharp a jealousy of any second check or cross; these were,
at that time the master keys of his soul. In all his life, he had
never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had neither sought
one, nor found one. And now, when that nature concentrated its whole
force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and
ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released
by this influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an
instant to admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one
unyielding block.

Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her
insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to
office; and Mr Dombey further signified his pleasure that the
ceremony, already long delayed, should take place without further
postponement. His sister, who had been far from anticipating so signal
a success, withdrew as soon as she could, to communicate it to her
best of friends; and Mr Dombey was left alone in his library. He had
already laid his hand upon the bellrope to convey his usual summons to
Richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his
deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things, from a
cabinet in her chamber. It was not the first time that his eye had
lighted on it He carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to
his table and opened it now - having previously locked the room door -
with a well-accustomed hand.

From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took
one letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as
he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something
of his arrogant demeanour, he s at down, resting his head upon one
hand, and read it through.

He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to
every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed
unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he
allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through,
he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully
into fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away,
he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the
chances of being re-united and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as
usual, for little Paul, he sat solitary, all the evening, in his
cheerless room.

There was anything but solitude in the nursery; for there, Mrs
Chick and Miss Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the
disgust of Miss Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every
opportunity of making wry faces behind the door. Her feelings were so
much excited on the occasion, that she found it indispensable to
afford them this relief, even without having the comfort of any
audience or sympathy whatever. As the knight-errants of old relieved
their minds by carving their mistress's names in deserts, and
wildernesses, and other savage places where there was no probability
of there ever being anybody to read them, so did Miss Susan Nipper
curl her snub nose into drawers and wardrobes, put away winks of
disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into stone pitchers,
and contradict and call names out in the passage.

The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young
lady's sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of
undressing, airy exercise, supper and bed; and then sat down to tea
before the fire. The two children now lay, through the good offices of
Polly, in one room; and it was not until the ladies were established
at their tea-table that, happening to look towards the little beds,
they thought of Florence.

'How sound she sleeps!' said Miss Tox.

'Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the
course of the day,' returned Mrs Chick, 'playing about little Paul so
much.'

'She is a curious child,' said Miss Tox.

'My dear,' retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: 'Her Mama, all
over!'

'In deed!' said Miss Tox. 'Ah dear me!'

A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though
she had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.

'Florence will never, never, never be a Dombey,'said Mrs Chick,
'not if she lives to be a thousand years old.'

Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of

commiseration.

'I quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs Chick, with a
sigh of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her
when she grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't gain
on her Papa in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is
so very unlike a Dombey?'

Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument
as that, at all.

'And the child, you see,' said Mrs Chick, in deep confidence, 'has
poor dear Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after-life,
I'll venture to say. Never! She'll never wind and twine herself about
her Papa's heart like - '

'Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox.

'Like the ivy,' Mrs Chick assented. 'Never! She'll never glide and
nestle into the bosom of her Papa's affections like - the - '

'Startled fawn?' suggested Miss Tox.

'Like the startled fawn,' said Mrs Chick. 'Never! Poor Fanny! Yet,
how I loved her!'

'You must not distress yourself, my dear,' said Miss Tox, in a
soothing voice. 'Now really! You have too much feeling.'

'We have all our faults,' said Mrs Chick, weeping and shaking her
head. 'I daresay we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I
was. Far from it. Yet how I loved her!'

What a satisfaction it was to Mrs Chick - a common-place piece of
folly enough, compared with whom her sister-in-law had been a very
angel of womanly intelligence and gentleness - to patronise and be
tender to the memory of that lady: in exact pursuance of her conduct
to her in her lifetime: and to thoroughly believe herself, and take
herself in, and make herself uncommonly comfortable on the strength of
her toleration! What a mighty pleasant virtue toleration should be
when we are right, to be so very pleasant when we are wrong, and quite
unable to demonstrate how we come to be invested with the privilege of
exercising it!

Mrs Chick was yet drying her eyes and shaking her head, when
Richards made bold to caution her that Miss Florence was awake and
sitting in her bed. She had risen, as the nurse said, and the lashes
of her eyes were wet with tears. But no one saw them glistening save
Polly. No one else leant over her, and whispered soothing words to
her, or was near enough to hear the flutter of her beating heart.

'Oh! dear nurse!' said the child, looking earnestly up in her face,
'let me lie by my brother!'

'Why, my pet?' said Richards.

'Oh! I think he loves me,' cried the child wildly. 'Let me lie by
him. Pray do!'

Mrs Chick interposed with some motherly words about going to sleep
like a dear, but Florence repeated her supplication, with a frightened
look, and in a voice broken by sobs and tears.

'I'll not wake him,' she said, covering her face and hanging down
her head. 'I'll only touch him with my hand, and go to sleep. Oh,
pray, pray, let me lie by my brother to-night, for I believe he's fond
of me!'

Richards took her without a word, and carrying her to the little
bed in which the infant was sleeping, laid her down by his side. She
crept as near him as she could without disturbing his rest; and
stretching out one arm so that it timidly embraced his neck, and
hiding her face on the other, over which her damp and scattered hair
fell loose, lay motionless.

'Poor little thing,' said Miss Tox; 'she has been dreaming, I
daresay.'

Dreaming, perhaps, of loving tones for ever silent, of loving eyes
for ever closed, of loving arms again wound round her, and relaxing in
that dream within the dam which no tongue can relate. Seeking, perhaps
- in dreams - some natural comfort for a heart, deeply and sorely
wounded, though so young a child's: and finding it, perhaps, in
dreams, if not in waking, cold, substantial truth. This trivial
incident had so interrupted the current of conversation, that it was
difficult of resumption; and Mrs Chick moreover had been so affected
by the contemplation of her own tolerant nature, that she was not in
spirits. The two friends accordingly soon made an end of their tea,
and a servant was despatched to fetch a hackney cabriolet for Miss
Tox. Miss Tox had great experience in hackney cabs, and her starting
in one was generally a work of time, as she was systematic in the
preparatory arrangements.

'Have the goodness, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox,
'first of all, to carry out a pen and ink and take his number
legibly.'

'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.

'Then, if you please, Towlinson,'said Miss Tox, 'have the goodness

to turn the cushion. Which,' said Miss Tox apart to Mrs Chick, 'is
generally damp, my dear.'

'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.

'I'll trouble you also, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss Tox,
'with this card and this shilling. He's to drive to the card, and is
to understand that he will not on any account have more than the
shilling.'

'No, Miss,' said Towlinson.

'And - I'm sorry to give you so much trouble, Towlinson,' said Miss
Tox, looking at him pensively.

'Not at all, Miss,' said Towlinson.

'Mention to the man, then, if you please, Towlinson,' said Miss
Tox, 'that the lady's uncle is a magistrate, and that if he gives her
any of his impertinence he will be punished terribly. You can pretend
to say that, if you please, Towlinson, in a friendly way, and because
you know it was done to another man, who died.'

'Certainly, Miss,' said Towlinson.

'And now good-night to my sweet, sweet, sweet, godson,' said Miss
Tox, with a soft shower of kisses at each repetition of the adjective;
'and Louisa, my dear friend, promise me to take a little something
warm before you go to bed, and not to distress yourself!'

It was with extreme difficulty that Nipper, the black-eyed, who
looked on steadfastly, contained herself at this crisis, and until the
subsequent departure of Mrs Chick. But the nursery being at length
free of visitors, she made herself some recompense for her late
restraint.

'You might keep me in a strait-waistcoat for six weeks,' said
Nipper, 'and when I got it off I'd only be more aggravated, who ever
heard the like of them two Griffins, Mrs Richards?'

'And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!' said Polly.

'Oh you beauties!' cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door
by which the ladies had departed. 'Never be a Dombey won't she? It's
to be hoped she won't, we don't want any more such, one's enough.'

'Don't wake the children, Susan dear,' said Polly.

'I'm very much beholden to you, Mrs Richards,' said Susan, who was
not by any means discriminating in her wrath, 'and really feel it as a
honour to receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter.
Mrs Richards, if there's any other orders, you can give me, pray
mention 'em.'

'Nonsense; orders,' said Polly.

'Oh! bless your heart, Mrs Richards,' cried Susan, 'temporaries
always orders permanencies here, didn't you know that, why wherever
was you born, Mrs Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs Richards,'
pursued Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely, 'and whenever, and
however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind,
please, that it's one thing to give orders, and quite another thing to
take 'em. A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head
foremost into five-and-forty feet of water, Mrs Richards, but a person
may be very far from diving.'

'There now,' said Polly, 'you're angry because you're a good little
thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me,
because there's nobody else.'

'It's very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken,
Mrs Richards,' returned Susan, slightly mollified, 'when their child's
made as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes
its friends further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that
never ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is rundown, the
case is very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you
naughty, sinful child, if you don't shut your eyes this minute, I'll
call in them hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat
you up alive!'

Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a
conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the
severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge
by covering her head with the bedclothes, and making three or four
angry dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her
mouth, and sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening.

Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, 'to take a deal of
notice for his age,' he took as little notice of all this as of the
preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which
nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that
of his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he,
on the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its
importance; being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and
unusually inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed
him to go out.

It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east
wind blowing - a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr Dombey
represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the
christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard
and cold as the weather; and when he looked out through the glass
room, at the trees in the little garden, their brown and yellow leaves
came fluttering down, as if he blighted them.

Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning,
like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size,
and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard,
slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that
was a freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all
familiarities. Mr Pitt, in bronze, on the top, with no trace of his
celestial origin' about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an
enchanted Moor. A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an
ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and
the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at one blow,
seemed fraught with melancholy meditations.

The stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a nearer
relationship than anything else there to Mr Dombey, with his buttoned
coat, his white cravat, his heavy gold watch-chain, and his creaking
boots.

But this was before the arrival of Mr and Mrs Chick, his lawful
relatives, who soon presented themselves.

'My dear Paul,' Mrs Chick murmured, as she embraced him, 'the
beginning, I hope, of many joyful days!'

'Thank you, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, grimly. 'How do you do, Mr
John?'

'How do you do, Sir?' said Chick.

He gave Mr Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him.
Mr Dombey tool: it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such
clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted
politeness.

'Perhaps, Louisa,' said Mr Dombey, slightly turning his head in his
cravat, as if it were a socket, 'you would have preferred a fire?'

'Oh, my dear Paul, no,' said Mrs Chick, who had much ado to keep
her teeth from chattering; 'not for me.'

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'you are not sensible of any chill?'

Mr John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the
wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which
had given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former occasion, protested
that he was perfectly comfortable.

He added in a low voice, 'With my tiddle tol toor rul' - when he
was providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced:

'Miss Tox!'

And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably
frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of
fluttering odds and ends, to do honour to the ceremony.

'How do you do, Miss Tox?' said Mr Dombey.

Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down
altogether like an opera-glass shutting-up; she curtseyed so low, in
acknowledgment of Mr Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her.

'I can never forget this occasion, Sir,' said Miss Tox, softly.
''Tis impossible. My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of
my senses.'

If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was
a very cold day. That was quite clear. She took an early opportunity
of promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly
chafing it with her pocket handkerchief, lest, by its very low
temperature, it should disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to
kiss it.

The baby soon appeared, carried in great glory by Richards; while
Florence, in custody of that active young constable, Susan Nipper,
brought up the rear. Though the whole nursery party were dressed by
this time in lighter mourning than at first, there was enough in the
appearance of the bereaved children to make the day no brighter. The
baby too - it might have been Miss Tox's nose - began to cry. Thereby,
as it happened, preventing Mr Chick from the awkward fulfilment of a
very honest purpose he had; which was, to make much of Florence. For
this gentleman, insensible to the superior claims of a perfect Dombey
(perhaps on account of having the honour to be united to a Dombey
himself, and being familiar with excellence), really liked her, and
showed that he liked her, and was about to show it in his own way now,
when Paul cried, and his helpmate stopped him short

'Now Florence, child!' said her aunt, briskly, 'what are you doing,
love? Show yourself to him. Engage his attention, my dear!'

The atmosphere became or might have become colder and colder, when
Mr Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping
her hands, and standing On tip-toe before the throne of his son and
heir, lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her.
Some honest act of Richards's may have aided the effect, but he did
look down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he
followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry
to him, he sprang up and crowed lustily - laughing outright when she
ran in upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands,
while she smothered him with kisses.

Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the
relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were
unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the
children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so
fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the
laughing eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet
his.

It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute's pause and
silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his
hat and gloves. 'Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss
Tox's. You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very
careful.'

In Mr Dombey's carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick,
Richards, and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan
Nipper and the owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without
intermission, as a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the
large face of that gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled
that he was putting up in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment
for herself.

Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the
amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss
Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief
difference between the christening party and a party in a mourning
coach consisted in the colours of the carriage and horses.

Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous
beadle.' Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and
standing near him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A
beadle less gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life;
the beadle of our business and our bosoms.

Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey's arm,
and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and a
Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn
institution, 'Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?' 'Yes, I will.'

'Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,'
whispered the beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.

Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet 'into my grave?' so chill
and earthy was the place. The tall shrouded pulpit and reading desk;
the dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the
galleries, and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the
shadow of the great grim organ; the dusty matting and cold stone
slabs; the grisly free seats' in the aisles; and the damp corner by
the bell-rope, where the black trestles used for funerals were stowed
away, along with some shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of
deadly-looking rope; the strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and
the cadaverous light; were all in unison. It was a cold and dismal
scene.

'There's a wedding just on, Sir,' said the beadle, 'but it'll be
over directly, if you'll walk into the westry here.

Before he turned again to lead the way, he gave Mr Dombey a bow and
a half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered
to have had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife,
and hoped he had enjoyed himself since.

The very wedding looked dismal as they passed in front of the
altar. The bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a
superannuated beau with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in its blank
companion, was giving away the lady, while the friends were shivering.
In the vestry the fire was smoking; and an over-aged and over-worked
and under-paid attorney's clerk, 'making a search,' was running his
forefinger down the parchment pages of an immense register (one of a
long series of similar volumes) gorged with burials. Over the
fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults underneath the church; and
Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of it aloud, by way of
enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs Dombey's tomb in
full, before he could stop himself.

After another cold interval, a wheezy little pew-opener afflicted
with an asthma, appropriate to the churchyard, if not to the church,
summoned them to the font - a rigid marble basin which seemed to have
been playing a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact
pedestal, and to have been just that moment caught on the top of it.
Here they waited some little time while the marriage party enrolled
themselves; and meanwhile the wheezy little pew-opener - partly in
consequence of her infirmity, and partly that the marriage party might
not forget her - went about the building coughing like a grampus.

Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he
was an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and said
something, as he poured it into the font, about taking the chill off;
which millions of gallons boiling hot could not have done for the
occasion. Then the clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young
curate, but obviously afraid of the baby, appeared like the principal
character in a ghost-story, 'a tall figure all in white;' at sight of
whom Paul rent the air with his cries, and never left off again till
he was taken out black in the face.

Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of
everybody, he was heard under the portico, during the rest of the
ceremony, now fainter, now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth
again with an irrepressible sense of his wrongs. This so distracted
the attention of the two ladies, that Mrs Chick was constantly
deploying into the centre aisle, to send out messages by the
pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder
Plot, and occasionally read responses from that service.

During the whole of these proceedings, Mr Dombey remained as
impassive and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it
so cold, that the young curate smoked at the mouth as he read. The
only time that he unbent his visage in the least, was when the
clergyman, in delivering (very unaffectedly and simply) the closing
exhortation, relative to the future examination of the child by the
sponsors, happened to rest his eye on Mr Chick; and then Mr Dombey
might have been seen to express by a majestic look, that he would like
to catch him at it.

It might have been well for Mr Dombey, if he had thought of his own
dignity a little less; and had thought of the great origin and purpose
of the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff a part, a
little more. His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history.

When it was all over, he again gave his arm to Miss Tox, and
conducted her to the vestry, where he informed the clergyman how much
pleasure it would have given him to have solicited the honour of his
company at dinner, but for the unfortunate state of his household
affairs. The register signed, and the fees paid, and the pew-opener
(whose cough was very bad again) remembered, and the beadle gratified,
and the sexton (who was accidentally on the doorsteps, looking with
great interest at the weather) not forgotten, they got into the
carriage again, and drove home in the same bleak fellowship.

There they found Mr Pitt turning up his nose at a cold collation,
set forth in a cold pomp of glass and silver, and looking more like a
dead dinner lying in state than a social refreshment. On their arrival
Miss Tox produced a mug for her godson, and Mr Chick a knife and fork
and spoon in a case. Mr Dombey also produced a bracelet for Miss Tox;
and, on the receipt of this token, Miss Tox was tenderly affected.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'will you take the bottom of the table,
if you please? What have you got there, Mr John?'

'I have got a cold fillet of veal here, Sir,' replied Mr Chick,
rubbing his numbed hands hard together. 'What have you got there,
Sir?'

'This,' returned Mr Dombey, 'is some cold preparation of calf's
head, I think. I see cold fowls - ham - patties - salad - lobster.
Miss Tox will do me the honour of taking some wine? Champagne to Miss
Tox.'

There was a toothache in everything. The wine was so bitter cold
that it forced a little scream from Miss Tox, which she had great
difficulty in turning into a 'Hem!' The veal had come from such an
airy pantry, that the first taste of it had struck a sensation as of
cold lead to Mr Chick's extremities. Mr Dombey alone remained unmoved.
He might have been hung up for sale at a Russian fair as a specimen of
a frozen gentleman.

The prevailing influence was too much even for his sister. She made
no effort at flattery or small talk, and directed all her efforts to
looking as warm as she could.

'Well, Sir,' said Mr Chick, making a desperate plunge, after a long
silence, and filling a glass of sherry; 'I shall drink this, if you'll
allow me, Sir, to little Paul.'

'Bless him!' murmured Miss Tox, taking a sip of wine.

'Dear little Dombey!' murmured Mrs Chick.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, with severe gravity, 'my son would feel
and express himself obliged to you, I have no doubt, if he could
appreciate the favour you have done him. He will prove, in time to
come, I trust, equal to any responsibility that the obliging
disposition of his relations and friends, in private, or the onerous
nature of our position, in public, may impose upon him.'

The tone in which this was said admitting of nothing more, Mr Chick
relapsed into low spirits and silence. Not so Miss Tox, who, having
listened to Mr Dombey with even a more emphatic attention than usual,
and with a more expressive tendency of her head to one side, now leant
across the table, and said to Mrs Chick softly:

'Louisa!'

'My dear,' said Mrs Chick.

'Onerous nature of our position in public may - I have forgotten

the exact term.'

'Expose him to,' said Mrs Chick.

'Pardon me, my dear,' returned Miss Tox, 'I think not. It was more
rounded and flowing. Obliging disposition of relations and friends in
private, or onerous nature of position in public - may - impose upon
him!'

'Impose upon him, to be sure,' said Mrs Chick.

Miss Tox struck her delicate hands together lightly, in triumph;
and added, casting up her eyes, 'eloquence indeed!'

Mr Dombey, in the meanwhile, had issued orders for the attendance
of Richards, who now entered curtseying, but without the baby; Paul
being asleep after the fatigues of the morning. Mr Dombey, having
delivered a glass of wine to this vassal, addressed her in the
following words: Miss Tox previously settling her head on one side,
and making other little arrangements for engraving them on her heart.

'During the six months or so, Richards, which have seen you an
inmate of this house, you have done your duty. Desiring to connect
some little service to you with this occasion, I considered how I
could best effect that object, and I also advised with my sister, Mrs
- '

'Chick,' interposed the gentleman of that name.

'Oh, hush if you please!' said Miss Tox.

'I was about to say to you, Richards,' resumed Mr Dombey, with an
appalling glance at Mr John, 'that I was further assisted in my
decision, by the recollection of a conversation I held with your
husband in this room, on the occasion of your being hired, when he
disclosed to me the melancholy fact that your family, himself at the
head, were sunk and steeped in ignorance.

Richards quailed under the magnificence of the reproof.

'I am far from being friendly,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to what is
called by persons of levelling sentiments, general education. But it
is necessary that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to
know their position, and to conduct themselves properly. So far I
approve of schools. Having the power of nominating a child on the
foundation of an ancient establishment, called (from a worshipful
company) the Charitable Grinders; where not only is a wholesome
education bestowed upon the scholars, but where a dress and badge is
likewise provided for them; I have (first communicating, through Mrs
Chick, with your family) nominated your eldest son to an existing
vacancy; and he has this day, I am informed, assumed the habit. The
number of her son, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, turning to his sister
and speaking of the child as if he were a hackney-coach, is one
hundred and forty-seven. Louisa, you can tell her.'

'One hundred and forty-seven,' said Mrs Chick 'The dress, Richards,
is a nice, warm, blue baize tailed coat and cap, turned up with orange
coloured binding; red worsted stockings; and very strong leather
small-clothes. One might wear the articles one's self,' said Mrs
Chick, with enthusiasm, 'and be grateful.'

'There, Richards!' said Miss Tox. 'Now, indeed, you may be proud.
The Charitable Grinders!'

'I am sure I am very much obliged, Sir,' returned Richards faintly,
'and take it very kind that you should remember my little ones.' At
the same time a vision of Biler as a Charitable Grinder, with his very
small legs encased in the serviceable clothing described by Mrs Chick,
swam before Richards's eyes, and made them water.

'I am very glad to see you have so much feeling, Richards,' said
Miss Tox.

'It makes one almost hope, it really does,' said Mrs Chick, who
prided herself on taking trustful views of human nature, 'that there
may yet be some faint spark of gratitude and right feeling in the
world.'

Richards deferred to these compliments by curtseying and murmuring

her thanks; but finding it quite impossible to recover her spirits
from the disorder into which they had been thrown by the image of her
son in his precocious nether garments, she gradually approached the
door and was heartily relieved to escape by it.

Such temporary indications of a partial thaw that had appeared with
her, vanished with her; and the frost set in again, as cold and hard
as ever. Mr Chick was twice heard to hum a tune at the bottom of the
table, but on both occasions it was a fragment of the Dead March in
Saul. The party seemed to get colder and colder, and to be gradually
resolving itself into a congealed and solid state, like the collation
round which it was assembled. At length Mrs Chick looked at Miss Tox,
and Miss Tox returned the look, and they both rose and said it was
really time to go. Mr Dombey receiving this announcement with perfect
equanimity, they took leave of that gentleman, and presently departed
under the protection of Mr Chick; who, when they had turned their
backs upon the house and left its master in his usual solitary state,
put his hands in his pockets, threw himself back in the carriage, and
whistled 'With a hey ho chevy!' all through; conveying into his face
as he did so, an expression of such gloomy and terrible defiance, that
Mrs Chick dared not protest, or in any way molest him.

Richards, though she had little Paul on her lap, could not forget
her own first-born. She felt it was ungrateful; but the influence of
the day fell even on the Charitable Grinders, and she could hardly
help regarding his pewter badge, number one hundred and forty-seven,
as, somehow, a part of its formality and sternness. She spoke, too, in
the nursery, of his 'blessed legs,' and was again troubled by his
spectre in uniform.

'I don't know what I wouldn't give,' said Polly, 'to see the poor
little dear before he gets used to 'em.'

'Why, then, I tell you what, Mrs Richards,' retorted Nipper, who
had been admitted to her confidence, 'see him and make your mind
easy.'

'Mr Dombey wouldn't like it,' said Polly.

'Oh, wouldn't he, Mrs Richards!' retorted Nipper, 'he'd like it
very much, I think when he was asked.'

'You wouldn't ask him, I suppose, at all?' said Polly.

'No, Mrs Richards, quite contrairy,' returned Susan, 'and them two
inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty tomorrow, as I
heard 'em say, me and Mid Floy will go along with you tomorrow
morning, and welcome, Mrs Richards, if you like, for we may as well
walk there as up and down a street, and better too.'

Polly rejected the idea pretty stoutly at first; but by little and
little she began to entertain it, as she entertained more and more
distinctly the forbidden pictures of her children, and her own home.
At length, arguing that there could be no great harm in calling for a
moment at the door, she yielded to the Nipper proposition.

The matter being settled thus, little Paul began to cry most
piteously, as if he had a foreboding that no good would come of it.

'What's the matter with the child?' asked Susan.

'He's cold, I think,' said Polly, walking with him to and fro, and
hushing him.

It was a bleak autumnal afternoon indeed; and as she walked, and
hushed, and, glancing through the dreary windows, pressed the little
fellow closer to her breast, the withered leaves came showering down.

CHAPTER 6.

Paul's Second Deprivation

Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for
the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have
abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for
leave to see number one hundred and forty-seven, under the awful
shadow of Mr Dombey's roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in
favour of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could
bear the disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude,
could not abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts
in the way of this second thought, and stimulated the original
intention with so many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr
Dombey's stately back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his
daily road towards the City, his unconscious son was on his way to
Staggs's Gardens.

This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the
inhabitants of Staggs's Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a
designation which the Strangers' Map of London, as printed (with a
view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs,
condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two
nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards
carrying Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the
hand, and giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she
considered it wholesome to administer.

The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period,
rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were
visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken
through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground;
enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were
undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos
of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the
bottom of a steep unnatural hill; there, confused treasures of iron
soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally become a pond.
Everywhere were bridges that led nowhere; thoroughfares that were
wholly impassable; Babel towers of chimneys, wanting half their
height; temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most unlikely
situations; carcases of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished
walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of
bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above
nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of
incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down,
burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering in the water,
and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the
usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of
confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within
dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came
issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and
wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood.

In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress;
and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly
away, upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement.

But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or
two bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a
little, but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of
it. A bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting
nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that
might be rash enterprise - and then it hoped to sell drink to the
workmen. So, the Excavators' House of Call had sprung up from a
beer-shop; and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the
Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through
interested motives of a similar immediate and popular description.
Lodging-house keepers were favourable in like manner; and for the like
reasons were not to be trusted. The general belief was very slow.
There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and
dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, and
carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli
of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the
lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all
seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and rails, and old
cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of
wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance. Nothing was the
better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground
lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn,
like many of the miserable neighbours.

Staggs's Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of
houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off
with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes;
with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into
the gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept
fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat),
dried clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's
Gardens derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs,
who had built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste
for the country, held that it dated from those rural times when the
antlered herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had
resorted to its shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens
was regarded by its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by
Railroads; and so confident were they generally of its long outliving
any such ridiculous inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the
corner, who was understood to take the lead in the local politics of
the Gardens, had publicly declared that on the occasion of the
Railroad opening, if ever it did open, two of his boys should ascend
the flues of his dwelling, with instructions to hail the failure with
derisive cheers from the chimney-pots.

To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been
carefully concealed from Mr Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now
borne by Fate and Richards

'That's my house, Susan,' said Polly, pointing it out.

'Is it, indeed, Mrs Richards?' said Susan, condescendingly.

'And there's my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare' cried
Polly, 'with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!'

The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly's
impatience, that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing
on Jemima, changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable
astonishment of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys
seemed to have fallen from the clouds.

'Why, Polly!' cried Jemima. 'You! what a turn you have given me!
who'd have thought it! come along in Polly! How well you do look to be
sure! The children will go half wild to see you Polly, that they
will.'

That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the
way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in
the chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately
the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks
close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to
Polly, she was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was
not until she was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all
about her flushed face, and her new christening attire was very much
dishevelled, that any pause took place in the confusion. Even then,
the smallest Toodle but one remained in her lap, holding on tight with
both arms round her neck; while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on
the back of the chair, and made desperate efforts, with one leg in the
air, to kiss her round the corner.

'Look! there's a pretty little lady come to see you,' said Polly;
'and see how quiet she is! what a beautiful little lady, ain't she?'

This reference to Florence, who had been standing by the door not
unobservant of what passed, directed the attention of the younger
branches towards her; and had likewise the happy effect of leading to
the formal recognition of Miss Nipper, who was not quite free from a
misgiving that she had been already slighted.

'Oh do come in and sit down a minute, Susan, please,' said Polly.
'This is my sister Jemima, this is. Jemima, I don't know what I should
ever do with myself, if it wasn't for Susan Nipper; I shouldn't be
here now but for her.'

'Oh do sit down, Miss Nipper, if you please,' quoth Jemima.

Susan took the extreme corner of a chair, with a stately and
ceremonious aspect.

'I never was so glad to see anybody in all my life; now really I
never was, Miss Nipper,' said Jemima.

Susan relaxing, took a little more of the chair, and smiled
graciously.

'Do untie your bonnet-strings, and make yourself at home, Miss
Nipper, please,' entreated Jemima. 'I am afraid it's a poorer place
than you're used to; but you'll make allowances, I'm sure.'

The black-eyed was so softened by this deferential behaviour, that
she caught up little Miss Toodle who was running past, and took her to
Banbury Cross immediately.

'But where's my pretty boy?' said Polly. 'My poor fellow? I came
all this way to see him in his new clothes.'

'Ah what a pity!' cried Jemima. 'He'll break his heart, when he
hears his mother has been here. He's at school, Polly.'

'Gone already!'

'Yes. He went for the first time yesterday, for fear he should lose
any learning. But it's half-holiday, Polly: if you could only stop
till he comes home - you and Miss Nipper, leastways,' said Jemima,
mindful in good time of the dignity of the black-eyed.

'And how does he look, Jemima, bless him!' faltered Polly.

'Well, really he don't look so bad as you'd suppose,' returned
Jemima.

'Ah!' said Polly, with emotion, 'I knew his legs must be too
short.'

His legs is short,' returned Jemima; 'especially behind; but
they'll get longer, Polly, every day.'

It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the
cheerfulness and good nature with which it was administered, gave it a
value it did not intrinsically possess. After a moment's silence,
Polly asked, in a more sprightly manner:

'And where's Father, Jemima dear?' - for by that patriarchal
appellation, Mr Toodle was generally known in the family.

'There again!' said Jemima. 'What a pity! Father took his dinner
with him this morning, and isn't coming home till night. But he's
always talking of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and
is the peaceablest, patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as
he always was and will be!'

'Thankee, Jemima,' cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech,
and disappointed by the absence.

'Oh you needn't thank me, Polly,' said her sister, giving her a
sounding kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully.
'I say the same of you sometimes, and think it too.'

In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard
in the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a
reception; so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and
about Biler, and about all his brothers and sisters: while the
black-eyed, having performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and
back, took sharp note of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard,
the castle on the mantel-piece with red and green windows in it,
susceptible of illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of
small black velvet kittens, each with a lady's reticule in its mouth;
regarded by the Staggs's Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art. The
conversation soon becoming general lest the black-eyed should go off
at score and turn sarcastic, that young lady related to Jemima a
summary of everything she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his prospects,
family, pursuits, and character. Also an exact inventory of her
personal wardrobe, and some account of her principal relations and
friends. Having relieved her mind of these disclosures, she partook of
shrimps and porter, and evinced a disposition to swear eternal
friendship.

Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the
occasion; for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect
some toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered
with them, heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater
across a small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was
still busily engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan;
who, such was her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence
of shrimps, delivered a moral address to her (punctuated with thumps)
on her degenerate nature, while washing her face and hands; and
predicted that she would bring the grey hairs of her family in
general, with sorrow to the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a
pretty long confidential interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects,
between Polly and Jemima, an interchange of babies was again effected
- for Polly had all this timeretained her own child, and Jemima little
Paul - and the visitors took leave.

But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded
into repairing in a body to a chandler's shop in the neighbourhood,
for the ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was
quite clear, Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could
only go round towards the City Road on their way back, they would be
sure to meet little Biler coming from school.

'Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?' inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.

'Why not, Mrs Richards?' returned Susan.

'It's getting on towards our dinner time you know,' said Polly.

But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this
grave consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved
to go 'a little round.'

Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The
youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be
brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing
himself upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His
social existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than
an innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the
streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud;
violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had
lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs
had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been
handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly
unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders' establishment, and
had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder of
savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he
didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel
cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.'

Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid
his tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill
fortune brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a
ferocious young butcher, were lying in wait for any means of
pleasurable excitement that might happen. These, finding a Charitable
Grinder in the midst of them - unaccountably delivered over, as it
were, into their hands - set up a general yell and rushed upon him.

But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour's walk, had
said it was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this
sight. She no sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and
giving Master Dombey to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of
her unhappy little son.

Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished
Susan Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders
from under the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what
had happened; and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering
alarm of 'Mad Bull!' was raised.

With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down,
and shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad
bulls coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being
torn to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was
exhausted, urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and
wringing her hands as she remembered they had left the other nurse
behind, found, with a sensation of terror not to be described, that
she was quite alone.

'Susan! Susan!' cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very
ecstasy of her alarm. 'Oh, where are they? where are they?'

'Where are they?' said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast
as she could from the opposite side of the way. 'Why did you run away
from 'em?'

'I was frightened,' answered Florence. 'I didn't know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?'

The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, 'I'll show you.'

She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a
mouth that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking.
She was miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She
seemed to have followed Florence some little way at all events, for
she had lost her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood
trying to regain it: working her shrivelled yellow face and throat
into all sorts of contortions.

Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street,
of which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place -
more a back road than a street - and there was no one in it but her-
self and the old woman.

'You needn't be frightened now,' said the old woman, still holding
her tight. 'Come along with me.'

'I - I don't know you. What's your name?' asked Florence.

'Mrs Brown,' said the old woman. 'Good Mrs Brown.'

'Are they near here?' asked Florence, beginning to be led away.

'Susan ain't far off,' said Good Mrs Brown; 'and the others are
close to her.'

'Is anybody hurt?' cried Florence.

'Not a bit of it,' said Good Mrs Brown.

The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied
the old woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her
face as they went along - particularly at that industrious mouth - and
wondering whether Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at
all like her.

They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable
places, such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned
down a dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle
of the road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut
up as a house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening
the door with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child
before her into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of
different colours lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of
sifted dust or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the
walls and ceiling were quite black.

The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.

'Now don't be a young mule,' said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with
a shake. 'I'm not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.'

Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute
supplication.

'I'm not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,' said Mrs Brown.
'D'ye understand what I say?'

The child answered with great difficulty, 'Yes.'

'Then,' said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones,
'don't vex me. If you don't, I tell you I won't hurt you. But if you
do, I'll kill you. I could have you killed at any time - even if you
was in your own bed at home. Now let's know who you are, and what you
are, and all about it.'

The old woman's threats and promises; the dread of giving her
offence; and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to
Florence now, of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and
feared, and hoped; enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her
little history, or what she knew of it. Mrs Brown listened
attentively, until she had finished.

'So your name's Dombey, eh?' said Mrs Brown.

'I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,' said Good Mrs Brown, 'and
that little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can
spare. Come! Take 'em off.'

Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow;
keeping, all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had
divested herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that
lady, Mrs B. examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well
satisfied with their quality and value.

'Humph!' she said, running her eyes over the child's slight figure,
'I don't see anything else - except the shoes. I must have the shoes,
Miss Dombey.'

Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too
glad to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman
then produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of
rags, which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's
cloak, quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a
bonnet that had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill.
In this dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and
as such preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child
complied with increased readiness, if possible.

In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet
which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair
which grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good
Mrs Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an
unaccountable state of excitement.

'Why couldn't you let me be!' said Mrs Brown, 'when I was
contented? You little fool!'

'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted
Florence. 'I couldn't help it.'

'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help
it? Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious
pleasure, 'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.'
Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her
head which Mrs Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or
entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes towards the face of that
good soul.

'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own - beyond seas now- that was
proud of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it.
She's far away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!'

Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and
thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever.
It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after
hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind
of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of
them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over
herself, Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very
short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were
eating the stem.

When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to
carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and
told her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence
she could inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with
threats of summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not
to talk to strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have
been too near for Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office
in the City; also to wait at the street corner where she would be
left, until the clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown
enforced with assurances that there would be potent eyes and ears in
her employment cognizant of all she did; and these directions Florence
promised faithfully and earnestly to observe.

At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and
ragged little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes
and alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with
a gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made
itself audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that
when the clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown,
after making a parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and
quite beyond her own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade
her go and do it: remembering that she was watched.

With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she
looked back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low
wooden passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise
the fist of Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often
looked back afterwards - every minute, at least, in her nervous
recollection of the old woman - she could not see her again.

Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and
more and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks
appeared to have made up their minds never to strike three any more.
At last the steeples rang out three o'clock; there was one close by,
so she couldn't be mistaken; and - after often looking over her
shoulder, and often going a little way, and as often coming back
again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs Brown should take offence -
she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod shoes, holding
the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.

All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to
Dombey and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City.
So she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as
she generally made inquiry of children - being afraid to ask grown
people - she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of
asking her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her
inquiry for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees,
towards the heart of that great region which is governed by the
terrible Lord Mayor.

Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise
and confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by
what she had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry
father in such an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by
what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her;
Florence went upon her weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice
could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly.
But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if
they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and
passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all the firmness and
self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had prematurely
formed and tried: and keeping the end she had in view steadily before
her, steadily pursued it.

It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had
started on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and
clangour of a narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into
a kind of wharf or landing-place upon the river-side, where there were
a great many packages, casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of
wooden scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which,
looking at the neighbouring masts and boats, a stout man stood
whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets,
as if his day's work were nearly done.

'Now then! 'said this man, happening to turn round. 'We haven't got
anything for you, little girl. Be off!'

'If you please, is this the City?' asked the trembling daughter of
the Dombeys.

'Ah! It's the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off!
We haven't got anything for you.'

'I don't want anything, thank you,' was the timid answer. 'Except
to know the way to Dombey and Son's.'

The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed
surprised by this reply, and looking attentively in her face,
rejoined:

'Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son's?'

'To know the way there, if you please.'

The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of
his head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.

'Joe!' he called to another man - a labourer- as he picked it up
and put it on again.

'Joe it is!' said Joe.

'Where's that young spark of Dombey's who's been watching the
shipment of them goods?'

'Just gone, by t'other gate,' said Joe.

'Call him back a minute.'

Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned

with a blithe-looking boy.

'You're Dombey's jockey, ain't you?' said the first man.

'I'm in Dombey's House, Mr Clark,' returned the boy.

'Look'ye here, then,' said Mr Clark.

Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark's hand, the boy approached
towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with
her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief
of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey's end, felt
reassured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner,
ran eagerly up to him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the
ground and caught his hand in both of hers.

'I am lost, if you please!' said Florence.

'Lost!' cried the boy.

'Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here - and I have
had my clothes taken away, since - and I am not dressed in my own now
- and my name is Florence Dombey, my little brother's only sister -
and, oh dear, dear, take care of me, if you please!' sobbed Florence,
giving full vent to the childish feelings she had so long suppressed,
and bursting into tears. At the same time her miserable bonnet falling
off, her hair came tumbling down about her face: moving to speechless
admiration and commiseration, young Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills,
Ships' Instrument-maker in general.

Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I
never saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the
shoe, and put it on the little foot as the Prince in the story might
have fitted Cinderella's slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his
left arm; gave the right to Florence; and felt, not to say like
Richard Whittington - that is a tame comparison - but like Saint
George of England, with the dragon lying dead before him.

'Don't cry, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, in a transport of

enthusiasm.

'What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now
as if you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a
man-of-war. Oh, don't cry.'

'I won't cry any more,' said Florence. 'I am only crying for joy.'

'Crying for joy!' thought Walter, 'and I'm the cause of it! Come
along, Miss Dombey. There's the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss
Dombey.'

'No, no, no,' said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously

pulling off his own. 'These do better. These do very well.'

'Why, to be sure,' said Walter, glancing at her foot, 'mine are a
mile too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in
mine! Come along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare
molest you now.'

So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very
happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly
indifferent to any astonishment that their appearance might or did
excite by the way.

It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they
cared nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late
adventures of Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith
and confidence of her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the
mud and grease of Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the
broad leaves and tall trees of some desert island in the tropics - as
he very likely fancied, for the time, they were.

'Have we far to go?' asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to
her companion's face.

'Ah! By-the-bye,' said Walter, stopping, 'let me see; where are we?
Oh! I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There's
nobody there. Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go
home too? or, stay. Suppose I take you to my Uncle's, where I live -
it's very near here - and go to your house in a coach to tell them you
are safe, and bring you back some clothes. Won't that be best?'

'I think so,' answered Florence. 'Don't you? What do you think?'

As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who
glanced quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but
seeming to correct that first impression, he passed on without
stopping.

'Why, I think it's Mr Carker,' said Walter. 'Carker in our House.
Not Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey - the other Carker; the Junior -
Halloa! Mr Carker!'

'Is that Walter Gay?' said the other, stopping and returning. 'I
couldn't believe it, with such a strange companion.

As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter's
hurried explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two
youthful figures arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair
was white; his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some
great trouble: and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy
face. The fire of his eyes, the expression of his features, the very
voice in which he spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the
spirit within him lay in ashes. He was respectably, though very
plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded to the general
character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon
him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the whole man
from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in his
humility.

And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished
with the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest
countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an
inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his
looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in
conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still
stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he had read some
fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present
brightness.

'What do you advise, Mr Carker?' said Walter, smiling. 'You always
give me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not
often, though.'

'I think your own idea is the best,' he answered: looking from
Florence to Walter, and back again.

'Mr Carker,' said Walter, brightening with a generous thought,
'Come! Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey's, and be the
messenger of good news. It may do you some good, Sir. I'll remain at
home. You shall go.'

'I!' returned the other.

'Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?' said the boy.

He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner
ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and
advising him to make haste, turned away.

'Come, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, looking after him as they turned
away also, 'we'll go to my Uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever
hear Mr Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?'

'No,' returned the child, mildly, 'I don't often hear Papa speak.'

'Ah! true! more shame for him,' thought Walter. After a minute's
pause, during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient
little face moving on at his side, he said, 'The strangest man, Mr
Carker the Junior is, Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you
could understand what an extraordinary interest he takes in me, and
yet how he shuns me and avoids me; and what a low place he holds in
our office, and how he is never advanced, and never complains, though
year after year he sees young men passed over his head, and though his
brother (younger than he is), is our head Manager, you would be as
much puzzled about him as I am.'

As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it,
Walter bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and
restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes
coming off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his
uncle's in his arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined
the proposal, lest he should let her fall; and as they were already
near the wooden Midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various
precedents, from shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger
boys than he had triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than
Florence, they were still in full conversation about it when they
arrived at the Instrument-maker's door.

'Holloa, Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and
speaking incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the
rest of the evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's
daughter lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old
witch of a woman - found by me - brought home to our parlour to rest -
look here!'

'Good Heaven!' said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. 'It can't be! Well, I - '

'No, nor anybody else,' said Walter, anticipating the rest. 'Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa
near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol - take care of the plates - cut
some dinner for her, will you, Uncle - throw those shoes under the
grate. Miss Florence - put your feet on the fender to dry - how damp
they are - here's an adventure, Uncle, eh? - God bless my soul, how
hot I am!'

Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed
her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his
pocket-handkerchief heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew
with his eyes, and ears, and had no clear perception of anything
except that he was being constantly knocked against and tumbled over
by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about the room
attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing at
all.

'Here, wait a minute, Uncle,' he continued, catching up a candle,
'till I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off.
I say, Uncle, isn't this an adventure?'

'My dear boy,' said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his
forehead and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly
oscillating between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts
of the parlour, 'it's the most extraordinary - '

'No, but do, Uncle, please - do, Miss Florence - dinner, you know,
Uncle.'

'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of
mutton, as if he were catering for a giant. 'I'll take care of her,
Wally! I understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get
ready. Lord bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of
London.'

Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and
descending from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue,
had sunk into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet,
though only a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to
collect his wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort,
and to darken the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when
the boy returned, she was sleeping peacefully.

'That's capital!' he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. 'Now I'm off. I'll just take
a crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry - and don't wake her,
Uncle Sol.'

'No, no,' said Solomon. 'Pretty child.'

'Pretty, indeed!' cried Walter. 'I never saw such a face, Uncle
Sol. Now I'm off.'

'That's right,' said Solomon, greatly relieved.

'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.

'Here he is again,' said Solomon.

'How does she look now?'

'Quite happy,' said Solomon.

'That's famous! now I'm off.'

'I hope you are,' said Solomon to himself.

'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, reappearing at the door.

'Here he is again!' said Solomon.

'We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He
bade me good-bye, but came behind us here - there's an odd thing! -
for when we reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going
quietly away, like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog.
How does she look now, Uncle?'

'Pretty much the same as before, Wally,' replied Uncle Sol.

'That's right. Now I am off!'

And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite
for dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in
her slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity
of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a
suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.

In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey's house at a
pace seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his
head out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient
remonstrance with the driver. Arriving at his journey's end, he leaped
out, and breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed
him straight into the library, we there was a great confusion of
tongues, and where Mr Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and
Nipper, were all congregated together.

'Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Walter, rushing up to him, 'but
I'm happy to say it's all right, Sir. Miss Dombey's found!'

The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr
Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.

'I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,' said Mr
Dombey, looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in
company with Miss Tox. 'Let the servants know that no further steps
are necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from
the office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.'
Here he looked majestically at Richards. 'But how was she found? Who
found her?'

'Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,' said Walter modestly,
'at least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly
found her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of - '

'What do you mean, Sir,' interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy's
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, 'by not having exactly found my daughter, and by
being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.'

It was quite out of Walter's power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and
stated why he had come alone.

'You hear this, girl?' said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed.
'Take what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to
fetch Miss Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.

'Oh! thank you, Sir,' said Walter. 'You are very kind. I'm sure I
was not thinking of any reward, Sir.'

'You are a boy,' said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; 'and
what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence.
You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad
some wine.'

Mr Dombey's glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he
left the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his
mind's eye followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his
Uncle's with Miss Susan Nipper.

There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined,
and greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she
was on terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had
cried so much that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was
very silent and depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of
contradiction or reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it.
Then converting the parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring
room, she dressed her, with great care, in proper clothes; and
presently led her forth, as like a Dombey as her natural
disqualifications admitted of her being made.

'Good-night!' said Florence, running up to Solomon. 'You have been
very good to me.

Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.

'Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!' said Florence.

'Good-bye!' said Walter, giving both his hands.

'I'll never forget you,' pursued Florence. 'No! indeed I never
will. Good-bye, Walter!' In the innocence of her grateful heart, the
child lifted up her face to his. Walter, bending down his own, raised
it again, all red and burning; and looked at Uncle Sol, quite
sheepishly.

'Where's Walter?' 'Good-night, Walter!' 'Good-bye, Walter!' 'Shake
hands once more, Walter!' This was still Florence's cry, after she was
shut up with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at
length moved off, Walter on the door-step gaily turned the waving of
her handkerchief, while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like
himself, intent upon that coach alone, excluding all the other passing
coaches from his observation.

In good time Mr Dombey's mansion was gained again, and again there
was a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was
ordered to wait - 'for Mrs Richards,' one of Susan's fellow-servants
ominously whispered, as she passed with Florence.

The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not
much. Mr Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the
forehead, and cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere
with treacherous attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on
the corruption of human nature, even when beckoned to the paths of
virtue by a Charitable Grinder; and received her with a welcome
something short of the reception due to none but perfect Dombeys. Miss
Tox regulated her feelings by the models before her. Richards, the
culprit Richards, alone poured out her heart in broken words of
welcome, and bowed herself over the little wandering head as if she
really loved it.

'Ah, Richards!' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. 'It would have been
much more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow
creatures, and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some proper
feeling, in time, for the little child that is now going to be
prematurely deprived of its natural nourishment.

'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common
fountain!'

'If it was ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had
your reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable
Grinders' dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.'

For the matter of that - but Mrs Chick didn't know it - he had been
pretty well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education,
even its retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a
storm of sobs and blows.

'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son - my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not
to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel
Miss Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a
happy and fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that
occurrence, I never could have known - and from your own lips too - of
what you had been guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young
person,' here Miss Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so much younger, and
necessarily influenced by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have the goodness
to direct that this woman's coach is paid to' - Mr Dombey stopped and
winced - 'to Staggs's Gardens.'

Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress,
and crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a
dagger in the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see
how the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure
stranger, and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter
turned, or from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through
him, as he thought of what his son might do.

His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor
Paul had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have,
for he had lost his second mother - his first, so far as he knew - by
a stroke as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the
beginning of his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried
herself to sleep so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend.
But that is quite beside the question. Let us waste no words about it.

CHAPTER 7.

A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place: also
of the State of Miss Tox's Affections

Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at
some remote period of English History, into a fashionable
neighbourhood at the west end of the town, where it stood in the shade
like a poor relation of the great street round the corner, coldly
looked down upon by mighty mansions. It was not exactly in a court,
and it was not exactly in a yard; but it was in the dullest of
No-Thoroughfares, rendered anxious and haggard by distant double
knocks. The name of this retirement, where grass grew between the
chinks in the stone pavement, was Princess's Place; and in Princess's
Place was Princess's Chapel, with a tinkling bell, where sometimes as
many as five-and-twenty people attended service on a Sunday. The
Princess's Arms was also there, and much resorted to by splendid
footmen. A sedan chair was kept inside the railing before the
Princess's Arms, but it had never come out within the memory of man;
and on fine mornings, the top of every rail (there were
eight-and-forty, as Miss Tox had often counted) was decorated with a
pewter-pot.

There was another private house besides Miss Tox's in Princess's
Place: not to mention an immense Pair of gates, with an immense pair
of lion-headed knockers on them, which were never opened by any
chance, and were supposed to constitute a disused entrance to
somebody's stables. Indeed, there was a smack of stabling in the air
of Princess's Place; and Miss Tox's bedroom (which was at the back)
commanded a vista of Mews, where hostlers, at whatever sort of work
engaged, were continually accompanying themselves with effervescent
noises; and where the most domestic and confidential garments of
coachmen and their wives and families, usually hung, like Macbeth's
banners, on the outward walls.'

At this other private house in Princess's Place, tenanted by a
retired butler who had married a housekeeper, apartments were let
Furnished, to a single gentleman: to wit, a wooden-featured,
blue-faced Major, with his eyes starting out of his head, in whom Miss
Tox recognised, as she herself expressed it, 'something so truly
military;' and between whom and herself, an occasional interchange of
newspapers and pamphlets, and such Platonic dalliance, was effected
through the medium of a dark servant of the Major's who Miss Tox was
quite content to classify as a 'native,' without connecting him with
any geographical idea whatever.

Perhaps there never was a smaller entry and staircase, than the
entry and staircase of Miss Tox's house. Perhaps, taken altogether,
from top to bottom, it was the most inconvenient little house in
England, and the crookedest; but then, Miss Tox said, what a
situation! There was very little daylight to be got there in the
winter: no sun at the best of times: air was out of the question, and
traffic was walled out. Still Miss Tox said, think of the situation!
So said the blue-faced Major, whose eyes were starting out of his
head: who gloried in Princess's Place: and who delighted to turn the
conversation at his club, whenever he could, to something connected
with some of the great people in the great street round the corner,
that he might have the satisfaction of saying they were his
neighbours.

In short, with Miss Tox and the blue-faced Major, it was enough for
Princess's Place - as with a very small fragment of society, it is
enough for many a little hanger-on of another sort - to be well
connected, and to have genteel blood in its veins. It might be poor,
mean, shabby, stupid, dull. No matter. The great street round the
corner trailed off into Princess's Place; and that which of High
Holborn would have become a choleric word, spoken of Princess's Place
became flat blasphemy.

The dingy tenement inhabited by Miss Tox was her own; having been
devised and bequeathed to her by the deceased owner of the fishy eye
in the locket, of whom a miniature portrait, with a powdered head and
a pigtail, balanced the kettle-holder on opposite sides of the parlour
fireplace. The greater part of the furniture was of the powdered-head
and pig-tail period: comprising a plate-warmer, always languishing and
sprawling its four attenuated bow legs in somebody's way; and an
obsolete harpsichord, illuminated round the maker's name with a
painted garland of sweet peas. In any part of the house, visitors were
usually cognizant of a prevailing mustiness; and in warm weather Miss
Tox had been seen apparently writing in sundry chinks and crevices of
the wainscoat with the the wrong end of a pen dipped in spirits of
turpentine.

Although Major Bagstock had arrived at what is called in polite
literature, the grand meridian of life, and was proceeding on his
journey downhill with hardly any throat, and a very rigid pair of
jaw-bones, and long-flapped elephantine ears, and his eyes and
complexion in the state of artificial excitement already mentioned, he
was mightily proud of awakening an interest in Miss Tox, and tickled
his vanity with the fiction that she was a splendid woman who had her
eye on him. This he had several times hinted at the club: in connexion
with little jocularities, of which old Joe Bagstock, old Joey
Bagstock, old J. Bagstock, old Josh Bagstock, or so forth, was the
perpetual theme: it being, as it were, the Major's stronghold and
donjon-keep of light humour, to be on the most familiar terms with his
own name.

'Joey B., Sir,'the Major would say, with a flourish of his
walking-stick, 'is worth a dozen of you. If you had a few more of the
Bagstock breed among you, Sir, you'd be none the worse for it. Old
Joe, Sir, needn't look far for a wile even now, if he was on the
look-out; but he's hard-hearted, Sir, is Joe - he's tough, Sir, tough,
and de-vilish sly!' After such a declaration, wheezing sounds would be
heard; and the Major's blue would deepen into purple, while his eyes
strained and started convulsively.

Notwithstanding his very liberal laudation of himself, however, the
Major was selfish. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more
entirely selfish person at heart; or at stomach is perhaps a better
expression, seeing that he was more decidedly endowed with that latter
organ than with the former. He had no idea of being overlooked or
slighted by anybody; least of all, had he the remotest comprehension
of being overlooked and slighted by Miss Tox.

And yet, Miss Tox, as it appeared, forgot him - gradually forgot
him. She began to forget him soon after her discovery of the Toodle
family. She continued to forget him up to the time of the christening.
She went on forgetting him with compound interest after that.
Something or somebody had superseded him as a source of interest.

'Good morning, Ma'am,' said the Major, meeting Miss Tox in
Princess's Place, some weeks after the changes chronicled in the last
chapter.

'Good morning, Sir,' said Miss Tox; very coldly.

'Joe Bagstock, Ma'am,' observed the Major, with his usual
gallantry, 'has not had the happiness of bowing to you at your window,
for a considerable period. Joe has been hardly used, Ma'am. His sun
has been behind a cloud.'

Miss Tox inclined her head; but very coldly indeed.

'Joe's luminary has been out of town, Ma'am, perhaps,' inquired the
Major.

'I? out of town? oh no, I have not been out of town,' said Miss
Tox. 'I have been much engaged lately. My time is nearly all devoted
to some very intimate friends. I am afraid I have none to spare, even
now. Good morning, Sir!'

As Miss Tox, with her most fascinating step and carriage,
disappeared from Princess's Place, the Major stood looking after her
with a bluer face than ever: muttering and growling some not at all
complimentary remarks.

'Why, damme, Sir,' said the Major, rolling his lobster eyes round
and round Princess's Place, and apostrophizing its fragrant air, 'six
months ago, the woman loved the ground Josh Bagstock walked on. What's
the meaning of it?'

The Major decided, after some consideration, that it meant
mantraps; that it meant plotting and snaring; that Miss Tox was
digging pitfalls. 'But you won't catch Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major.
'He's tough, Ma'am, tough, is J.B. Tough, and de-vilish sly!' over
which reflection he chuckled for the rest of the day.

But still, when that day and many other days were gone and past, it
seemed that Miss Tox took no heed whatever of the Major, and thought
nothing at all about him. She had been wont, once upon a time, to look
out at one of her little dark windows by accident, and blushingly
return the Major's greeting; but now, she never gave the Major a
chance, and cared nothing at all whether he looked over the way or
not. Other changes had come to pass too. The Major, standing in the
shade of his own apartment, could make out that an air of greater
smartness had recently come over Miss Tox's house; that a new cage
with gilded wires had been provided for the ancient little canary
bird; that divers ornaments, cut out of coloured card-boards and
paper, seemed to decorate the chimney-piece and tables; that a plant
or two had suddenly sprung up in the windows; that Miss Tox
occasionally practised on the harpsichord, whose garland of sweet peas
was always displayed ostentatiously, crowned with the Copenhagen and
Bird Waltzes in a Music Book of Miss Tox's own copying.

Over and above all this, Miss Tox had long been dressed with
uncommon care and elegance in slight mourning. But this helped the
Major out of his difficulty; and be determined within himself that she
had come into a small legacy, and grown proud.

It was on the very next day after he had eased his mind by arriving
at this decision, that the Major, sitting at his breakfast, saw an
apparition so tremendous and wonderful in Miss Tox's little
drawing-room, that he remained for some time rooted to his chair;
then, rushing into the next room, returned with a double-barrelled
opera-glass, through which he surveyed it intently for some minutes.

'It's a Baby, Sir,' said the Major, shutting up the glass again,
'for fifty thousand pounds!'

The Major couldn't forget it. He could do nothing but whistle, and
stare to that extent, that his eyes, compared with what they now
became, had been in former times quite cavernous and sunken. Day after
day, two, three, four times a week, this Baby reappeared. The Major
continued to stare and whistle. To all other intents and purposes he
was alone in Princess's Place. Miss Tox had ceased to mind what he
did. He might have been black as well as blue, and it would have been
of no consequence to her.

The perseverance with which she walked out of Princess's Place to
fetch this baby and its nurse, and walked back with them, and walked
home with them again, and continually mounted guard over them; and the
perseverance with which she nursed it herself, and fed it, and played
with it, and froze its young blood with airs upon the harpsichord, was
extraordinary. At about this same period too, she was seized with a
passion for looking at a certain bracelet; also with a passion for
looking at the moon, of which she would take long observations from
her chamber window. But whatever she looked at; sun, moon, stars, or
bracelet; she looked no more at the Major. And the Major whistled, and
stared, and wondered, and dodged about his room, and could make
nothing of it.

'You'll quite win my brother Paul's heart, and that's the truth, my
dear,' said Mrs Chick, one day.

Miss Tox turned pale.

'He grows more like Paul every day,' said Mrs Chick.

Miss Tox returned no other reply than by taking the little Paul in
her arms, and making his cockade perfectly flat and limp with her
caresses.

'His mother, my dear,' said Miss Tox, 'whose acquaintance I was to
have made through you, does he at all resemble her?'

'Not at all,' returned Louisa

'She was - she was pretty, I believe?' faltered Miss Tox.

'Why, poor dear Fanny was interesting,' said Mrs Chick, after some
judicial consideration. 'Certainly interesting. She had not that air
of commanding superiority which one would somehow expect, almost as a
matter of course, to find in my brother's wife; nor had she that
strength and vigour of mind which such a man requires.'

Miss Tox heaved a deep sigh.

'But she was pleasing:' said Mrs Chick: 'extremely so. And she
meant! - oh, dear, how well poor Fanny meant!'

'You Angel!' cried Miss Tox to little Paul. 'You Picture of your
own Papa!'

If the Major could have known how many hopes and ventures, what a
multitude of plans and speculations, rested on that baby head; and
could have seen them hovering, in all their heterogeneous confusion
and disorder, round the puckered cap of the unconscious little Paul;
he might have stared indeed. Then would he have recognised, among the
crowd, some few ambitious motes and beams belonging to Miss Tox; then
would he perhaps have understood the nature of that lady's faltering
investment in the Dombey Firm.

If the child himself could have awakened in the night, and seen,
gathered about his cradle-curtains, faint reflections of the dreams
that other people had of him, they might have scared him, with good
reason. But he slumbered on, alike unconscious of the kind intentions
of Miss Tox, the wonder of the Major, the early sorrows of his sister,
and the stern visions of his father; and innocent that any spot of
earth contained a Dombey or a Son.

CHAPTER 8.

Paul's Further Progress, Growth and Character

Beneath the watching and attentive eyes of Time - so far another
Major - Paul's slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke
in upon them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an
accumulating crowd of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest;
and so he passed from babyhood to childhood, and became a talking,
walking, wondering Dombey.

On the downfall and banishment of Richards, the nursery may be said
to have been put into commission: as a Public Department is sometimes,
when no individual Atlas can be found to support it The Commissioners
were, of course, Mrs Chick and Miss Tox: who devoted themselves to
their duties with such astonishing ardour that Major Bagstock had
every day some new reminder of his being forsaken, while Mr Chick,
bereft of domestic supervision, cast himself upon the gay world, dined
at clubs and coffee-houses, smelt of smoke on three different
occasions, went to the play by himself, and in short, loosened (as Mrs
Chick once told him) every social bond, and moral obligation.

Yet, in spite of his early promise, all this vigilance and care
could not make little Paul a thriving boy. Naturally delicate,
perhaps, he pined and wasted after the dismissal of his nurse, and,
for a long time, seemed but to wait his opportunity of gliding through
their hands, and seeking his lost mother. This dangerous ground in his
steeple-chase towards manhood passed, he still found it very rough
riding, and was grievously beset by all the obstacles in his course.
Every tooth was a break-neck fence, and every pimple in the measles a
stone wall to him. He was down in every fit of the hooping-cough, and
rolled upon and crushed by a whole field of small diseases, that came
trooping on each other's heels to prevent his getting up again. Some
bird of prey got into his throat instead of the thrush; and the very
chickens turning ferocious - if they have anything to do with that
infant malady to which they lend their name - worried him like
tiger-cats.

The chill of Paul's christening had struck home, perhaps to some
sensitive part of his nature, which could not recover itself in the
cold shade of his father; but he was an unfortunate child from that
day. Mrs Wickam often said she never see a dear so put upon.

Mrs Wickam was a waiter's wife - which would seem equivalent to
being any other man's widow - whose application for an engagement in
Mr Dombey's service had been favourably considered, on account of the
apparent impossibility of her having any followers, or anyone to
follow; and who, from within a day or two of Paul's sharp weaning, had
been engaged as his nurse. Mrs Wickam was a meek woman, of a fair
complexion, with her eyebrows always elevated, and her head always
drooping; who was always ready to pity herself, or to be pitied, or to
pity anybody else; and who had a surprising natural gift of viewing
all subjects in an utterly forlorn and pitiable light, and bringing
dreadful precedents to bear upon them, and deriving the greatest
consolation from the exercise of that talent.

It is hardly necessary to observe, that no touch of this quality
ever reached the magnificent knowledge of Mr Dombey. It would have
been remarkable, indeed, if any had; when no one in the house - not
even Mrs Chick or Miss Tox - dared ever whisper to him that there had,
on any one occasion, been the least reason for uneasiness in reference
to little Paul. He had settled, within himself, that the child must
necessarily pass through a certain routine of minor maladies, and that
the sooner he did so the better. If he could have bought him off, or
provided a substitute, as in the case of an unlucky drawing for the
militia, he would have been glad to do so, on liberal terms. But as
this was not feasible, he merely wondered, in his haughty-manner, now
and then, what Nature meant by it; and comforted himself with the
reflection that there was another milestone passed upon the road, and
that the great end of the journey lay so much the nearer. For the
feeling uppermost in his mind, now and constantly intensifying, and
increasing in it as Paul grew older, was impatience. Impatience for
the time to come, when his visions of their united consequence and
grandeur would be triumphantly realized.

Some philosophers tell us that selfishness is at the root of our
best loves and affections.' Mr Dombey's young child was, from the
beginning, so distinctly important to him as a part of his own
greatness, or (which is the same thing) of the greatness of Dombey and
Son, that there is no doubt his parental affection might have been
easily traced, like many a goodly superstructure of fair fame, to a
very low foundation. But he loved his son with all the love he had. If
there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it; if
its very hard surface could receive the impression of any image, the
image of that son was there; though not so much as an infant, or as a
boy, but as a grown man - the 'Son' of the Firm. Therefore he was
impatient to advance into the future, and to hurry over the
intervening passages of his history. Therefore he had little or no
anxiety' about them, in spite of his love; feeling as if the boy had a
charmed life, and must become the man with whom he held such constant
communication in his thoughts, and for whom he planned and projected,
as for an existing reality, every day.

Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little
fellow; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face,
that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs Wickam's head,
and many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs Wickam's breath. His temper
gave abundant promise of being imperious in after-life; and he had as
hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful
subservience of all other things and persons to it, as heart could
desire. He was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a
sullen disposition; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful
way, at other times, of sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair,
when he looked (and talked) like one of those terrible little Beings
in the Fairy tales, who, at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years
of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have been
substituted. He would frequently be stricken with this precocious mood
upstairs in the nursery; and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly,
exclaiming that he was tired: even while playing with Florence, or
driving Miss Tox in single harness. But at no time did he fall into it
so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his
father's room, he sat there with him after dinner, by the fire. They
were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon.
Mr Dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blare; his little image,
with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed
and rapt attention of a sage. Mr Dombey entertaining complicated
worldly schemes and plans; the little image entertaining Heaven knows
what wild fancies, half-formed thoughts, and wandering speculations.
Mr Dombey stiff with starch and arrogance; the little image by
inheritance, and in unconscious imitation. The two so very much alike,
and yet so monstrously contrasted.

On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet
for a long time, and Mr Dombey only knew that the child was awake by
occasionally glancing at his eye, where the bright fire was sparkling
like a jewel, little Paul broke silence thus:

'Papa! what's money?'

The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of
Mr Dombey's thoughts, that Mr Dombey was quite disconcerted.

'What is money, Paul?' he answered. 'Money?'

'Yes,' said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his
little chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr Dombey's; 'what
is money?'

Mr Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some
explanation involving the terms circulating-medium, currency,
depreciation of currency', paper, bullion, rates of exchange, value of
precious metals in the market, and so forth; but looking down at the
little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered:
'Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, half-pence. You
know what they are?'

'Oh yes, I know what they are,' said Paul. 'I don't mean that,
Papa. I mean what's money after all?'

Heaven and Earth, how old his face was as he turned it up again
towards his father's!

'What is money after all!' said Mr Dombey, backing his chair a
little, that he might the better gaze in sheer amazement at the
presumptuous atom that propounded such an inquiry.

'I mean, Papa, what can it do?' returned Paul, folding his arms
(they were hardly long enough to fold), and looking at the fire, and
up at him, and at the fire, and up at him again.

Mr Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him
on the head. 'You'll know better by-and-by, my man,' he said. 'Money,
Paul, can do anything.' He took hold of the little hand, and beat it
softly against one of his own, as he said so.

But Paul got his hand free as soon as he could; and rubbing it
gently to and fro on the elbow of his chair, as if his wit were in the
palm, and he were sharpening it - and looking at the fire again, as
though the fire had been his adviser and prompter - repeated, after a
short pause:

'Anything, Papa?'

'Yes. Anything - almost,' said Mr Dombey.

'Anything means everything, don't it, Papa?' asked his son: not
observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification.

'It includes it: yes,' said Mr Dombey.

'Why didn't money save me my Mama?' returned the child. 'It isn't
cruel, is it?'

'Cruel!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth, and seeming to
resent the idea. 'No. A good thing can't be cruel.'

'If it's a good thing, and can do anything,' said the little
fellow, thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, 'I wonder why it
didn't save me my Mama.'

He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had
seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father
uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it were quite
an old one to him, and had troubled him very much; and sat with his
chin resting on his hand, still cogitating and looking for an
explanation in the fire.

Mr Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm
(for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever
broached the subject of his mother to him, though he had had him
sitting by his side, in this same manner, evening after evening),
expounded to him how that money, though a very potent spirit, never to
be disparaged on any account whatever, could not keep people alive
whose time was come to die; and how that we must all die,
unfortunately, even in the City, though we were never so rich. But how
that money caused us to be honoured, feared, respected, courted, and
admired, and made us powerful and glorious in the eyes of all men; and
how that it could, very often, even keep off death, for a long time
together. How, for example, it had secured to his Mama the services of
Mr Pilkins, by which be, Paul, had often profited himself; likewise of
the great Doctor Parker Peps, whom he had never known. And how it
could do all, that could be done. This, with more to the same purpose,
Mr Dombey instilled into the mind of his son, who listened
attentively, and seemed to understand the greater part of what was
said to him.

'It can't make me strong and quite well, either, Papa; can it?'
asked Paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands.

'Why, you are strong and quite well,' returned Mr Dombey. 'Are you
not?'

Oh! the age of the face that was turned up again, with an
expression, half of melancholy, half of slyness, on it!

'You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?'
said Mr Dombey.

'Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as
Florence, 'I know,' returned the child; 'and I believe that when
Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a
time without tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes,' said little
Paul, warming his hands, and looking in between the bars of the grate,
as if some ghostly puppet-show were performing there, 'and my bones
ache so (Wickam says it's my bones), that I don't know what to do.'

'Ay! But that's at night,' said Mr Dombey, drawing his own chair
closer to his son's, and laying his hand gently on his back; 'little
people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well.'

'Oh, it's not at night, Papa,' returned the child, 'it's in the
day; and I lie down in Florence's lap, and she sings to me. At night I
dream about such cu-ri-ous things!'

And he went on, warming his hands again, and thinking about them,
like an old man or a young goblin.

Mr Dombey was so astonished, and so uncomfortable, and so perfectly
at a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit
looking at his son by the light of the fire, with his hand resting on
his back, as if it were detained there by some magnetic attraction.
Once he advanced his other hand, and turned the contemplative face
towards his own for a moment. But it sought the fire again as soon as
he released it; and remained, addressed towards the flickering blaze,
until the nurse appeared, to summon him to bed.

'I want Florence to come for me,' said Paul.

'Won't you come with your poor Nurse Wickam, Master Paul?' inquired
that attendant, with great pathos.

'No, I won't,' replied Paul, composing himself in his arm-chair
again, like the master of the house.

Invoking a blessing upon his innocence, Mrs Wickam withdrew, and
presently Florence appeared in her stead. The child immediately
started up with sudden readiness and animation, and raised towards his
father in bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so
much younger, and so much more child-like altogether, that Mr Dombey,
while he felt greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it.

After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft
voice singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to
him, he had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after
them. She was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him
in her arms; his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms
thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she
singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble
accompaniment. Mr Dombey looked after them until they reached the top
of the staircase - not without halting to rest by the way - and passed
out of his sight; and then he still stood gazing upwards, until the
dull rays of the moon, glimmering in a melancholy manner through the
dim skylight, sent him back to his room.

Mrs Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council at dinner next day;
and when the cloth was removed, Mr Dombey opened the proceedings by
requiring to be informed, without any gloss or reservation, whether
there was anything the matter with Paul, and what Mr Pilkins said
about him.

'For the child is hardly,' said Mr Dombey, 'as stout as I could
wish.'

'My dear Paul,' returned Mrs Chick, 'with your usual happy
discrimination, which I am weak enough to envy you, every time I am in
your company; and so I think is Miss Tox

'Oh my dear!' said Miss Tox, softly, 'how could it be otherwise?
Presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level; still, if the bird of
night may - but I'll not trouble Mr Dombey with the sentiment. It
merely relates to the Bulbul.'

Mr Dombey bent his head in stately recognition of the Bulbuls as an
old-established body.

'With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,' resumed Mrs
Chick, 'you have hit the point at once. Our darling is altogether as
stout as we could wish. The fact is, that his mind is too much for
him. His soul is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the
way in which that dear child talks!'said Mrs Chick, shaking her head;
'no one would believe. His expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon
the subject of Funerals!

'I am afraid,' said Mr Dombey, interrupting her testily, 'that some
of those persons upstairs suggest improper subjects to the child. He
was speaking to me last night about his - about his Bones,' said Mr
Dombey, laying an irritated stress upon the word. 'What on earth has
anybody to do with the - with the - Bones of my son? He is not a
living skeleton, I suppose.

'Very far from it,' said Mrs Chick, with unspeakable expression.

'I hope so,' returned her brother. 'Funerals again! who talks to
the child of funerals? We are not undertakers, or mutes, or
grave-diggers, I believe.'

'Very far from it,' interposed Mrs Chick, with the same profound
expression as before.

'Then who puts such things into his head?' said Mr Dombey. 'Really
I was quite dismayed and shocked last night. Who puts such things into
his head, Louisa?'

'My dear Paul,' said Mrs Chick, after a moment's silence, 'it is of
no use inquiring. I do not think, I will tell you candidly that Wickam
is a person of very cheerful spirit, or what one would call a - '

'A daughter of Momus,' Miss Tox softly suggested.

'Exactly so,' said Mrs Chick; 'but she is exceedingly attentive and
useful, and not at all presumptuous; indeed I never saw a more
biddable woman. I would say that for her, if I was put upon my trial
before a Court of Justice.'

'Well! you are not put upon your trial before a Court of Justice,
at present, Louisa,' returned Mr Dombey, chafing,' and therefore it
don't matter.

'My dear Paul,' said Mrs Chick, in a warning voice, 'I must be
spoken to kindly, or there is an end of me,' at the same time a
premonitory redness developed itself in Mrs Chick's eyelids which was
an invariable sign of rain, unless the weather changed directly.

'I was inquiring, Louisa,' observed Mr Dombey, in an altered voice,
and after a decent interval, 'about Paul's health and actual state.

'If the dear child,' said Mrs Chick, in the tone of one who was
summing up what had been previously quite agreed upon, instead of
saying it all for the first time, 'is a little weakened by that last
attack, and is not in quite such vigorous health as we could wish; and
if he has some temporary weakness in his system, and does occasionally
seem about to lose, for the moment, the use of his - '

Mrs Chick was afraid to say limbs, after Mr Dombey's recent
objection to bones, and therefore waited for a suggestion from Miss
Tox, who, true to her office, hazarded 'members.'

'Members!' repeated Mr Dombey.

'I think the medical gentleman mentioned legs this morning, my dear
Louisa, did he not?' said Miss Tox.

'Why, of course he did, my love,' retorted Mrs Chick, mildly
reproachful. 'How can you ask me? You heard him. I say, if our dear
Paul should lose, for the moment, the use of his legs, these are
casualties common to many children at his time of life, and not to be
prevented by any care or caution. The sooner you understand that,
Paul, and admit that, the better. If you have any doubt as to the
amount of care, and caution, and affection, and self-sacrifice, that
has been bestowed upon little Paul, I should wish to refer the
question to your medical attendant, or to any of your dependants in
this house. Call Towlinson,' said Mrs Chick, 'I believe he has no
prejudice in our favour; quite the contrary. I should wish to hear
what accusation Towlinson can make!'

'Surely you must know, Louisa,' observed Mr Dombey, 'that I don't
question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of
my house.'

'I am glad to hear it, Paul,' said Mrs Chick; 'but really you are
very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning
it, I know. If your dear boy's soul is too much for his body, Paul,
you should remember whose fault that is - who he takes after, I mean -
and make the best of it. He's as like his Papa as he can be. People
have noticed it in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed,
observed it, so long ago as at his christening. He's a very
respectable man, with children of his own. He ought to know.'

'Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.

'Yes, he did,' returned his sister. 'Miss Tox and myself were
present. Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of
it. Mr Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man
I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can
confirm, if that is any consolation; but he recommended, to-day,
sea-air. Very wisely, Paul, I feel convinced.'

'Sea-air,' repeated Mr Dombey, looking at his sister.

'There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that,'said Mrs Chick.
'My George and Frederick were both ordered sea-air, when they were
about his age; and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I
quite agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be incautiously
mentioned upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his
little mind not to expatiate upon; but I really don't see how that is
to be helped, in the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a
common child, there would be nothing in it. I must say I think, with
Miss Tox, that a short absence from this house, the air of Brighton,
and the bodily and mental training of so judicious a person as Mrs
Pipchin for instance - '

'Who is Mrs Pipchin, Louisa?' asked Mr Dombey; aghast at this
familiar introduction of a name he had never heard before.

'Mrs Pipchin, my dear Paul,' returned his sister, 'is an elderly
lady - Miss Tox knows her whole history - who has for some time
devoted all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to
the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well
connected. Her husband broke his heart in - how did you say her
husband broke his heart, my dear? I forget the precise circumstances.

'In pumping water out of the Peruvian Mines,' replied Miss Tox.

'Not being a Pumper himself, of course,' said Mrs Chick, glancing
at her brother; and it really did seem necessary to offer the
explanation, for Miss Tox had spoken of him as if he had died at the
handle; 'but having invested money in the speculation, which failed. I
believe that Mrs Pipchin's management of children is quite
astonishing. I have heard it commended in private circles ever since I
was - dear me - how high!' Mrs Chick's eye wandered about the bookcase
near the bust of Mr Pitt, which was about ten feet from the ground.

'Perhaps I should say of Mrs Pipchin, my dear Sir,' observed Miss
Tox, with an ingenuous blush, 'having been so pointedly referred to,
that the encomium which has been passed upon her by your sweet sister
is well merited. Many ladies and gentleman, now grown up to be
interesting members of society, have been indebted to her care. The
humble individual who addresses you was once under her charge. I
believe juvenile nobility itself is no stranger to her establishment.'

'Do I understand that this respectable matron keeps an
establishment, Miss Tox?' the Mr Dombey, condescendingly.

'Why, I really don't know,' rejoined that lady, 'whether I am
justified in calling it so. It is not a Preparatory School by any
means. Should I express my meaning,' said Miss Tox, with peculiar
sweetness,'if I designated it an infantine Boarding-House of a very
select description?'

'On an exceedingly limited and particular scale,' suggested Mrs
Chick, with a glance at her brother.

'Oh! Exclusion itself!' said Miss Tox.

There was something in this. Mrs Pipchin's husband having broken
his heart of the Peruvian mines was good. It had a rich sound.
Besides, Mr Dombey was in a state almost amounting to consternation at
the idea of Paul remaining where he was one hour after his removal had
been recommended by the medical practitioner. It was a stoppage and
delay upon the road the child must traverse, slowly at the best,
before the goal was reached. Their recommendation of Mrs Pipchin had
great weight with him; for he knew that they were jealous of any
interference with their charge, and he never for a moment took it into
account that they might be solicitous to divide a responsibility, of
which he had, as shown just now, his own established views. Broke his
heart of the Peruvian mines, mused Mr Dombey. Well! a very respectable
way of doing It.

'Supposing we should decide, on to-morrow's inquiries, to send Paul
down to Brighton to this lady, who would go with him?' inquired Mr
Dombey, after some reflection.

'I don't think you could send the child anywhere at present without
Florence, my dear Paul,' returned his sister, hesitating. 'It's quite
an infatuation with him. He's very young, you know, and has his
fancies.'

Mr Dombey turned his head away, and going slowly to the bookcase,
and unlocking it, brought back a book to read.

'Anybody else, Louisa?' he said, without looking up, and turning
over the leaves.

'Wickam, of course. Wickam would be quite sufficient, I should
say,' returned his sister. 'Paul being in such hands as Mrs Pipchin's,
you could hardly send anybody who would be a further check upon her.
You would go down yourself once a week at least, of course.'

'Of course,' said Mr Dombey; and sat looking at one page for an
hour afterwards, without reading one word.

This celebrated Mrs Pipchin was a marvellous ill-favoured,
ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face,
like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard grey eye, that looked as if
it might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any
injury. Forty years at least had elapsed since the Peruvian mines had
been the death of Mr Pipchin; but his relict still wore black
bombazeen, of such a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade, that gas
itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a
quencher to any number of candles. She was generally spoken of as 'a
great manager' of children; and the secret of her management was, to
give them everything that they didn't like, and nothing that they did
- which was found to sweeten their dispositions very much. She was
such a bitter old lady, that one was tempted to believe there had been
some mistake in the application of the Peruvian machinery, and that
all her waters of gladness and milk of human kindness, had been pumped
out dry, instead of the mines.

The Castle of this ogress and child-queller was in a steep
by-street at Brighton; where the soil was more than usually chalky,
flinty, and sterile, and the houses were more than usually brittle and
thin; where the small front-gardens had the unaccountable property of
producing nothing but marigolds, whatever was sown in them; and where
snails were constantly discovered holding on to the street doors, and
other public places they were not expected to ornament, with the
tenacity of cupping-glasses. In the winter time the air couldn't be
got out of the Castle, and in the summer time it couldn't be got in.
There was such a continual reverberation of wind in it, that it
sounded like a great shell, which the inhabitants were obliged to hold
to their ears night and day, whether they liked it or no. It was not,
naturally, a fresh-smelling house; and in the window of the front
parlour, which was never opened, Mrs Pipchin kept a collection of
plants in pots, which imparted an earthy flavour of their own to the
establishment. However choice examples of their kind, too, these
plants were of a kind peculiarly adapted to the embowerment of Mrs
Pipchin. There were half-a-dozen specimens of the cactus, writhing
round bits of lath, like hairy serpents; another specimen shooting out
broad claws, like a green lobster; several creeping vegetables,
possessed of sticky and adhesive leaves; and one uncomfortable
flower-pot hanging to the ceiling, which appeared to have boiled over,
and tickling people underneath with its long green ends, reminded them
of spiders - in which Mrs Pipchin's dwelling was uncommonly prolific,
though perhaps it challenged competition still more proudly, in the
season, in point of earwigs.

Mrs Pipchin's scale of charges being high, however, to all who
could afford to pay, and Mrs Pipchin very seldom sweetening the
equable acidity of her nature in favour of anybody, she was held to be
an old 'lady of remarkable firmness, who was quite scientific in her
knowledge of the childish character.' On this reputation, and on the
broken heart of Mr Pipchin, she had contrived, taking one year with
another, to eke out a tolerable sufficient living since her husband's
demise. Within three days after Mrs Chick's first allusion to her,
this excellent old lady had the satisfaction of anticipating a
handsome addition to her current receipts, from the pocket of Mr
Dombey; and of receiving Florence and her little brother Paul, as
inmates of the Castle.

Mrs Chick and Miss Tox, who had brought them down on the previous
night (which they all passed at an Hotel), had just driven away from
the door, on their journey home again; and Mrs Pipchin, with her back
to the fire, stood, reviewing the new-comers, like an old soldier. Mrs
Pipchin's middle-aged niece, her good-natured and devoted slave, but
possessing a gaunt and iron-bound aspect, and much afflicted with
boils on her nose, was divesting Master Bitherstone of the clean
collar he had worn on parade. Miss Pankey, the only other little
boarder at present, had that moment been walked off to the Castle
Dungeon (an empty apartment at the back, devoted to correctional
purposes), for having sniffed thrice, in the presence of visitors.

'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin to Paul, 'how do you think you shall
like me?'

'I don't think I shall like you at all,' replied Paul. 'I want to
go away. This isn't my house.'

'No. It's mine,' retorted Mrs Pipchin.

'It's a very nasty one,' said Paul.

'There's a worse place in it than this though,' said Mrs Pipchin,
'where we shut up our bad boys.'

'Has he ever been in it?' asked Paul: pointing out Master
Bitherstone.

Mrs Pipchin nodded assent; and Paul had enough to do, for the rest
of that day, in surveying Master Bitherstone from head to foot, and
watching all the workings of his countenance, with the interest
attaching to a boy of mysterious and terrible experiences.

At one o'clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and
vegetable kind, when Miss Pankey (a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a
child, who was shampoo'd every morning, and seemed in danger of being
rubbed away, altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress
herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever
went to Heaven. When this great truth had been thoroughly impressed
upon her, she was regaled with rice; and subsequently repeated the
form of grace established in the Castle, in which there was a special
clause, thanking Mrs Pipchin for a good dinner. Mrs Pipchin's niece,
Berinthia, took cold pork. Mrs Pipchin, whose constitution required
warm nourishment, made a special repast of mutton-chops, which were
brought in hot and hot, between two plates, and smelt very nice.

As it rained after dinner, and they couldn't go out walking on the
beach, and Mrs Pipchin's constitution required rest after chops, they
went away with Berry (otherwise Berinthia) to the Dungeon; an empty
room looking out upon a chalk wall and a water-butt, and made ghastly
by a ragged fireplace without any stove in it. Enlivened by company,
however, this was the best place after all; for Berry played with them
there, and seemed to enjoy a game at romps as much as they did; until
Mrs Pipchin knocking angrily at the wall, like the Cock Lane Ghost'
revived, they left off, and Berry told them stories in a whisper until
twilight.

For tea there was plenty of milk and water, and bread and butter,
with a little black tea-pot for Mrs Pipchin and Berry, and buttered
toast unlimited for Mrs Pipchin, which was brought in, hot and hot,
like the chops. Though Mrs Pipchin got very greasy, outside, over this
dish, it didn't seem to lubricate her internally, at all; for she was
as fierce as ever, and the hard grey eye knew no softening.

After tea, Berry brought out a little work-box, with the Royal
Pavilion on the lid, and fell to working busily; while Mrs Pipchin,
having put on her spectacles and opened a great volume bound in green
baize, began to nod. And whenever Mrs Pipchin caught herself falling
forward into the fire, and woke up, she filliped Master Bitherstone on
the nose for nodding too.

At last it was the children's bedtime, and after prayers they went
to bed. As little Miss Pankey was afraid of sleeping alone in the
dark, Mrs Pipchin always made a point of driving her upstairs herself,
like a sheep; and it was cheerful to hear Miss Pankey moaning long
afterwards, in the least eligible chamber, and Mrs Pipchin now and
then going in to shake her. At about half-past nine o'clock the odour
of a warm sweet-bread (Mrs Pipchin's constitution wouldn't go to sleep
without sweet-bread) diversified the prevailing fragrance of the
house, which Mrs Wickam said was 'a smell of building;' and slumber
fell upon the Castle shortly after.

The breakfast next morning was like the tea over night, except that
Mrs Pipchin took her roll instead of toast, and seemed a little more
irate when it was over. Master Bitherstone read aloud to the rest a
pedigree from Genesis judiciously selected by Mrs Pipchin), getting
over the names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the
treadmill. That done, Miss Pankey was borne away to be shampoo'd; and
Master Bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water,
from which he always returned very blue and dejected. Paul and
Florence went out in the meantime on the beach with Wickam - who was
constantly in tears - and at about noon Mrs Pipchin presided over some
Early Readings. It being a part of Mrs Pipchin's system not to
encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young
flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these
lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character: the hero - a
naughty boy - seldom, in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off
anything less than a lion, or a bear.

Such was life at Mrs Pipchin's. On Saturday Mr Dombey came down;
and Florence and Paul would go to his Hotel, and have tea They passed
the whole of Sunday with him, and generally rode out before dinner;
and on these occasions Mr Dombey seemed to grow, like Falstaff's
assailants, and instead of being one man in buckram, to become a
dozen. Sunday evening was the most melancholy evening in the week; for
Mrs Pipchin always made a point of being particularly cross on Sunday
nights. Miss Pankey was generally brought back from an aunt's at
Rottingdean, in deep distress; and Master Bitherstone, whose relatives
were all in India, and who was required to sit, between the services,
in an erect position with his head against the parlour wall, neither
moving hand nor foot, suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he
once asked Florence, on a Sunday night, if she could give him any idea
of the way back to Bengal.

But it was generally said that Mrs Pipchin was a woman of system
with children; and no doubt she was. Certainly the wild ones went home
tame enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable
roof. It was generally said, too, that it was highly creditable of Mrs
Pipchin to have devoted herself to this way of life, and to have made
such a sacrifice of her feelings, and such a resolute stand against
her troubles, when Mr Pipchin broke his heart in the Peruvian mines.

At this exemplary old lady, Paul would sit staring in his little
arm-chair by the fire, for any length of time. He never seemed to know
what weariness was, when he was looking fixedly at Mrs Pipchin. He was
not fond of her; he was not afraid of her; but in those old, old moods
of his, she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. There he
would sit, looking at her, and warming his hands, and looking at her,
until he sometimes quite confounded Mrs Pipchin, Ogress as she was.
Once she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about.

'You,' said Paul, without the least reserve.

'And what are you thinking about me?' asked Mrs Pipchin.

'I'm thinking how old you must be,' said Paul.

'You mustn't say such things as that, young gentleman,' returned
the dame. 'That'll never do.'

'Why not?' asked Paul.

'Because it's not polite,' said Mrs Pipchin, snappishly.

'Not polite?' said Paul.

'No.'

'It's not polite,' said Paul, innocently, 'to eat all the mutton
chops and toast, Wickam says.

'Wickam,' retorted Mrs Pipchin, colouring, 'is a wicked, impudent,
bold-faced hussy.'

'What's that?' inquired Paul.

'Never you mind, Sir,' retorted Mrs Pipchin. 'Remember the story of
the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking
questions.'

'If the bull was mad,' said Paul, 'how did he know that the boy had
asked questions? Nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. I
don't believe that story.

'You don't believe it, Sir?' repeated Mrs Pipchin, amazed.

'No,' said Paul.

'Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little
Infidel?' said Mrs Pipchin.

As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, and had
founded his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed
himself to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in
his mind, with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs Pipchin
presently, that even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat
until he should have forgotten the subject.

From that time, Mrs Pipchin appeared to have something of the same
odd kind of attraction towards Paul, as Paul had towards her. She
would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of
sitting opposite; and there he would remain in a nook between Mrs
Pipchin and the fender, with all the light of his little face absorbed
into the black bombazeen drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of
her countenance, and peering at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin
was sometimes fain to shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had
an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the
fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the
contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The
good old lady might have been - not to record it disrespectfully - a
witch, and Paul and the cat her two familiars, as they all sat by the
fire together. It would have been quite in keeping with the appearance
of the party if they had all sprung up the chimney in a high wind one
night, and never been heard of any more.

This, however, never came to pass. The cat, and Paul, and Mrs
Pipchin, were constantly to be found in their usual places after dark;
and Paul, eschewing the companionship of Master Bitherstone, went on
studying Mrs Pipchin, and the cat, and the fire, night after night, as
if they were a book of necromancy, in three volumes.

Mrs Wickam put her own construction on Paul's eccentricities; and
being confirmed in her low spirits by a perplexed view of chimneys
from the room where she was accustomed to sit, and by the noise of the
wind, and by the general dulness (gashliness was Mrs Wickam's strong
expression) of her present life, deduced the most dismal reflections
from the foregoing premises. It was a part of Mrs Pipchin's policy to
prevent her own 'young hussy' - that was Mrs Pipchin's generic name
for female servant - from communicating with Mrs Wickam: to which end
she devoted much of her time to concealing herself behind doors, and
springing out on that devoted maiden, whenever she made an approach
towards Mrs Wickam's apartment. But Berry was free to hold what
converse she could in that quarter, consistently with the discharge of
the multifarious duties at which she toiled incessantly from morning
to night; and to Berry Mrs Wickam unburdened her mind.

'What a pretty fellow he is when he's asleep!' said Berry, stopping
to look at Paul in bed, one night when she took up Mrs Wickam's
supper.

'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam. 'He need be.'

'Why, he's not ugly when he's awake,' observed Berry.

'No, Ma'am. Oh, no. No more was my Uncle's Betsey Jane,' said Mrs
Wickam.

Berry looked as if she would like to trace the connexion of ideas
between Paul Dombey and Mrs Wickam's Uncle's Betsey Jane

'My Uncle's wife,' Mrs Wickam went on to say, 'died just like his
Mama. My Uncle's child took on just as Master Paul do.'

'Took on! You don't think he grieves for his Mama, sure?' argued
Berry, sitting down on the side of the bed. 'He can't remember
anything about her, you know, Mrs Wickam. It's not possible.'

'No, Ma'am,' said Mrs Wickam 'No more did my Uncle's child. But my
Uncle's child said very strange things sometimes, and looked very
strange, and went on very strange, and was very strange altogether. My
Uncle's child made people's blood run cold, some times, she did!'

'How?' asked Berry.

'I wouldn't have sat up all night alone with Betsey Jane!' said Mrs
Wickam, 'not if you'd have put Wickam into business next morning for
himself. I couldn't have done it, Miss Berry.

Miss Berry naturally asked why not? But Mrs Wickam, agreeably to
the usage of some ladies in her condition, pursued her own branch of
the subject, without any compunction.

'Betsey Jane,' said Mrs Wickam, 'was as sweet a child as I could
wish to see. I couldn't wish to see a sweeter. Everything that a child
could have in the way of illnesses, Betsey Jane had come through. The
cramps was as common to her,' said Mrs Wickam, 'as biles is to
yourself, Miss Berry.' Miss Berry involuntarily wrinkled her nose.

'But Betsey Jane,' said Mrs Wickam, lowering her voice, and looking
round the room, and towards Paul in bed, 'had been minded, in her
cradle, by her departed mother. I couldn't say how, nor I couldn't say
when, nor I couldn't say whether the dear child knew it or not, but
Betsey Jane had been watched by her mother, Miss Berry!' and Mrs
Wickam, with a very white face, and with watery eyes, and with a
tremulous voice, again looked fearfully round the room, and towards
Paul in bed.

'Nonsense!' cried Miss Berry - somewhat resentful of the idea.

'You may say nonsense! I ain't offended, Miss. I hope you may be
able to think in your own conscience that it is nonsense; you'll find
your spirits all the better for it in this - you'll excuse my being so
free - in this burying-ground of a place; which is wearing of me down.
Master Paul's a little restless in his sleep. Pat his back, if you
please.'

'Of course you think,' said Berry, gently doing what she was asked,
'that he has been nursed by his mother, too?'

'Betsey Jane,' returned Mrs Wickam in her most solemn tones, 'was
put upon as that child has been put upon, and changed as that child
has changed. I have seen her sit, often and often, think, think,
thinking, like him. I have seen her look, often and often, old, old,
old, like him. I have heard her, many a time, talk just like him. I
consider that child and Betsey Jane on the same footing entirely, Miss
Berry.'

'Is your Uncle's child alive?' asked Berry.

'Yes, Miss, she is alive,' returned Mrs Wickam with an air of
triumph, for it was evident. Miss Berry expected the reverse; 'and is
married to a silver-chaser. Oh yes, Miss, SHE is alive,' said Mrs
Wickam, laying strong stress on her nominative case.

It being clear that somebody was dead, Mrs Pipchin's niece inquired
who it was.

'I wouldn't wish to make you uneasy,' returned Mrs Wickam, pursuing
her supper. Don't ask me.'

This was the surest way of being asked again. Miss Berry repeated
her question, therefore; and after some resistance, and reluctance,
Mrs Wickam laid down her knife, and again glancing round the room and
at Paul in bed, replied:

'She took fancies to people; whimsical fancies, some of them;
others, affections that one might expect to see - only stronger than
common. They all died.'

This was so very unexpected and awful to Mrs Pipchin's niece, that
she sat upright on the hard edge of the bedstead, breathing short, and
surveying her informant with looks of undisguised alarm.

Mrs Wickam shook her left fore-finger stealthily towards the bed
where Florence lay; then turned it upside down, and made several
emphatic points at the floor; immediately below which was the parlour
in which Mrs Pipchin habitually consumed the toast.

'Remember my words, Miss Berry,' said Mrs Wickam, 'and be thankful
that Master Paul is not too fond of you. I am, that he's not too fond
of me, I assure you; though there isn't much to live for - you'll
excuse my being so free - in this jail of a house!'

Miss Berry's emotion might have led to her patting Paul too hard on
the back, or might have produced a cessation of that soothing
monotony, but he turned in his bed just now, and, presently awaking,
sat up in it with his hair hot and wet from the effects of some
childish dream, and asked for Florence.

She was out of her own bed at the first sound of his voice; and
bending over his pillow immediately, sang him to sleep again. Mrs
Wickam shaking her head, and letting fall several tears, pointed out
the little group to Berry, and turned her eyes up to the ceiling.

'He's asleep now, my dear,' said Mrs Wickam after a pause, 'you'd
better go to bed again. Don't you feel cold?'

'No, nurse,' said Florence, laughing. 'Not at all.'

'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam, and she shook her head again, expressing
to the watchful Berry, 'we shall be cold enough, some of us, by and
by!'

Berry took the frugal supper-tray, with which Mrs Wickam had by
this time done, and bade her good-night.

'Good-night, Miss!' returned Wickam softly. 'Good-night! Your aunt
is an old lady, Miss Berry, and it's what you must have looked for,
often.'

This consolatory farewell, Mrs Wickam accompanied with a look of
heartfelt anguish; and being left alone with the two children again,
and becoming conscious that the wind was blowing mournfully, she
indulged in melancholy - that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries
- until she was overpowered by slumber.

Although the niece of Mrs Pipchin did not expect to find that
exemplary dragon prostrate on the hearth-rug when she went downstairs,
she was relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with
every present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a
comfort to all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining, in
the course of the ensuing week, when the constitutional viands still
continued to disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that
Paul studied her as attentively as ever, and occupied his usual seat
between the black skirts and the fender, with unwavering constancy.

But as Paul himself was no stronger at the expiration of that time
than he had been on his first arrival, though he looked much healthier
in the face, a little carriage was got for him, in which he could lie
at his ease, with an alphabet and other elementary works of reference,
and be wheeled down to the sea-side. Consistent in his odd tastes, the
child set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of
this carriage, and selected, instead, his grandfather - a weazen, old,
crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oilskin, who had got tough and
stringy from long pickling in salt water, and who smelt like a weedy
sea-beach when the tide is out.

With this notable attendant to pull him along, and Florence always
walking by his side, and the despondent Wickam bringing up the rear,
he went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would
sit or lie in his carriage for hours together: never so distressed as
by the company of children - Florence alone excepted, always.

'Go away, if you please,' he would say to any child who came to
bear him company. Thank you, but I don't want you.'

Some small voice, near his ear, would ask him how he was, perhaps.

'I am very well, I thank you,' he would answer. 'But you had better
go and play, if you please.'

Then he would turn his head, and watch the child away, and say to
Florence, 'We don't want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floy.'

He had even a dislike, at such times, to the company of Wickam, and
was well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick
up shells and acquaintances. His favourite spot was quite a lonely
one, far away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his
side at work, or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind
blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his
bed, he wanted nothing more.

'Floy,' he said one day, 'where's India, where that boy's friends
live?'

'Oh, it's a long, long distance off,' said Florence, raising her
eyes from her work.

'Weeks off?' asked Paul.

'Yes dear. Many weeks' journey, night and day.'

'If you were in India, Floy,' said Paul, after being silent for a
minute, 'I should - what is it that Mama did? I forget.'

'Loved me!' answered Florence.

'No, no. Don't I love you now, Floy? What is it? - Died. in you
were in India, I should die, Floy.'

She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid her head down on his
pillow, caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there.
He would be better soon.

'Oh! I am a great deal better now!' he answered. 'I don't mean
that. I mean that I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!'

Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly
for a long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat
listening.

Florence asked him what he thought he heard.

'I want to know what it says,' he answered, looking steadily in her
face. 'The sea' Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?'

She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.

'Yes, yes,' he said. 'But I know that they are always saying
something. Always the same thing. What place is over there?' He rose
up, looking eagerly at the horizon.

She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said
he didn't mean that: he meant further away - farther away!

Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break
off, to try to understand what it was that the waves were always
saying; and would rise up in his couch to look towards that invisible
region, far away.

CHAPTER 9.

In which the Wooden Midshipman gets into Trouble

That spice of romance and love of the marvellous, of which there
was a pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and
which the guardianship of his Uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very
much weakened by the waters of stern practical experience, was the
occasion of his attaching an uncommon and delightful interest to the
adventure of Florence with Good Mrs Brown. He pampered and cherished
it in his memory, especially that part of it with which he had been
associated: until it became the spoiled child of his fancy, and took
its own way, and did what it liked with it.

The recollection of those incidents, and his own share in them, may
have been made the more captivating, perhaps, by the weekly dreamings
of old Sol and Captain Cuttle on Sundays. Hardly a Sunday passed,
without mysterious references being made by one or other of those
worthy chums to Richard Whittington; and the latter gentleman had even
gone so far as to purchase a ballad of considerable antiquity, that
had long fluttered among many others, chiefly expressive of maritime
sentiments, on a dead wall in the Commercial Road: which poetical
performance set forth the courtship and nuptials of a promising young
coal-whipper with a certain 'lovely Peg,' the accomplished daughter of
the master and part-owner of a Newcastle collier. In this stirring
legend, Captain Cuttle descried a profound metaphysical bearing on the
case of Walter and Florence; and it excited him so much, that on very
festive occasions, as birthdays and a few other non-Dominical
holidays, he would roar through the whole song in the little back
parlour; making an amazing shake on the word Pe-e-eg, with which every
verse concluded, in compliment to the heroine of the piece.

But a frank, free-spirited, open-hearted boy, is not much given to
analysing the nature of his own feelings, however strong their hold
upon him: and Walter would have found it difficult to decide this
point. He had a great affection for the wharf where he had encountered
Florence, and for the streets (albeit not enchanting in themselves) by
which they had come home. The shoes that had so often tumbled off by
the way, he preserved in his own room; and, sitting in the little back
parlour of an evening, he had drawn a whole gallery of fancy portraits
of Good Mrs Brown. It may be that he became a little smarter in his
dress after that memorable occasion; and he certainly liked in his
leisure time to walk towards that quarter of the town where Mr
Dombey's house was situated, on the vague chance of passing little
Florence in the street. But the sentiment of all this was as boyish
and innocent as could be. Florence was very pretty, and it is pleasant
to admire a pretty face. Florence was defenceless and weak, and it was
a proud thought that he had been able to render her any protection and
assistance. Florence was the most grateful little creature in the
world, and it was delightful to see her bright gratitude beaming in
her face. Florence was neglected and coldly looked upon, and his
breast was full of youthful interest for the slighted child in her
dull, stately home.

Thus it came about that, perhaps some half-a-dozen times in the
course of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the
street, and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs Wickam (who, with
a characteristic alteration of his name, invariably spoke of him as
'Young Graves') was so well used to this, knowing the story of their
acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the
other hand, rather looked out for these occasions: her sensitive young
heart being secretly propitiated by Walter's good looks, and inclining
to the belief that its sentiments were responded to.

In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his
acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As
to its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances which
gave it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account,
more as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to
be dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which
he was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but
not himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what
a grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on
the day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done
wonders there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come
back an Admiral of all the colours of the dolphin, or at least a
Post-Captain with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have
married Florence (then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr
Dombey's teeth, cravat, and watch-chain, and borne her away to the
blue shores of somewhere or other, triumphantly. But these flights of
fancy seldom burnished the brass plate of Dombey and Son's Offices
into a tablet of golden hope, or shed a brilliant lustre on their
dirty skylights; and when the Captain and Uncle Sol talked about
Richard Whittington and masters' daughters, Walter felt that he
understood his true position at Dombey and Son's, much better than
they did.

So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day,
in a cheerful, pains-taking, merry spirit; and saw through the
sanguine complexion of Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle; and yet
entertained a thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to
which theirs were work-a-day probabilities. Such was his condition at
the Pipchin period, when he looked a little older than of yore, but
not much; and was the same light-footed, light-hearted, light-headed
lad, as when he charged into the parlour at the head of Uncle Sol and
the imaginary boarders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira.

'Uncle Sol,' said Walter, 'I don't think you're well. You haven't
eaten any breakfast. I shall bring a doctor to you, if you go on like
this.'

'He can't give me what I want, my boy,' said Uncle Sol. 'At least
he is in good practice if he can - and then he wouldn't.'

'What is it, Uncle? Customers?'

'Ay,' returned Solomon, with a sigh. 'Customers would do.'

'Confound it, Uncle!' said Walter, putting down his breakfast cup
with a clatter, and striking his hand on the table: 'when I see the
people going up and down the street in shoals all day, and passing and
re-passing the shop every minute, by scores, I feel half tempted to
rush out, collar somebody, bring him in, and make him buy fifty
pounds' worth of instruments for ready money. What are you looking in
at the door for? - ' continued Walter, apostrophizing an old gentleman
with a powdered head (inaudibly to him of course), who was staring at
a ship's telescope with all his might and main. 'That's no use. I
could do that. Come in and buy it!'

The old gentleman, however, having satiated his curiosity, walked
calmly away.

'There he goes!' said Walter. 'That's the way with 'em all. But,
Uncle - I say, Uncle Sol' - for the old man was meditating and had not
responded to his first appeal. 'Don't be cast down. Don't be out of
spirits, Uncle. When orders do come, they'll come in such a crowd, you
won't be able to execute 'em.'

'I shall be past executing 'em, whenever they come, my boy,'
returned Solomon Gills. 'They'll never come to this shop again, till I
am out of t.'

'I say, Uncle! You musn't really, you know!' urged Walter. 'Don't!'

Old Sol endeavoured to assume a cheery look, and smiled across the
little table at him as pleasantly as he could.

'There's nothing more than usual the matter; is there, Uncle?' said
Walter, leaning his elbows on the tea tray, and bending over, to speak
the more confidentially and kindly. 'Be open with me, Uncle, if there
is, and tell me all about it.'

'No, no, no,' returned Old Sol. 'More than usual? No, no. What
should there be the matter more than usual?'

Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. 'That's what
I want to know,' he said, 'and you ask me! I'll tell you what, Uncle,
when I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.'

Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily.

'Yes. Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been
with you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with
anything in your mind.'

'I am a little dull at such times, I know,' observed Solomon,
meekly rubbing his hands.

'What I mean, Uncle Sol,' pursued Walter, bending over a little
more to pat him on the shoulder, 'is, that then I feel you ought to
have, sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice
little dumpling of a wife, you know, - a comfortable, capital, cosy
old lady, who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you,
and keep you in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was
(I am sure I ought to be!) but I am only a nephew, and I can't be such
a companion to you when you're low and out of sorts as she would have
made herself, years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could
cheer you up. And so I say, when I see you with anything on your mind,
that I feel quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than
a blundering young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will
to console you, Uncle, but hasn't got the way - hasn't got the way,'
repeated Walter, reaching over further yet, to shake his Uncle by the
hand.

'Wally, my dear boy,' said Solomon, 'if the cosy little old lady
had taken her place in this parlour five and forty years ago, I never
could have been fonder of her than I am of you.'

'I know that, Uncle Sol,' returned Walter. 'Lord bless you, I know
that. But you wouldn't have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable
secrets if she had been with you, because she would have known how to
relieve you of 'em, and I don't.'

'Yes, yes, you do,' returned the Instrument-maker.

'Well then, what's the matter, Uncle Sol?' said Walter, coaxingly.
'Come! What's the matter?'

Solomon Gills persisted that there was nothing the matter; and
maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to
make a very indifferent imitation of believing him.

'All I can say is, Uncle Sol, that if there is - '

'But there isn't,' said Solomon.

'Very well,, said Walter. 'Then I've no more to say; and that's
lucky, for my time's up for going to business. I shall look in
by-and-by when I'm out, to see how you get on, Uncle. And mind, Uncle!
I'll never believe you again, and never tell you anything more about
Mr Carker the Junior, if I find out that you have been deceiving me!'

Solomon Gills laughingly defied him to find out anything of the
kind; and Walter, revolving in his thoughts all sorts of impracticable
ways of making fortunes and placing the wooden Midshipman in a
position of independence, betook himself to the offices of Dombey and
Son with a heavier countenance than he usually carried there.

There lived in those days, round the corner - in Bishopsgate Street
Without - one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept a shop
where every description of second-hand furniture was exhibited in the
most uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in combinations
the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on
to washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the
shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side
of dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of
other dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A
banquet array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was
generally to be seen, spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post
bedstead, for the entertainment of such genial company as half-a-dozen
pokers, and a hall lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows
belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of
chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while
a homeless hearthrug severed from its natural companion the fireside,
braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in
melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano,
wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of
the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks
that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being
successfully wound up, as the pecuniary affairs of their former
owners, there was always great choice in Mr Brogley's shop; and
various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at compound interest of
reflection and refraction, presented to the eye an eternal perspective
of bankruptcy and ruin.

Mr Brogley himself was a moist-eyed, pink-complexioned,
crisp-haired man, of a bulky figure and an easy temper - for that
class of Caius Marius who sits upon the ruins of other people's
Carthages, can keep up his spirits well enough. He had looked in at
Solomon's shop sometimes, to ask a question about articles in
Solomon's way of business; and Walter knew him sufficiently to give
him good day when they met in the street. But as that was the extent
of the broker's acquaintance with Solomon Gills also, Walter was not a
little surprised when he came back in the course of the forenoon,
agreeably to his promise, to find Mr Brogley sitting in the back
parlour with his hands in his pockets, and his hat hanging up behind
the door.

'Well, Uncle Sol!' said Walter. The old man was sitting ruefully on
the opposite side of the table, with his spectacles over his eyes, for
a wonder, instead of on his forehead. 'How are you now?'

Solomon shook his head, and waved one hand towards the broker, as
introducing him.

'Is there anything the matter?' asked Walter, with a catching in
his breath.

'No, no. There's nothing the matter, said Mr Brogley. 'Don't let it
put you out of the way.' Walter looked from the broker to his Uncle in
mute amazement. 'The fact is,' said Mr Brogley, 'there's a little
payment on a bond debt - three hundred and seventy odd, overdue: and
I'm in possession.'

'In possession!' cried Walter, looking round at the shop.

'Ah!' said Mr Brogley, in confidential assent, and nodding his head
as if he would urge the advisability of their all being comfortable
together. 'It's an execution. That's what it is. Don't let it put you
out of the way. I come myself, because of keeping it quiet and
sociable. You know me. It's quite private.'

'Uncle Sol!' faltered Walter.

'Wally, my boy,' returned his uncle. 'It's the first time. Such a
calamity never happened to me before. I'm an old man to begin.'
Pushing up his spectacles again (for they were useless any longer to
conceal his emotion), he covered his face with his hand, and sobbed
aloud, and his tears fell down upon his coffee-coloured waistcoat.

'Uncle Sol! Pray! oh don't!' exclaimed Walter, who really felt a
thrill of terror in seeing the old man weep. 'For God's sake don't do
that. Mr Brogley, what shall I do?'

'I should recommend you looking up a friend or so,' said Mr
Brogley, 'and talking it over.'

'To be sure!' cried Walter, catching at anything. 'Certainly!
Thankee. Captain Cuttle's the man, Uncle. Wait till I run to Captain
Cuttle. Keep your eye upon my Uncle, will you, Mr Brogley, and make
him as comfortable as you can while I am gone? Don't despair, Uncle
Sol. Try and keep a good heart, there's a dear fellow!'

Saying this with great fervour, and disregarding the old man's
broken remonstrances, Walter dashed out of the shop again as hard as
he could go; and, having hurried round to the office to excuse himself
on the plea of his Uncle's sudden illness, set off, full speed, for
Captain Cuttle's residence.

Everything seemed altered as he ran along the streets. There were
the usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, waggons,
and foot passengers, but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden
Midshipman made it strange and new. Houses and shops were different
from what they used to be, and bore Mr Brogley's warrant on their
fronts in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the
very churches; for their spires rose into the sky with an unwonted
air. Even the sky itself was changed, and had an execution in it
plainly.

Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India
Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened now and then to
let some wandering monster of a ship come roamIng up the street like a
stranded leviathan. The gradual change from land to water, on the
approach to Captain Cuttle's lodgings, was curious. It began with the
erection of flagstaffs, as appurtenances to public-houses; then came
slop-sellers' shops, with Guernsey shirts, sou'wester hats, and canvas
pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order,
hanging up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chain-cable
forges, where sledgehammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then
came rows of houses, with little vane-surmounted masts uprearing
themselves from among the scarlet beans. Then, ditches. Then, pollard
willows. Then, more ditches. Then, unaccountable patches of dirty
water, hardly to be descried, for the ships that covered them. Then,
the air was perfumed with chips; and all other trades were swallowed
up in mast, oar, and block-making, and boatbuilding. Then, the ground
grew marshy and unsettled. Then, there was nothing to be smelt but rum
and sugar. Then, Captain Cuttle's lodgings - at once a first floor and
a top storey, in Brig Place - were close before you.

The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as
well as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest
imagination to separate from any part of their dress, however
insignificant. Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the
Captain instantly poked his head out of one of his little front
windows, and hailed him, with the hard glared hat already on it, and
the shirt-collar like a sail, and the wide suit of blue, all standing
as usual, Walter was as fully persuaded that he was always in that
state, as if the Captain had been a bird and those had been his
feathers.

'Wal'r, my lad!'said Captain Cuttle. 'Stand by and knock again.
Hard! It's washing day.'

Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the
knocker.

'Hard it is!' said Captain Cuttle, and immediately drew in his
head, as if he expected a squall.

Nor was he mistaken: for a widow lady, with her sleeves rolled up
to her shoulders, and her arms frothy with soap-suds and smoking with
hot water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she
looked at Walter she looked at the knocker, and then, measuring him
with her eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had left any of
it.

'Captain Cuttle's at home, I know,' said Walter with a conciliatory
smile.

'Is he?' replied the widow lady. 'In-deed!'

'He has just been speaking to me,' said Walter, in breathless
explanation.

'Has he?' replied the widow lady. 'Then p'raps you'll give him Mrs
MacStinger's respects, and say that the next time he lowers himself
and his lodgings by talking out of the winder she'll thank him to come
down and open the door too.' Mrs MacStinger spoke loud, and listened
for any observations that might be offered from the first floor.

'I'll mention it,' said Walter, 'if you'll have the goodness to let
me in, Ma'am.'

For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the
doorway, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers in their
moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps.

'A boy that can knock my door down,' said Mrs MacStinger,
contemptuously, 'can get over that, I should hope!' But Walter, taking
this as a permission to enter, and getting over it, Mrs MacStinger
immediately demanded whether an Englishwoman's house was her castle or
not; and whether she was to be broke in upon by 'raff.' On these
subjects her thirst for information was still very importunate, when
Walter, having made his way up the little staircase through an
artificial fog occasioned by the washing, which covered the banisters
with a clammy perspiration, entered Captain Cuttle's room, and found
that gentleman in ambush behind the door.

'Never owed her a penny, Wal'r,' said Captain Cuttle, in a low
voice, and with visible marks of trepidation on his countenance. 'Done
her a world of good turns, and the children too. Vixen at times,
though. Whew!'

'I should go away, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter.

'Dursn't do it, Wal'r,' returned the Captain. 'She'd find me out,
wherever I went. Sit down. How's Gills?'

The Captain was dining (in his hat) off cold loin of mutton,
porter, and some smoking hot potatoes, which he had cooked himself,
and took out of a little saucepan before the fire as he wanted them.
He unscrewed his hook at dinner-time, and screwed a knife into its
wooden socket instead, with which he had already begun to peel one of
these potatoes for Walter. His rooms were very small, and strongly
impregnated with tobacco-smoke, but snug enough: everything being
stowed away, as if there were an earthquake regularly every half-hour.

'How's Gills?' inquired the Captain.

Walter, who had by this time recovered his breath, and lost his
spirits - or such temporary spirits as his rapid journey had given him
- looked at his questioner for a moment, said 'Oh, Captain Cuttle!'
and burst into tears.

No words can describe the Captain's consternation at this sight Mrs
MacStinger faded into nothing before it. He dropped the potato and the
fork - and would have dropped the knife too if he could - and sat
gazing at the boy, as if he expected to hear next moment that a gulf
had opened in the City, which had swallowed up his old friend,
coffee-coloured suit, buttons, chronometer, spectacles, and all.

But when Walter told him what was really the matter, Captain
Cuttle, after a moment's reflection, started up into full activity. He
emptied out of a little tin canister on the top shelf of the cupboard,
his whole stock of ready money (amounting to thirteen pounds and
half-a-crown), which he transferred to one of the pockets of his
square blue coat; further enriched that repository with the contents
of his plate chest, consisting of two withered atomies of tea-spoons,
and an obsolete pair of knock-knee'd sugar-tongs; pulled up his
immense double-cased silver watch from the depths in which it reposed,
to assure himself that that valuable was sound and whole; re-attached
the hook to his right wrist; and seizing the stick covered over with
knobs, bade Walter come along.

Remembering, however, in the midst of his virtuous excitement, that
Mrs MacStinger might be lying in wait below, Captain Cuttle hesitated
at last, not without glancing at the window, as if he had some
thoughts of escaping by that unusual means of egress, rather than
encounter his terrible enemy. He decided, however, in favour of
stratagem.

'Wal'r,' said the Captain, with a timid wink, 'go afore, my lad.
Sing out, "good-bye, Captain Cuttle," when you're in the passage, and
shut the door. Then wait at the corner of the street 'till you see me.

These directions were not issued without a previous knowledge of
the enemy's tactics, for when Walter got downstairs, Mrs MacStinger
glided out of the little back kitchen, like an avenging spirit. But
not gliding out upon the Captain, as she had expected, she merely made
a further allusion to the knocker, and glided in again.

Some five minutes elapsed before Captain Cuttle could summon
courage to attempt his escape; for Walter waited so long at the street
corner, looking back at the house, before there were any symptoms of
the hard glazed hat. At length the Captain burst out of the door with
the suddenness of an explosion, and coming towards him at a great
pace, and never once looking over his shoulder, pretended, as soon as
they were well out of the street, to whistle a tune.

'Uncle much hove down, Wal'r?' inquired the Captain, as they were
walking along.

'I am afraid so. If you had seen him this morning, you would never
have forgotten it.'

'Walk fast, Wal'r, my lad,' returned the Captain, mending his pace;
'and walk the same all the days of your life. Overhaul the catechism
for that advice, and keep it!'

The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills,
mingled perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs
MacStinger, to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's
moral improvement They interchanged no other word until they arrived
at old Sol's door, where the unfortunate wooden Midshipman, with his
instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in
search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty.

'Gills!' said the Captain, hurrying into the back parlour, and
taking him by the hand quite tenderly. 'Lay your head well to the
wind, and we'll fight through it. All you've got to do,' said the
Captain, with the solemnity of a man who was delivering himself of one
of the most precious practical tenets ever discovered by human wisdom,
'is to lay your head well to the wind, and we'll fight through it!'

Old Sol returned the pressure of his hand, and thanked him.

Captain Cuttle, then, with a gravity suitable to the nature of the
occasion, put down upon the table the two tea-spoons and the
sugar-tongs, the silver watch, and the ready money; and asked Mr
Brogley, the broker, what the damage was.

'Come! What do you make of it?' said Captain Cuttle.

'Why, Lord help you!' returned the broker; 'you don't suppose that
property's of any use, do you?'

'Why not?' inquired the Captain.

'Why? The amount's three hundred and seventy, odd,' replied the
broker.

'Never mind,' returned the Captain, though he was evidently
dismayed by the figures: 'all's fish that comes to your net, I
suppose?'

'Certainly,' said Mr Brogley. 'But sprats ain't whales, you know.'

The philosophy of this observation seemed to strike the Captain. He
ruminated for a minute; eyeing the broker, meanwhile, as a deep
genius; and then called the Instrument-maker aside.

'Gills,' said Captain Cuttle, 'what's the bearings of this
business? Who's the creditor?'

'Hush!' returned the old man. 'Come away. Don't speak before Wally.
It's a matter of security for Wally's father - an old bond. I've paid
a good deal of it, Ned, but the times are so bad with me that I can't
do more just now. I've foreseen it, but I couldn't help it. Not a word
before Wally, for all the world.'

'You've got some money, haven't you?' whispered the Captain.

'Yes, yes - oh yes- I've got some,' returned old Sol, first putting
his hands into his empty pockets, and then squeezing his Welsh wig
between them, as if he thought he might wring some gold out of it;
'but I - the little I have got, isn't convertible, Ned; it can't be
got at. I have been trying to do something with it for Wally, and I'm
old fashioned, and behind the time. It's here and there, and - and, in
short, it's as good as nowhere,' said the old man, looking in
bewilderment about him.

He had so much the air of a half-witted person who had been hiding
his money in a variety of places, and had forgotten where, that the
Captain followed his eyes, not without a faint hope that he might
remember some few hundred pounds concealed up the chimney, or down in
the cellar. But Solomon Gills knew better than that.

'I'm behind the time altogether, my dear Ned,' said Sol, in
resigned despair, 'a long way. It's no use my lagging on so far behind
it. The stock had better be sold - it's worth more than this debt -
and I had better go and die somewhere, on the balance. I haven't any
energy left. I don't understand things. This had better be the end of
it. Let 'em sell the stock and take him down,' said the old man,
pointing feebly to the wooden Midshipman, 'and let us both be broken
up together.'

'And what d'ye mean to do with Wal'r?'said the Captain. 'There,
there! Sit ye down, Gills, sit ye down, and let me think o' this. If I
warn't a man on a small annuity, that was large enough till to-day, I
hadn't need to think of it. But you only lay your head well to the
wind,' said the Captain, again administering that unanswerable piece
of consolation, 'and you're all right!'

Old Sol thanked him from his heart, and went and laid it against
the back parlour fire-place instead.

Captain Cuttle walked up and down the shop for some time,
cogitating profoundly, and bringing his bushy black eyebrows to bear
so heavily on his nose, like clouds setting on a mountain, that Walter
was afraid to offer any interruption to the current of his
reflections. Mr Brogley, who was averse to being any constraint upon
the party, and who had an ingenious cast of mind, went, softly
whistling, among the stock; rattling weather-glasses, shaking
compasses as if they were physic, catching up keys with loadstones,
looking through telescopes, endeavouring to make himself acquainted
with the use of the globes, setting parallel rulers astride on to his
nose, and amusing himself with other philosophical transactions.

'Wal'r!' said the Captain at last. 'I've got it.'

'Have you, Captain Cuttle?' cried Walter, with great animation.

'Come this way, my lad,' said the Captain. 'The stock's the
security. I'm another. Your governor's the man to advance money.'

'Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter.

The Captain nodded gravely. 'Look at him,' he said. 'Look at Gills.
If they was to sell off these things now, he'd die of it. You know he
would. We mustn't leave a stone unturned - and there's a stone for
you.'

'A stone! - Mr Dombey!' faltered Walter.

'You run round to the office, first of all, and see if he's there,'
said Captain Cuttle, clapping him on the back. 'Quick!'

Walter felt he must not dispute the command - a glance at his Uncle
would have determined him if he had felt otherwise - and disappeared
to execute it. He soon returned, out of breath, to say that Mr Dombey
was not there. It was Saturday, and he had gone to Brighton.

'I tell you what, Wal'r!' said the Captain, who seemed to have
prepared himself for this contingency in his absence. 'We'll go to
Brighton. I'll back you, my boy. I'll back you, Wal'r. We'll go to
Brighton by the afternoon's coach.'

If the application must be made to Mr Dombey at all, which was
awful to think of, Walter felt that he would rather prefer it alone
and unassisted, than backed by the personal influence of Captain
Cuttle, to which he hardly thought Mr Dombey would attach much weight.
But as the Captain appeared to be of quite another opinion, and was
bent upon it, and as his friendship was too zealous and serious to be
trifled with by one so much younger than himself, he forbore to hint
the least objection. Cuttle, therefore, taking a hurried leave of
Solomon Gills, and returning the ready money, the teaspoons, the
sugar-tongs, and the silver watch, to his pocket - with a view, as
Walter thought, with horror, to making a gorgeous impression on Mr
Dombey - bore him off to the coach-office, with- out a minute's delay,
and repeatedly assured him, on the road, that he would stick by him to
the last.

CHAPTER 10.

Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman's Disaster

Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across
Princess's Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after
receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on that
subject, from the native who kept himself in constant communication
with Miss Tox's maid for that purpose; came to the conclusion that
Dombey, Sir, was a man to be known, and that J. B. was the boy to make
his acquaintance.

Miss Tox, however, maintaining her reserved behaviour, and frigidly
declining to understand the Major whenever he called (which he often
did) on any little fishing excursion connected with this project, the
Major, in spite of his constitutional toughness and slyness, was fain
to leave the accomplishment of his desire in some measure to chance,
'which,' as he was used to observe with chuckles at his club, 'has
been fifty to one in favour of Joey B., Sir, ever since his elder
brother died of Yellow Jack in the West Indies.'

It was some time coming to his aid in the present instance, but it
befriended him at last. When the dark servant, with full particulars,
reported Miss Tox absent on Brighton service, the Major was suddenly
touched with affectionate reminiscences of his friend Bill Bitherstone
of Bengal, who had written to ask him, if he ever went that way, to
bestow a call upon his only son. But when the same dark servant
reported Paul at Mrs Pipchin's, and the Major, referring to the letter
favoured by Master Bitherstone on his arrival in England - to which he
had never had the least idea of paying any attention - saw the opening
that presented itself, he was made so rabid by the gout, with which he
happened to be then laid up, that he threw a footstool at the dark
servant in return for his intelligence, and swore he would be the
death of the rascal before he had done with him: which the dark
servant was more than half disposed to believe.

At length the Major being released from his fit, went one Saturday
growling down to Brighton, with the native behind him; apostrophizing
Miss Tox all the way, and gloating over the prospect of carrying by
storm the distinguished friend to whom she attached so much mystery,
and for whom she had deserted him,

'Would you, Ma'am, would you!' said the Major, straining with
vindictiveness, and swelling every already swollen vein in his head.
'Would you give Joey B. the go-by, Ma'am? Not yet, Ma'am, not yet!
Damme, not yet, Sir. Joe is awake, Ma'am. Bagstock is alive, Sir. J.
B. knows a move or two, Ma'am. Josh has his weather-eye open, Sir.
You'll find him tough, Ma'am. Tough, Sir, tough is Joseph. Tough, and
de-vilish sly!'

And very tough indeed Master Bitherstone found him, when he took
that young gentleman out for a walk. But the Major, with his
complexion like a Stilton cheese, and his eyes like a prawn's, went
roving about, perfectly indifferent to Master Bitherstone's amusement,
and dragging Master Bitherstone along, while he looked about him high
and low, for Mr Dombey and his children.

In good time the Major, previously instructed by Mrs Pipchin, spied
out Paul and Florence, and bore down upon them; there being a stately
gentleman (Mr Dombey, doubtless) in their company. Charging with
Master Bitherstone into the very heart of the little squadron, it fell
out, of course, that Master Bitherstone spoke to his fellow-sufferers.
Upon that the Major stopped to notice and admire them; remembered with
amazement that he had seen and spoken to them at his friend Miss Tox's
in Princess's Place; opined that Paul was a devilish fine fellow, and
his own little friend; inquired if he remembered Joey B. the Major;
and finally, with a sudden recollection of the conventionalities of
life, turned and apologised to Mr Dombey.

'But my little friend here, Sir,' said the Major, 'makes a boy of
me again: An old soldier, Sir - Major Bagstock, at your service - is
not ashamed to confess it.' Here the Major lifted his hat. 'Damme,
Sir,' cried the Major with sudden warmth, 'I envy you.' Then he
recollected himself, and added, 'Excuse my freedom.'

Mr Dombey begged he wouldn't mention it.

'An old campaigner, Sir,' said the Major, 'a smoke-dried,
sun-burnt, used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid
of being condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the
honour of addressing Mr Dombey, I believe?'

'I am the present unworthy representative of that name, Major,'
returned Mr Dombey.

'By G-, Sir!' said the Major, 'it's a great name. It's a name,
Sir,' said the Major firmly, as if he defied Mr Dombey to contradict
him, and would feel it his painful duty to bully him if he did, 'that
is known and honoured in the British possessions abroad. It is a name,
Sir, that a man is proud to recognise. There is nothing adulatory in
Joseph Bagstock, Sir. His Royal Highness the Duke of York observed on
more than one occasion, "there is no adulation in Joey. He is a plain
old soldier is Joe. He is tough to a fault is Joseph:" but it's a
great name, Sir. By the Lord, it's a great name!' said the Major,
solemnly.

'You are good enough to rate it higher than it deserves, perhaps,
Major,' returned Mr Dombey.

'No, Sir,' said the Major, in a severe tone. No, Mr Dombey, let us
understand each other. That is not the Bagstock vein, Sir. You don't
know Joseph B. He is a blunt old blade is Josh. No flattery in him,
Sir. Nothing like it.'

Mr Dombey inclined his head, and said he believed him to be in
earnest, and that his high opinion was gratifying.

'My little friend here, Sir,' croaked the Major, looking as amiably
as he could, on Paul, 'will certify for Joseph Bagstock that he is a
thorough-going, down-right, plain-spoken, old Trump, Sir, and nothing
more. That boy, Sir,' said the Major in a lower tone, 'will live in
history. That boy, Sir, is not a common production. Take care of him,
Mr Dombey.'

Mr Dombey seemed to intimate that he would endeavour to do so.

'Here is a boy here, Sir,' pursued the Major, confidentially, and
giving him a thrust with his cane. 'Son of Bitherstone of Bengal. Bill
Bitherstone formerly of ours. That boy's father and myself, Sir, were
sworn friends. Wherever you went, Sir, you heard of nothing but Bill
Bitherstone and Joe Bagstock. Am I blind to that boy's defects? By no
means. He's a fool, Sir.'

Mr Dombey glanced at the libelled Master Bitherstone, of whom he
knew at least as much as the Major did, and said, in quite a
complacent manner, 'Really?'

'That is what he is, sir,' said the Major. 'He's a fool. Joe
Bagstock never minces matters. The son of my old friend Bill
Bitherstone, of Bengal, is a born fool, Sir.' Here the Major laughed
till he was almost black. 'My little friend is destined for a public
school,' I' presume, Mr Dombey?' said the Major when he had recovered.

'I am not quite decided,' returned Mr Dombey. 'I think not. He is
delicate.'

'If he's delicate, Sir,' said the Major, 'you are right. None but
the tough fellows could live through it, Sir, at Sandhurst. We put
each other to the torture there, Sir. We roasted the new fellows at a
slow fire, and hung 'em out of a three pair of stairs window, with
their heads downwards. Joseph Bagstock, Sir, was held out of the
window by the heels of his boots, for thirteen minutes by the college
clock'

The Major might have appealed to his countenance in corroboration
of this story. It certainly looked as if he had hung out a little too
long.

'But it made us what we were, Sir,' said the Major, settling his
shirt frill. 'We were iron, Sir, and it forged us. Are you remaining
here, Mr Dombey?'

'I generally come down once a week, Major,' returned that
gentleman. 'I stay at the Bedford.'

'I shall have the honour of calling at the Bedford, Sir, if you'll
permit me,' said the Major. 'Joey B., Sir, is not in general a calling
man, but Mr Dombey's is not a common name. I am much indebted to my
little friend, Sir, for the honour of this introduction.'

Mr Dombey made a very gracious reply; and Major Bagstock, having
patted Paul on the head, and said of Florence that her eyes would play
the Devil with the youngsters before long - 'and the oldsters too,
Sir, if you come to that,' added the Major, chuckling very much -
stirred up Master Bitherstone with his walking-stick, and departed
with that young gentleman, at a kind of half-trot; rolling his head
and coughing with great dignity, as he staggered away, with his legs
very wide asunder.

In fulfilment of his promise, the Major afterwards called on Mr
Dombey; and Mr Dombey, having referred to the army list, afterwards
called on the Major. Then the Major called at Mr Dombey's house in
town; and came down again, in the same coach as Mr Dombey. In short,
Mr Dombey and the Major got on uncommonly well together, and
uncommonly fast: and Mr Dombey observed of the Major, to his sister,
that besides being quite a military man he was really something more,
as he had a very admirable idea of the importance of things
unconnected with his own profession.

At length Mr Dombey, bringing down Miss Tox and Mrs Chick to see
the children, and finding the Major again at Brighton, invited him to
dinner at the Bedford, and complimented Miss Tox highly, beforehand,
on her neighbour and acquaintance.

'My dearest Louisa,' said Miss Tox to Mrs Chick, when they were
alone together, on the morning of the appointed day, 'if I should seem
at all reserved to Major Bagstock, or under any constraint with him,
promise me not to notice it.'

'My dear Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, 'what mystery is involved
in this remarkable request? I must insist upon knowing.'

'Since you are resolved to extort a confession from me, Louisa,'
said Miss Tox instantly, 'I have no alternative but to confide to you
that the Major has been particular.'

'Particular!' repeated Mrs Chick.

'The Major has long been very particular indeed, my love, in his
attentions,' said Miss Tox, 'occasionally they have been so very
marked, that my position has been one of no common difficulty.'

'Is he in good circumstances?' inquired Mrs Chick.

'I have every reason to believe, my dear - indeed I may say I
know,' returned Miss Tox, 'that he is wealthy. He is truly military,
and full of anecdote. I have been informed that his valour, when he
was in active service, knew no bounds. I am told that he did all sorts
of things in the Peninsula, with every description of fire-arm; and in
the East and West Indies, my love, I really couldn't undertake to say
what he did not do.'

'Very creditable to him indeed,' said Mrs Chick, 'extremely so; and
you have given him no encouragement, my dear?'

'If I were to say, Louisa,' replied Miss Tox, with every
demonstration of making an effort that rent her soul, 'that I never
encouraged Major Bagstock slightly, I should not do justice to the
friendship which exists between you and me. It is, perhaps, hardly in
the nature of woman to receive such attentions as the Major once
lavished upon myself without betraying some sense of obligation. But
that is past - long past. Between the Major and me there is now a
yawning chasm, and I will not feign to give encouragement, Louisa,
where I cannot give my heart. My affections,' said Miss Tox - 'but,
Louisa, this is madness!' and departed from the room.

All this Mrs Chick communicated to her brother before dinner: and
it by no means indisposed Mr Dombey to receive the Major with unwonted
cordiality. The Major, for his part, was in a state of plethoric
satisfaction that knew no bounds: and he coughed, and choked, and
chuckled, and gasped, and swelled, until the waiters seemed positively
afraid of him.

'Your family monopolises Joe's light, Sir,' said the Major, when he
had saluted Miss Tox. 'Joe lives in darkness. Princess's Place is
changed into Kamschatka in the winter time. There is no ray of sun,
Sir, for Joey B., now.'

'Miss Tox is good enough to take a great deal of interest in Paul,
Major,' returned Mr Dombey on behalf of that blushing virgin.

'Damme Sir,' said the Major, 'I'm jealous of my little friend. I'm
pining away Sir. The Bagstock breed is degenerating in the forsaken
person of old Joe.' And the Major, becoming bluer and bluer and
puffing his cheeks further and further over the stiff ridge of his
tight cravat, stared at Miss Tox, until his eyes seemed as if he were
at that moment being overdone before the slow fire at the military
college.

Notwithstanding the palpitation of the heart which these allusions
occasioned her, they were anything but disagreeable to Miss Tox, as
they enabled her to be extremely interesting, and to manifest an
occasional incoherence and distraction which she was not at all
unwilling to display. The Major gave her abundant opportunities of
exhibiting this emotion: being profuse in his complaints, at dinner,
of her desertion of him and Princess's Place: and as he appeared to
derive great enjoyment from making them, they all got on very well.

None the worse on account of the Major taking charge of the whole
conversation, and showing as great an appetite in that respect as in
regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be
almost said to have wallowed: greatly to the aggravation of his
inflammatory tendencies. Mr Dombey's habitual silence and reserve
yielding readily to this usurpation, the Major felt that he was coming
out and shining: and in the flow of spirits thus engendered, rang such
an infinite number of new changes on his own name that he quite
astonished himself. In a word, they were all very well pleased. The
Major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation;
and when he took a late farewell, after a long rubber, Mr Dombey again
complimented the blushing Miss Tox on her neighbour and acquaintance.

But all the way home to his own hotel, the Major incessantly said
to himself, and of himself, 'Sly, Sir - sly, Sir - de-vil-ish sly!'
And when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit
of laughter, with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always
particularly awful. It held him so long on this occasion that the dark
servant, who stood watching him at a distance, but dared not for his
life approach, twice or thrice gave him over for lost. His whole form,
but especially his face and head, dilated beyond all former
experience; and presented to the dark man's view, nothing but a
heaving mass of indigo. At length he burst into a violent paroxysm of
coughing, and when that was a little better burst into such
ejaculations as the following:

'Would you, Ma'am, would you? Mrs Dombey, eh, Ma'am? I think not,
Ma'am. Not while Joe B. can put a spoke in your wheel, Ma'am. J. B.'s
even with you now, Ma'am. He isn't altogether bowled out, yet, Sir,
isn't Bagstock. She's deep, Sir, deep, but Josh is deeper. Wide awake
is old Joe - broad awake, and staring, Sir!' There was no doubt of
this last assertion being true, and to a very fearful extent; as it
continued to be during the greater part of that night, which the Major
chiefly passed in similar exclamations, diversified with fits of
coughing and choking that startled the whole house.

It was on the day after this occasion (being Sunday) when, as Mr
Dombey, Mrs Chick, and Miss Tox were sitting at breakfast, still
eulogising the Major, Florence came running in: her face suffused with
a bright colour, and her eyes sparkling joyfully: and cried,

'Papa! Papa! Here's Walter! and he won't come in.'

'Who?' cried Mr Dombey. 'What does she mean? What is this?'

'Walter, Papa!' said Florence timidly; sensible of having
approached the presence with too much familiarity. 'Who found me when
I was lost.'

'Does she mean young Gay, Louisa?' inquired Mr Dombey, knitting his
brows. 'Really, this child's manners have become very boisterous. She
cannot mean young Gay, I think. See what it is, will you?'

Mrs Chick hurried into the passage, and returned with the
information that it was young Gay, accompanied by a very
strange-looking person; and that young Gay said he would not take the
liberty of coming in, hearing Mr Dombey was at breakfast, but would
wait until Mr Dombey should signify that he might approach.

'Tell the boy to come in now,' said Mr Dombey. 'Now, Gay, what is
the matter? Who sent you down here? Was there nobody else to come?'

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' returned Walter. 'I have not been sent. I
have been so bold as to come on my own account, which I hope you'll
pardon when I mention the cause.

But Mr Dombey, without attending to what he said, was looking
impatiently on either side of him (as if he were a pillar in his way)
at some object behind.

'What's that?' said Mr Dombey. 'Who is that? I think you have made
some mistake in the door, Sir.'

'Oh, I'm very sorry to intrude with anyone, Sir,' cried Walter,
hastily: 'but this is - this is Captain Cuttle, Sir.'

'Wal'r, my lad,' observed the Captain in a deep voice: 'stand by!'

At the same time the Captain, coming a little further in, brought
out his wide suit of blue, his conspicuous shirt-collar, and his
knobby nose in full relief, and stood bowing to Mr Dombey, and waving
his hook politely to the ladies, with the hard glazed hat in his one
hand, and a red equator round his head which it had newly imprinted
there.

Mr Dombey regarded this phenomenon with amazement and indignation,
and seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against
it. Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss
Tox as the Captain waved his book, and stood on the defensive.

'Now, Gay,' said Mr Dombey. 'What have you got to say to me?'

Again the Captain observed, as a general opening of the
conversation that could not fail to propitiate all parties, 'Wal'r,
standby!'

'I am afraid, Sir,' began Walter, trembling, and looking down at
the ground, 'that I take a very great liberty in coming - indeed, I am
sure I do. I should hardly have had the courage to ask to see you,
Sir, even after coming down, I am afraid, if I had not overtaken Miss
Dombey, and - '

'Well!' said Mr Dombey, following his eyes as he glanced at the
attentive Florence, and frowning unconsciously as she encouraged him
with a smile. 'Go on, if you please.'

'Ay, ay,' observed the Captain, considering it incumbent on him, as
a point of good breeding, to support Mr Dombey. 'Well said! Go on,
Wal'r.'

Captain Cuttle ought to have been withered by the look which Mr
Dombey bestowed upon him in acknowledgment of his patronage. But quite
innocent of this, he closed one eye in reply, and gave Mr Dombey to
understand, by certain significant motions of his hook, that Walter
was a little bashful at first, and might be expected to come out
shortly.

'It is entirely a private and personal matter, that has brought me
here, Sir,' continued Walter, faltering, 'and Captain Cuttle

'Here!' interposed the Captain, as an assurance that he was at
hand, and might be relied upon.

'Who is a very old friend of my poor Uncle's, and a most excellent
man, Sir,' pursued Walter, raising his eyes with a look of entreaty in
the Captain's behalf, 'was so good as to offer to come with me, which
I could hardly refuse.'

'No, no, no;' observed the Captain complacently. 'Of course not. No
call for refusing. Go on, Wal'r.'

'And therefore, Sir,' said Walter, venturing to meet Mr Dombey's
eye, and proceeding with better courage in the very desperation of the
case, now that there was no avoiding it, 'therefore I have come, with
him, Sir, to say that my poor old Uncle is in very great affliction
and distress. That, through the gradual loss of his business, and not
being able to make a payment, the apprehension of which has weighed
very heavily upon his mind, months and months, as indeed I know, Sir,
he has an execution in his house, and is in danger of losing all he
has, and breaking his heart. And that if you would, in your kindness,
and in your old knowledge of him as a respectable man, do anything to
help him out of his difficulty, Sir, we never could thank you enough
for it.'

Walter's eyes filled with tears as he spoke; and so did those of
Florence. Her father saw them glistening, though he appeared to look
at Walter only.

'It is a very large sum, Sir,' said Walter. 'More than three
hundred pounds. My Uncle is quite beaten down by his misfortune, it
lies so heavy on him; and is quite unable to do anything for his own
relief. He doesn't even know yet, that I have come to speak to you.
You would wish me to say, Sir,' added Walter, after a moment's
hesitation, 'exactly what it is I want. I really don't know, Sir.
There is my Uncle's stock, on which I believe I may say, confidently,
there are no other demands, and there is Captain Cuttle, who would
wish to be security too. I - I hardly like to mention,' said Walter,
'such earnings as mine; but if you would allow them - accumulate -
payment - advance - Uncle - frugal, honourable, old man.' Walter
trailed off, through these broken sentences, into silence: and stood
with downcast head, before his employer.

Considering this a favourable moment for the display of the
valuables, Captain Cuttle advanced to the table; and clearing a space
among the breakfast-cups at Mr Dombey's elbow, produced the silver
watch, the ready money, the teaspoons, and the sugar-tongs; and piling
them up into a heap that they might look as precious as possible,
delivered himself of these words:

'Half a loaf's better than no bread, and the same remark holds good
with crumbs. There's a few. Annuity of one hundred pound premium also
ready to be made over. If there is a man chock full of science in the
world, it's old Sol Gills. If there is a lad of promise - one
flowing,' added the Captain, in one of his happy quotations, 'with
milk and honey - it's his nevy!'

The Captain then withdrew to his former place, where he stood
arranging his scattered locks with the air of a man who had given the
finishing touch to a difficult performance.

When Walter ceased to speak, Mr Dombey's eyes were attracted to
little Paul, who, seeing his sister hanging down her head and silently
weeping in her commiseration for the distress she had heard described,
went over to her, and tried to comfort her: looking at Walter and his
father as he did so, with a very expressive face. After the momentary
distraction of Captain Cuttle's address, which he regarded with lofty
indifference, Mr Dombey again turned his eyes upon his son, and sat
steadily regarding the child, for some moments, in silence.

'What was this debt contracted for?' asked Mr Dombey, at length.
'Who is the creditor?'

'He don't know,' replied the Captain, putting his hand on Walter's
shoulder. 'I do. It came of helping a man that's dead now, and that's
cost my friend Gills many a hundred pound already. More particulars in
private, if agreeable.'

'People who have enough to do to hold their own way,' said Mr
Dombey, unobservant of the Captain's mysterious signs behind Walter,
and still looking at his son, 'had better be content with their own
obligations and difficulties, and not increase them by engaging for
other men. It is an act of dishonesty and presumption, too,' said Mr
Dombey, sternly; 'great presumption; for the wealthy could do no more.
Paul, come here!'

The child obeyed: and Mr Dombey took him on his knee.

'If you had money now - ' said Mr Dombey. 'Look at me!'

Paul, whose eyes had wandered to his sister, and to Walter, looked
his father in the face.

'If you had money now,' said Mr Dombey; 'as much money as young Gay
has talked about; what would you do?'

'Give it to his old Uncle,' returned Paul.

'Lend it to his old Uncle, eh?' retorted Mr Dombey. 'Well! When you
are old enough, you know, you will share my money, and we shall use it
together.'

'Dombey and Son,' interrupted Paul, who had been tutored early in
the phrase.

'Dombey and Son,' repeated his father. 'Would you like to begin to
be Dombey and Son, now, and lend this money to young Gay's Uncle?'

'Oh! if you please, Papa!' said Paul: 'and so would Florence.'

'Girls,' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son.
Would you like it?'

'Yes, Papa, yes!'

'Then you shall do it,' returned his father. 'And you see, Paul,'
he added, dropping his voice, 'how powerful money is, and how anxious
people are to get it. Young Gay comes all this way to beg for money,
and you, who are so grand and great, having got it, are going to let
him have it, as a great favour and obligation.'

Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a
sharp understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it
was a young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped
down from his father's knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any
more, for he was going to let young Gay have the money.

Mr Dombey then turned to a side-table, and wrote a note and sealed
it. During the interval, Paul and Florence whispered to Walter, and
Captain Cuttle beamed on the three, with such aspiring and ineffably
presumptuous thoughts as Mr Dombey never could have believed in. The
note being finished, Mr Dombey turned round to his former place, and
held it out to Walter.

'Give that,' he said, 'the first thing to-morrow morning, to Mr
Carker. He will immediately take care that one of my people releases
your Uncle from his present position, by paying the amount at issue;
and that such arrangements are made for its repayment as may be
consistent with your Uncle's circumstances. You will consider that
this is done for you by Master Paul.'

Walter, in the emotion of holding in his hand the means of
releasing his good Uncle from his trouble, would have endeavoured to
express something of his gratitude and joy. But Mr Dombey stopped him
short.

'You will consider that it is done,' he repeated, 'by Master Paul.
I have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to
be said.'

As he motioned towards the door, Walter could only bow his head and
retire. Miss Tox, seeing that the Captain appeared about to do the
same, interposed.

'My dear Sir,' she said, addressing Mr Dombey, at whose munificence
both she and Mrs Chick were shedding tears copiously; 'I think you
have overlooked something. Pardon me, Mr Dombey, I think, in the
nobility of your character, and its exalted scope, you have omitted a
matter of detail.'

'Indeed, Miss Tox!' said Mr Dombey.

'The gentleman with the - Instrument,' pursued Miss Tox, glancing
at Captain Cuttle, 'has left upon the table, at your elbow - '

'Good Heaven!' said Mr Dombey, sweeping the Captain's property from
him, as if it were so much crumb indeed. 'Take these things away. I am
obliged to you, Miss Tox; it is like your usual discretion. Have the
goodness to take these things away, Sir!'

Captain Cuttle felt he had no alternative but to comply. But he was
so much struck by the magnanimity of Mr Dombey, in refusing treasures
lying heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited the teaspoons
and sugar-tongs in one pocket, and the ready money in another, and had
lowered the great watch down slowly into its proper vault, he could
not refrain from seizing that gentleman's right hand in his own
solitary left, and while he held it open with his powerful fingers,
bringing the hook down upon its palm in a transport of admiration. At
this touch of warm feeling and cold iron, Mr Dombey shivered all over.

Captain Cuttle then kissed his hook to the ladies several times,
with great elegance and gallantry; and having taken a particular leave
of Paul and Florence, accompanied Walter out of the room. Florence was
running after them in the earnestness of her heart, to send some
message to old Sol, when Mr Dombey called her back, and bade her stay
where she was.

'Will you never be a Dombey, my dear child!' said Mrs Chick, with
pathetic reproachfulness.

'Dear aunt,' said Florence. 'Don't be angry with me. I am so
thankful to Papa!'

She would have run and thrown her arms about his neck if she had
dared; but as she did not dare, she glanced with thankful eyes towards
him, as he sat musing; sometimes bestowing an uneasy glance on her,
but, for the most part, watching Paul, who walked about the room with
the new-blown dignity of having let young Gay have the money.

And young Gay - Walter- what of him?

He was overjoyed to purge the old man's hearth from bailiffs and
brokers, and to hurry back to his Uncle with the good tidings. He was
overjoyed to have it all arranged and settled next day before noon;
and to sit down at evening in the little back parlour with old Sol and
Captain Cuttle; and to see the Instrument-maker already reviving, and
hopeful for the future, and feeling that the wooden Midshipman was his
own again. But without the least impeachment of his gratitude to Mr
Dombey, it must be confessed that Walter was humbled and cast down. It
is when our budding hopes are nipped beyond recovery by some rough
wind, that we are the most disposed to picture to ourselves what
flowers they might have borne, if they had flourished; and now, when
Walter found himself cut off from that great Dombey height, by the
depth of a new and terrible tumble, and felt that all his old wild
fancies had been scattered to the winds in the fall, he began to
suspect that they might have led him on to harmless visions of
aspiring to Florence in the remote distance of time.

The Captain viewed the subject in quite a different light. He
appeared to entertain a belief that the interview at which he had
assisted was so very satisfactory and encouraging, as to be only a
step or two removed from a regular betrothal of Florence to Walter;
and that the late transaction had immensely forwarded, if not
thoroughly established, the Whittingtonian hopes. Stimulated by this
conviction, and by the improvement in the spirits of his old friend,
and by his own consequent gaiety, he even attempted, in favouring them
with the ballad of 'Lovely Peg' for the third time in one evening, to
make an extemporaneous substitution of the name 'Florence;' but
finding this difficult, on account of the word Peg invariably rhyming
to leg (in which personal beauty the original was described as having
excelled all competitors), he hit upon the happy thought of changing
it to Fle-e-eg; which he accordingly did, with an archness almost
supernatural, and a voice quite vociferous, notwithstanding that the
time was close at band when he must seek the abode of the dreadful Mrs
MacStinger.

That same evening the Major was diffuse at his club, on the subject
of his friend Dombey in the City. 'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, 'he's
a prince, is my friend Dombey in the City. I tell you what, Sir. If
you had a few more men among you like old Joe Bagstock and my friend
Dombey in the City, Sir, you'd do!'

CHAPTER 11.

Paul's Introduction to a New Scene

Mrs Pipchin's constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of
its liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose
after chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the soporific
agency of sweet-breads, that it utterly set at naught the predictions
of Mrs Wickam, and showed no symptoms of decline. Yet, as Paul's rapt
interest in the old lady continued unbated, Mrs Wickam would not budge
an inch from the position she had taken up. Fortifying and entrenching
herself on the strong ground of her Uncle's Betsey Jane, she advised
Miss Berry, as a friend, to prepare herself for the worst; and
forewarned her that her aunt might, at any time, be expected to go off
suddenly, like a powder-mill.

'I hope, Miss Berry,' Mrs Wickam would observe, 'that you'll come
into whatever little property there may be to leave. You deserve it, I
am sure, for yours is a trying life. Though there don't seem much
worth coming into - you'll excuse my being so open - in this dismal
den.'

Poor Berry took it all in good part, and drudged and slaved away as
usual; perfectly convinced that Mrs Pipchin was one of the most
meritorious persons in the world, and making every day innumerable
sacrifices of herself upon the altar of that noble old woman. But all
these immolations of Berry were somehow carried to the credit of Mrs
Pipchin by Mrs Pipchin's friends and admirers; and were made to
harmonise with, and carry out, that melancholy fact of the deceased Mr
Pipchin having broken his heart in the Peruvian mines.

For example, there was an honest grocer and general dealer in the
retail line of business, between whom and Mrs Pipchin there was a
small memorandum book, with a greasy red cover, perpetually in
question, and concerning which divers secret councils and conferences
were continually being held between the parties to that register, on
the mat in the passage, and with closed doors in the parlour. Nor were
there wanting dark hints from Master Bitherstone (whose temper had
been made revengeful by the solar heats of India acting on his blood),
of balances unsettled, and of a failure, on one occasion within his
memory, in the supply of moist sugar at tea-time. This grocer being a
bachelor and not a man who looked upon the surface for beauty, had
once made honourable offers for the hand of Berry, which Mrs Pipchin
had, with contumely and scorn, rejected. Everybody said how laudable
this was in Mrs Pipchin, relict of a man who had died of the Peruvian
mines; and what a staunch, high, independent spirit the old lady had.
But nobody said anything about poor Berry, who cried for six weeks
(being soundly rated by her good aunt all the time), and lapsed into a
state of hopeless spinsterhood.

'Berry's very fond of you, ain't she?' Paul once asked Mrs Pipchin
when they were sitting by the fire with the cat.

'Yes,' said Mrs Pipchin.

'Why?' asked Paul.

'Why!' returned the disconcerted old lady. 'How can you ask such
things, Sir! why are you fond of your sister Florence?'

'Because she's very good,' said Paul. 'There's nobody like
Florence.'

'Well!' retorted Mrs Pipchin, shortly, 'and there's nobody like me,
I suppose.'

'Ain't there really though?' asked Paul, leaning forward in his
chair, and looking at her very hard.

'No,' said the old lady.

'I am glad of that,' observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully.
'That's a very good thing.'

Mrs Pipchin didn't dare to ask him why, lest she should receive
some perfectly annihilating answer. But as a compensation to her
wounded feelings, she harassed Master Bitherstone to that extent until
bed-time, that he began that very night to make arrangements for an
overland return to India, by secreting from his supper a quarter of a
round of bread and a fragment of moist Dutch cheese, as the beginning
of a stock of provision to support him on the voyage.

Mrs Pipchin had kept watch and ward over little Paul and his sister
for nearly twelve months. They had been home twice, but only for a few
days; and had been constant in their weekly visits to Mr Dombey at the
hotel. By little and little Paul had grown stronger, and had become
able to dispense with his carriage; though he still looked thin and
delicate; and still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy child that he
had been when first consigned to Mrs Pipchin's care. One Saturday
afternoon, at dusk, great consternation was occasioned in the Castle
by the unlooked-for announcement of Mr Dombey as a visitor to Mrs
Pipchin. The population of the parlour was immediately swept upstairs
as on the wings of a whirlwind, and after much slamming of bedroom
doors, and trampling overhead, and some knocking about of Master
Bitherstone by Mrs Pipchin, as a relief to the perturbation of her
spirits, the black bombazeen garments of the worthy old lady darkened
the audience-chamber where Mr Dombey was contemplating the vacant
arm-chair of his son and heir.

'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, 'How do you do?'

'Thank you, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I am pretty well,
considering.'

Mrs Pipchin always used that form of words. It meant, considering
her virtues, sacrifices, and so forth.

'I can't expect, Sir, to be very well,' said Mrs Pipchin, taking a
chair and fetching her breath; 'but such health as I have, I am
grateful for.'

Mr Dombey inclined his head with the satisfied air of a patron, who
felt that this was the sort of thing for which he paid so much a
quarter. After a moment's silence he went on to say:

'Mrs Pipchin, I have taken the liberty of calling, to consult you
in reference to my son. I have had it in my mind to do so for some
time past; but have deferred it from time to time, in order that his
health might be thoroughly re-established. You have no misgivings on
that subject, Mrs Pipchin?'

'Brighton has proved very beneficial, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin.
'Very beneficial, indeed.'

'I purpose,' said Mr Dombey, 'his remaining at Brighton.'

Mrs Pipchin rubbed her hands, and bent her grey eyes on the fire.

'But,' pursued Mr Dombey, stretching out his forefinger, 'but
possibly that he should now make a change, and lead a different kind
of life here. In short, Mrs Pipchin, that is the object of my visit.
My son is getting on, Mrs Pipchin. Really, he is getting on.'

There was something melancholy in the triumphant air with which Mr
Dombey said this. It showed how long Paul's childish life had been to
him, and how his hopes were set upon a later stage of his existence.
Pity may appear a strange word to connect with anyone so haughty and
so cold, and yet he seemed a worthy subject for it at that moment.

'Six years old!' said Mr Dombey, settling his neckcloth - perhaps
to hide an irrepressible smile that rather seemed to strike upon the
surface of his face and glance away, as finding no resting-place, than
to play there for an instant. 'Dear me, six will be changed to
sixteen, before we have time to look about us.'

'Ten years,' croaked the unsympathetic Pipchin, with a frosty
glistening of her hard grey eye, and a dreary shaking of her bent
head, 'is a long time.'

'It depends on circumstances, returned Mr Dombey; 'at all events,
Mrs Pipchin, my son is six years old, and there is no doubt, I fear,
that in his studies he is behind many children of his age - or his
youth,' said Mr Dombey, quickly answering what he mistrusted was a
shrewd twinkle of the frosty eye, 'his youth is a more appropriate
expression. Now, Mrs Pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my
son ought to be before them; far before them. There is an eminence
ready for him to mount upon. There is nothing of chance or doubt in
the course before my son. His way in life was clear and prepared, and
marked out before he existed. The education of such a young gentleman
must not be delayed. It must not be left imperfect. It must be very
steadily and seriously undertaken, Mrs Pipchin.'

'Well, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'I can say nothing to the contrary.'

'I was quite sure, Mrs Pipchin,' returned Mr Dombey, approvingly,
'that a person of your good sense could not, and would not.'

'There is a great deal of nonsense - and worse - talked about young
people not being pressed too hard at first, and being tempted on, and
all the rest of it, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, impatiently rubbing her
hooked nose. 'It never was thought of in my time, and it has no
business to be thought of now. My opinion is "keep 'em at it".'

'My good madam,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you have not acquired your
reputation undeservedly; and I beg you to believe, Mrs Pipchin, that I
am more than satisfied with your excellent system of management, and
shall have the greatest pleasure in commending it whenever my poor
commendation - ' Mr Dombey's loftiness when he affected to disparage
his own importance, passed all bounds - 'can be of any service. I have
been thinking of Doctor Blimber's, Mrs Pipchin.'

'My neighbour, Sir?' said Mrs Pipchin. 'I believe the Doctor's is
an excellent establishment. I've heard that it's very strictly
conducted, and there is nothing but learning going on from morning to
night.'

'And it's very expensive,' added Mr Dombey.

'And it's very expensive, Sir,' returned Mrs Pipchin, catching at
the fact, as if in omitting that, she had omitted one of its leading
merits.

'I have had some communication with the Doctor, Mrs Pipchin,' said
Mr Dombey, hitching his chair anxiously a little nearer to the fire,
'and he does not consider Paul at all too young for his purpose. He
mentioned several instances of boys in Greek at about the same age. If
I have any little uneasiness in my own mind, Mrs Pipchin, on the
subject of this change, it is not on that head. My son not having
known a mother has gradually concentrated much - too much - of his
childish affection on his sister. Whether their separation - ' Mr
Dombey said no more, but sat silent.

'Hoity-toity!' exclaimed Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black
bombazeen skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. 'If she
don't like it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good
lady apologised immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of
speech, but said (and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with
'em.

Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin had done bridling and shaking
her head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and
then said quietly, but correctively, 'He, my good madam, he.'

Mrs Pipchin's system would have applied very much the same mode of
cure to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey
eye was sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr Dombey might
admit its efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign
remedy for the son, she argued the point; and contended that change,
and new society, and the different form of life he would lead at
Doctor Blimber's, and the studies he would have to master, would very
soon prove sufficient alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey's
own hope and belief, it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of
Mrs Pipchin's understanding; and as Mrs Pipchin, at the same time,
bewailed the loss of her dear little friend (which was not an
overwhelming shock to her, as she had long expected it, and had not
looked, in the beginning, for his remaining with her longer than three
months), he formed an equally good opinion of Mrs Pipchin's
disinterestedness. It was plain that he had given the subject anxious
consideration, for he had formed a plan, which he announced to the
ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a weekly boarder for the
first half year, during which time Florence would remain at the
Castle, that she might receive her brother there, on Saturdays. This
would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey said; possibly with a
recollection of his not having been weaned by degrees on a former
occasion.

Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs
Pipchin would still remain in office as general superintendent and
overseer of his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having
kissed Paul, and shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master
Bitherstone in his collar of state, and made Miss Pankey cry by
patting her on the head (in which region she was uncommonly tender, on
account of a habit Mrs Pipchin had of sounding it with her knuckles,
like a cask), he withdrew to his hotel and dinner: resolved that Paul,
now that he was getting so old and well, should begin a vigorous
course of education forthwith, to qualify him for the position in
which he was to shine; and that Doctor Blimber should take him in hand
immediately.

Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he
might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The Doctor only
undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had, always ready,
a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; and it was
at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten
with it.

In fact, Doctor Blimber's establishment was a great hot-house, in
which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys
blew before their time. Mental green-peas were produced at Christmas,
and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical
gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and
from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber's cultivation. Every
description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the driest twigs
of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no
consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to
bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other.

This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing
was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right
taste about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well.
Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively
large head (the oldest of the ten who had 'gone through' everything),
suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a
mere stalk. And people did say that the Doctor had rather overdone it
with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off
having brains.

There young Toots was, at any rate; possessed of the gruffest of
voices and the shrillest of minds; sticking ornamental pins into his
shirt, and keeping a ring in his waistcoat pocket to put on his little
finger by stealth, when the pupils went out walking; constantly
falling in love by sight with nurserymaids, who had no idea of his
existence; and looking at the gas-lighted world over the little iron
bars in the left-hand corner window of the front three pairs of
stairs, after bed-time, like a greatly overgrown cherub who had sat up
aloft much too long.

The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings
at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly
polished; a deep voice; and a chin so very double, that it was a
wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise
a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up, and a mouth that
was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed
a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch,
that when the Doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat,
and with his other hand behind him, and a fly perceptible wag of his
head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was
like a sentiment from the sphynx, and settled his business.

The Doctor's was a mighty fine house, fronting the sea. Not a
joyful style of house within, but quite the contrary. Sad-coloured
curtains, whose proportions were spare and lean, hid themselves
despondently behind the windows. The tables and chairs were put away
in rows, like figures in a sum; fires were so rarely lighted in the
rooms of ceremony, that they felt like wells, and a visitor
represented the bucket; the dining-room seemed the last place in the
world where any eating or drinking was likely to occur; there was no
sound through all the house but the ticking of a great clock in the
hall, which made itself audible in the very garrets; and sometimes a
dull cooing of young gentlemen at their lessons, like the murmurings
of an assemblage of melancholy pigeons.

Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft
violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense
about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore
spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of
deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They
must be dead - stone dead - and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a
Ghoul.

Mrs Blimber, her Mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended
to be, and that did quite as well. She said at evening parties, that
if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died
contented. It was the steady joy of her life to see the Doctor's young
gentlemen go out walking, unlike all other young gentlemen, in the
largest possible shirt-collars, and the stiffest possible cravats. It
was so classical, she said.

As to Mr Feeder, B.A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of
human barrel-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was
continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He
might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early
life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he
had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation
to bewilder the young ideas of Doctor Blimber's young gentlemen. The
young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew
no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage
noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of
exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing
system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three
weeks. He had all the cares of the world on his head in three months.
He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in
four; he was an old misanthrope, in five; envied Curtius that blessed
refuge in the earth, in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth
had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterwards
departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages,
were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning
in the world.

But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the Doctor's hothouse, all
the time; and the Doctor's glory and reputation were great, when he
took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends.

Upon the Doctor's door-steps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering
heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. His other hand
was locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that
one; and how loose and cold the other!

Mrs Pipchin hovered behind the victim, with her sable plumage and
her hooked beak, like a bird of ill-omen. She was out of breath - for
Mr Dombey, full of great thoughts, had walked fast - and she croaked
hoarsely as she waited for the opening of the door.

'Now, Paul,' said Mr Dombey, exultingly. 'This is the way indeed to
be Dombey and Son, and have money. You are almost a man already.'

'Almost,' returned the child.

Even his childish agitation could not master the sly and quaint yet
touching look, with which he accompanied the reply.

It brought a vague expression of dissatisfaction into Mr Dombey's
face; but the door being opened, it was quickly gone

'Doctor Blimber is at home, I believe?' said Mr Dombey.

The man said yes; and as they passed in, looked at Paul as if he
were a little mouse, and the house were a trap. He was a weak-eyed
young man, with the first faint streaks or early dawn of a grin on his
countenance. It was mere imbecility; but Mrs Pipchin took it into her
head that it was impudence, and made a snap at him directly.

'How dare you laugh behind the gentleman's back?' said Mrs Pipchin.
'And what do you take me for?'

'I ain't a laughing at nobody, and I'm sure I don't take you for
nothing, Ma'am,' returned the young man, in consternation.

'A pack of idle dogs!' said Mrs Pipchin, 'only fit to be turnspits.
Go and tell your master that Mr Dombey's here, or it'll be worse for
you!'

The weak-eyed young man went, very meekly, to discharge himself of
this commission; and soon came back to invite them to the Doctor's
study.

'You're laughing again, Sir,' said Mrs Pipchin, when it came to her
turn, bringing up the rear, to pass him in the hall.

'I ain't,' returned the young man, grievously oppressed. 'I never
see such a thing as this!'

'What is the matter, Mrs Pipchin?' said Mr Dombey, looking round.
'Softly! Pray!'

Mrs Pipchin, in her deference, merely muttered at the young man as
she passed on, and said, 'Oh! he was a precious fellow' - leaving the
young man, who was all meekness and incapacity, affected even to tears
by the incident. But Mrs Pipchin had a way of falling foul of all meek
people; and her friends said who could wonder at it, after the
Peruvian mines!

The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at
each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on
the mantel-shelf. 'And how do you do, Sir?' he said to Mr Dombey, 'and
how is my little friend?' Grave as an organ was the Doctor's speech;
and when he ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at
least) to take him up, and to go on saying, 'how, is, my, lit, tle,
friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' over and over and over again.

The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from
where the Doctor sat, over the books on his table, the Doctor made
several futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr
Dombey perceiving, relieved the Doctor from his embarrassment by
taking Paul up in his arms, and sitting him on another little table,
over against the Doctor, in the middle of the room.

'Ha!' said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in
his breast. 'Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little
friend?'

The clock in the hall wouldn't subscribe to this alteration in the
form of words, but continued to repeat how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?
how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?'

'Very well, I thank you, Sir,' returned Paul, answering the clock
quite as much as the Doctor.

'Ha!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Shall we make a man of him?'

'Do you hear, Paul?' added Mr Dombey; Paul being silent.

'Shall we make a man of him?' repeated the Doctor.

'I had rather be a child,' replied Paul.

'Indeed!' said the Doctor. 'Why?'

The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious
expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand
proudly on his knee as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and
crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little way the while, a
little farther - farther from him yet - until it lighted on the neck
of Florence. 'This is why,' it seemed to say, and then the steady look
was broken up and gone; the working lip was loosened; and the tears
came streaming forth.

'Mrs Pipchin,' said his father, in a querulous manner, 'I am really
very sorry to see this.'

'Come away from him, do, Miss Dombey,' quoth the matron.

'Never mind,' said the Doctor, blandly nodding his head, to keep
Mrs Pipchin back. 'Never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new
impressions, Mr Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little
friend to acquire - '

'Everything, if you please, Doctor,' returned Mr Dombey, firmly.

'Yes,' said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual
smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might
attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. 'Yes,
exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our
little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I daresay. I daresay.
Quite a virgin soil, I believe you said, Mr Dombey?'

'Except some ordinary preparation at home, and from this lady,'
replied Mr Dombey, introducing Mrs Pipchin, who instantly communicated
a rigidity to her whole muscular system, and snorted defiance
beforehand, in case the Doctor should disparage her; 'except so far,
Paul has, as yet, applied himself to no studies at all.'

Doctor Blimber inclined his head, in gentle tolerance of such
insignificant poaching as Mrs Pipchin's, and said he was glad to hear
it. It was much more satisfactory, he observed, rubbing his hands, to
begin at the foundation. And again he leered at Paul, as if he would
have liked to tackle him with the Greek alphabet, on the spot.

'That circumstance, indeed, Doctor Blimber,' pursued Mr Dombey,
glancing at his little son, 'and the interview I have already had the
pleasure of holding with you, renders any further explanation, and
consequently, any further intrusion on your valuable time, so
unnecessary, that - '

'Now, Miss Dombey!' said the acid Pipchin.

'Permit me,' said the Doctor, 'one moment. Allow me to present Mrs
Blimber and my daughter; who will be associated with the domestic life
of our young Pilgrim to Parnassus Mrs Blimber,' for the lady, who had
perhaps been in waiting, opportunely entered, followed by her
daughter, that fair Sexton in spectacles, 'Mr Dombey. My daughter
Cornelia, Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey, my love,' pursued the Doctor, turning
to his wife, 'is so confiding as to - do you see our little friend?'

Mrs Blimber, in an excess of politeness, of which Mr Dombey was the
object, apparently did not, for she was backing against the little
friend, and very much endangering his position on the table. But, on
this hint, she turned to admire his classical and intellectual
lineaments, and turning again to Mr Dombey, said, with a sigh, that
she envied his dear son.

'Like a bee, Sir,' said Mrs Blimber, with uplifted eyes, 'about to
plunge into a garden of the choicest flowers, and sip the sweets for
the first time Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Terence, Plautus, Cicero. What a
world of honey have we here. It may appear remarkable, Mr Dombey, in
one who is a wife - the wife of such a husband - '

'Hush, hush,' said Doctor Blimber. 'Fie for shame.'

'Mr Dombey will forgive the partiality of a wife,' said Mrs
Blimber, with an engaging smile.

Mr Dombey answered 'Not at all:' applying those words, it is to be
presumed, to the partiality, and not to the forgiveness.

'And it may seem remarkable in one who is a mother also,' resumed
Mrs Blimber.

'And such a mother,' observed Mr Dombey, bowing with some confused
idea of being complimentary to Cornelia.

'But really,' pursued Mrs Blimber, 'I think if I could have known
Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at
Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum!), I could have died contented.'

A learned enthusiasm is so very contagious, that Mr Dombey half
believed this was exactly his case; and even Mrs Pipchin, who was not,
as we have seen, of an accommodating disposition generally, gave
utterance to a little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she
would have said that nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting
consolation under that failure of the Peruvian MInes, but that he
indeed would have been a very Davy-lamp of refuge.

Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she
would have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority
in question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by
a knock at the room-door.

'Who is that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr
Dombey, Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber.
'Here we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy,
Mr Dombey.'

The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for
he was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very
much at finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.

'An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; 'Mr
Dombey's son.'

Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which
prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, 'How
are you?' in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb
had roared it couldn't have been more surprising.

'Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare
a few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot him a
convenient seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen
the dormitories.'

'If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,' said Mrs Blimber, 'I shall be
more than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'

With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry
figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, pied
upstairs with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and
looking out sharp for her enemy the footman.

While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by
the hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the
room, while the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in
his breast as usual, held a book from him at arm's length, and read.
There was something very awful in this manner of reading. It was such
a determined, unimpassioned, inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to
work. It left the Doctor's countenance exposed to view; and when the
Doctor smiled suspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or shook
his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, 'Don't tell me,
Sir; I know better,' it was terrific.

Toots, too, had no business to be outside the door, ostentatiously
examining the wheels in his watch, and counting his half-crowns. But
that didn't last long; for Doctor Blimber, happening to change the
position of his tight plump legs, as if he were going to get up, Toots
swiftly vanished, and appeared no more.

Mr Dombey and his conductress were soon heard coming downstairs
again, talking all the way; and presently they re-entered the Doctor's
study.

'I hope, Mr Dombey,' said the Doctor, laying down his book, 'that
the arrangements meet your approval.'

'They are excellent, Sir,' said Mr Dombey.

'Very fair, indeed,' said Mrs Pipchin, in a low voice; never
disposed to give too much encouragement.

'Mrs Pipchin,' said Mr Dombey, wheeling round, 'will, with your
permission, Doctor and Mrs Blimber, visit Paul now and then.'

'Whenever Mrs Pipchin pleases,' observed the Doctor.

'Always happy to see her,' said Mrs Blimber.

'I think,' said Mr Dombey, 'I have given all the trouble I need,
and may take my leave. Paul, my child,' he went close to him, as he
sat upon the table. 'Good-bye.'

'Good-bye, Papa.'

The limp and careless little hand that Mr Dombey took in his, was
singularly out of keeping with the wistful face. But he had no part in
its sorrowful expression. It was not addressed to him. No, no. To
Florence - all to Florence.

If Mr Dombey in his insolence of wealth, had ever made an enemy,
hard to appease and cruelly vindictive in his hate, even such an enemy
might have received the pang that wrung his proud heart then, as
compensation for his injury.

He bent down, over his boy, and kissed him. If his sight were
dimmed as he did so, by something that for a moment blurred the little
face, and made it indistinct to him, his mental vision may have been,
for that short time, the clearer perhaps.

'I shall see you soon, Paul. You are free on Saturdays and Sundays,
you know.'

'Yes, Papa,' returned Paul: looking at his sister. 'On Saturdays
and Sundays.'

'And you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man,'
said Mr Dombey; 'won't you?'

'I'll try,' returned the child, wearily.

'And you'll soon be grown up now!' said Mr Dombey.

'Oh! very soon!' replied the child. Once more the old, old look
passed rapidly across his features like a strange light. It fell on
Mrs Pipchin, and extinguished itself in her black dress. That
excellent ogress stepped forward to take leave and to bear off
Florence, which she had long been thirsting to do. The move on her
part roused Mr Dombey, whose eyes were fixed on Paul. After patting
him on the head, and pressing his small hand again, he took leave of
Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber, with his usual polite
frigidity, and walked out of the study.

Despite his entreaty that they would not think of stirring, Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend
him to the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement
with Miss Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study
before she could clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood
afterwards indebted for the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back
to throw her arms round his neck, and that hers was the last face in
the doorway: turned towards him with a smile of encouragement, the
brighter for the tears through which it beamed.

It made his childish bosom heave and swell when it was gone; and
sent the globes, the books, blind Homer and Minerva, swimming round
the room. But they stopped, all of a sudden; and then he heard the
loud clock in the hall still gravely inquiring 'how, is, my, lit, tle,
friend? how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?' as it had done before.

He sat, with folded hands, upon his pedestal, silently listening.
But he might have answered 'weary, weary! very lonely, very sad!' And
there, with an aching void in his young heart, and all outside so
cold, and bare, and strange, Paul sat as if he had taken life
unfurnished, and the upholsterer were never coming.

CHAPTER 12.

Paul's Education

After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to
little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The
Doctor's walk was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind
with solemn feelings. It was a sort of march; but when the Doctor put
out his right foot, he gravely turned upon his axis, with a
semi-circular sweep towards the left; and when he put out his left
foot, he turned in the same manner towards the right. So that he
seemed, at every stride he took, to look about him as though he were
saying, 'Can anybody have the goodness to indicate any subject, in any
direction, on which I am uninformed? I rather think not'

Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber came back in the Doctor's company; and
the Doctor, lifting his new pupil off the table, delivered him over to
Miss Blimber.

'Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'Dombey will be your charge at first.
Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.'

Miss Blimber received her young ward from the Doctor's hands; and
Paul, feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his
eyes.

'How old are you, Dombey?' said Miss Blimber.

'Six,' answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young
lady, why her hair didn't grow long like Florence's, and why she was
like a boy.

'How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?' said Miss
Blimber.

'None of it,' answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to
Miss Blimber's sensibility, he looked up at the three faces that were
looking down at him, and said:

'I have'n't been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn't learn a
Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you'd
tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.'

'What a dreadfully low name' said Mrs Blimber. 'Unclassical to a
degree! Who is the monster, child?'

'What monster?' inquired Paul.

'Glubb,' said Mrs Blimber, with a great disrelish.

'He's no more a monster than you are,' returned Paul.

'What!' cried the Doctor, in a terrible voice. 'Ay, ay, ay? Aha!
What's that?'

Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the
absent Glubb, though he did it trembling.

'He's a very nice old man, Ma'am,' he said. 'He used to draw my
couch. He knows all about the deep sea, and the fish that are in it,
and the great monsters that come and lie on rocks in the sun, and dive
into the water again when they're startled, blowing and splashing so,
that they can be heard for miles. There are some creatures, said Paul,
warming with his subject, 'I don't know how many yards long, and I
forget their names, but Florence knows, that pretend to be in
distress; and when a man goes near them, out of compassion, they open
their great jaws, and attack him. But all he has got to do,' said
Paul, boldly tendering this information to the very Doctor himself,
'is to keep on turning as he runs away, and then, as they turn slowly,
because they are so long, and can't bend, he's sure to beat them. And
though old Glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my
Mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying - always
saying! he knows a great deal about it. And I wish,' the child
concluded, with a sudden falling of his countenance, and failing in
his animation, as he looked like one forlorn, upon the three strange
faces, 'that you'd let old Glubb come here to see me, for I know him
very well, and he knows me.

'Ha!' said the Doctor, shaking his head; 'this is bad, but study
will do much.'

Mrs Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an
unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage,
looked at him pretty much as Mrs Pipchin had been used to do.

'Take him round the house, Cornelia,' said the Doctor, 'and
familiarise him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.'

Dombey obeyed; giving his hand to the abstruse Cornelia, and
looking at her sideways, with timid curiosity, as they went away
together. For her spectacles, by reason of the glistening of the
glasses, made her so mysterious, that he didn't know where she was
looking, and was not indeed quite sure that she had any eyes at all
behind them.

Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom, which was situated at
the back of the hall, and was approached through two baize doors,
which deadened and muffled the young gentlemen's voices. Here, there
were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration,
all very hard at work, and very grave indeed. Toots, as an old hand,
had a desk to himself in one corner: and a magnificent man, of immense
age, he looked, in Paul's young eyes, behind it.

Mr Feeder, B.A., who sat at another little desk, had his Virgil
stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of
the remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively,
were engaged in solving mathematical problems; one with his face like
a dirty window, from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through
a hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his
task in stony stupefaction and despair - which it seemed had been his
condition ever since breakfast time.

The appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might
have been expected. Mr Feeder, B.A. (who was in the habit of shaving
his head for coolness, and had nothing but little bristles on it),
gave him a bony hand, and told him he was glad to see him - which Paul
would have been very glad to have told him, if he could have done so
with the least sincerity. Then Paul, instructed by Cornelia, shook
hands with the four young gentlemen at Mr Feeder's desk; then with the
two young gentlemen at work on the problems, who were very feverish;
then with the young gentleman at work against time, who was very inky;
and lastly with the young gentleman in a state of stupefaction, who
was flabby and quite cold.

Paul having been already introduced to Toots, that pupil merely
chuckled and breathed hard, as his custom was, and pursued the
occupation in which he was engaged. It was not a severe one; for on
account of his having 'gone through' so much (in more senses than
one), and also of his having, as before hinted, left off blowing in
his prime, Toots now had licence to pursue his own course of study:
which was chiefly to write long letters to himself from persons of
distinction, adds 'P. Toots, Esquire, Brighton, Sussex,' and to
preserve them in his desk with great care.

These ceremonies passed, Cornelia led Paul upstairs to the top of
the house; which was rather a slow journey, on account of Paul being
obliged to land both feet on every stair, before he mounted another.
But they reached their journey's end at last; and there, in a front
room, looking over the wild sea, Cornelia showed him a nice little bed
with white hangings, close to the window, on which there was already
beautifully written on a card in round text - down strokes very thick,
and up strokes very fine - DOMBEY; while two other little bedsteads in
the same room were announced, through like means, as respectively
appertaining unto BRIGGS and TOZER.

Just as they got downstairs again into the hall, Paul saw the
weak-eyed young man who had given that mortal offence to Mrs Pipchin,
suddenly seize a very large drumstick, and fly at a gong that was
hanging up, as if he had gone mad, or wanted vengeance. Instead of
receiving warning, however, or being instantly taken into custody, the
young man left off unchecked, after having made a dreadful noise. Then
Cornelia Blimber said to Dombey that dinner would be ready in a
quarter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go into the schoolroom
among his 'friends.'

So Dombey, deferentially passing the great clock which was still as
anxious as ever to know how he found himself, opened the schoolroom
door a very little way, and strayed in like a lost boy: shutting it
after him with some difficulty. His friends were all dispersed about
the room except the stony friend, who remained immoveable. Mr Feeder
was stretching himself in his grey gown, as if, regardless of expense,
he were resolved to pull the sleeves off.

'Heigh ho hum!' cried Mr Feeder, shaking himself like a cart-horse.
'Oh dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!'

Paul was quite alarmed by Mr Feeder's yawning; it was done on such
a great scale, and he was so terribly in earnest. All the boys too
(Toots excepted) seemed knocked up, and were getting ready for dinner
- some newly tying their neckcloths, which were very stiff indeed; and
others washing their hands or brushing their hair, in an adjoining
ante-chamber - as if they didn't think they should enjoy it at all.

Young Toots who was ready beforehand, and had therefore nothing to
do, and had leisure to bestow upon Paul, said, with heavy good nature:

'Sit down, Dombey.'

'Thank you, Sir,' said Paul.

His endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat,
and his slipping down again, appeared to prepare Toots's mind for the
reception of a discovery.

'You're a very small chap;' said Mr Toots.

'Yes, Sir, I'm small,' returned Paul. 'Thank you, Sir.'

For Toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too.

'Who's your tailor?' inquired Toots, after looking at him for some
moments.

'It's a woman that has made my clothes as yet,' said Paul. 'My
sister's dressmaker.'

'My tailor's Burgess and Co.,' said Toots. 'Fash'nable. But very
dear.'

Paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it
was easy to see that; and indeed he thought so.

'Your father's regularly rich, ain't he?' inquired Mr Toots.

'Yes, Sir,' said Paul. 'He's Dombey and Son.'

'And which?' demanded Toots.

'And Son, Sir,' replied Paul.

Mr Toots made one or two attempts, in a low voice, to fix the Firm
in his mind; but not quite succeeding, said he would get Paul to
mention the name again to-morrow morning, as it was rather important.
And indeed he purposed nothing less than writing himself a private and
confidential letter from Dombey and Son immediately.

By this time the other pupils (always excepting the stony boy)
gathered round. They were polite, but pale; and spoke low; and they
were so depressed in their spirits, that in comparison with the
general tone of that company, Master Bitherstone was a perfect Miller,
or complete Jest Book.' And yet he had a sense of injury upon him,
too, had Bitherstone.

'You sleep in my room, don't you?' asked a solemn young gentleman,
whose shirt-collar curled up the lobes of his ears.

'Master Briggs?' inquired Paul.

'Tozer,' said the young gentleman.

Paul answered yes; and Tozer pointing out the stony pupil, said
that was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either
Briggs or Tozer, though he didn't know why.

'Is yours a strong constitution?' inquired Tozer.

Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied that he thought not also,
judging from Paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He
then asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul
saying 'yes,' all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low
groan.

It was drowned in the tintinnabulation of the gong, which sounding
again with great fury, there was a general move towards the
dining-room; still excepting Briggs the stony boy, who remained where
he was, and as he was; and on its way to whom Paul presently
encountered a round of bread, genteelly served on a plate and napkin,
and with a silver fork lying crosswise on the top of it.

Doctor Blimber was already in his place in the dining-room, at the
top of the table, with Miss Blimber and Mrs Blimber on either side of
him. Mr Feeder in a black coat was at the bottom. Paul's chair was
next to Miss Blimber; but it being found, when he sat in it, that his
eyebrows were not much above the level of the table-cloth, some books
were brought in from the Doctor's study, on which he was elevated, and
on which he always sat from that time - carrying them in and out
himself on after occasions, like a little elephant and castle.'

Grace having been said by the Doctor, dinner began. There was some
nice soup; also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese.
Every young gentleman had a massive silver fork, and a napkin; and all
the arrangements were stately and handsome. In particular, there was a
butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey
flavour to the table beer; he poured it out so superbly.

Nobody spoke, unless spoken to, except Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber,
and Miss Blimber, who conversed occasionally. Whenever a young
gentleman was not actually engaged with his knife and fork or spoon,
his eye, with an irresistible attraction, sought the eye of Doctor
Blimber, Mrs Blimber, or Miss Blimber, and modestly rested there.
Toots appeared to be the only exception to this rule. He sat next Mr
Feeder on Paul's side of the table, and frequently looked behind and
before the intervening boys to catch a glimpse of Paul.

Only once during dinner was there any conversation that included
the young gentlemen. It happened at the epoch of the cheese, when the
Doctor, having taken a glass of port wine, and hemmed twice or thrice,
said:

'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder, that the Romans - '

At the mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies,
every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the Doctor, with an
assumption of the deepest interest. One of the number who happened to
be drinking, and who caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through
the side of his tumbler, left off so hastily that he was convulsed for
some moments, and in the sequel ruined Doctor Blimber's point.

'It is remarkable, Mr Feeder,' said the Doctor, beginning again
slowly, 'that the Romans, in those gorgeous and profuse entertainments
of which we read in the days of the Emperors, when luxury had attained
a height unknown before or since, and when whole provinces were
ravaged to supply the splendid means of one Imperial Banquet - '

Here the offender, who had been swelling and straining, and waiting
in vain for a full stop, broke out violently.

'Johnson,' said Mr Feeder, in a low reproachful voice, 'take some
water.'

The Doctor, looking very stern, made a pause until the water was
brought, and then resumed:

'And when, Mr Feeder - '

But Mr Feeder, who saw that Johnson must break out again, and who
knew that the Doctor would never come to a period before the young
gentlemen until he had finished all he meant to say, couldn't keep his
eye off Johnson; and thus was caught in the fact of not looking at the
Doctor, who consequently stopped.

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Feeder, reddening. 'I beg your
pardon, Doctor Blimber.'

'And when,' said the Doctor, raising his voice, 'when, Sir, as we
read, and have no reason to doubt - incredible as it may appear to the
vulgar - of our time - the brother of Vitellius prepared for him a
feast, in which were served, of fish, two thousand dishes - '

'Take some water, Johnson - dishes, Sir,' said Mr Feeder.

'Of various sorts of fowl, five thousand dishes.'

'Or try a crust of bread,' said Mr Feeder.

'And one dish,' pursued Doctor Blimber, raising his voice still
higher as he looked all round the table, 'called, from its enormous
dimensions, the Shield of Minerva, and made, among other costly
ingredients, of the brains of pheasants - '

'Ow, ow, ow!' (from Johnson.)

'Woodcocks - '

'Ow, ow, ow!'

'The sounds of the fish called scari - '

'You'll burst some vessel in your head,' said Mr Feeder. 'You had
better let it come.'

'And the spawn of the lamprey, brought from the Carpathian Sea,'
pursued the Doctor, in his severest voice; 'when we read of costly
entertainments such as these, and still remember, that we have a Titus
- '

'What would be your mother's feelings if you died of apoplexy!'
said Mr Feeder.

'A Domitian - '

'And you're blue, you know,' said Mr Feeder.

'A Nero, a Tiberius, a Caligula, a Heliogabalus, and many more,
pursued the Doctor; 'it is, Mr Feeder - if you are doing me the honour
to attend - remarkable; VERY remarkable, Sir - '

But Johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst at that moment
into such an overwhelming fit of coughing, that although both his
immediate neighbours thumped him on the back, and Mr Feeder himself
held a glass of water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and
down several times between his own chair and the sideboard, like a
sentry, it was a full five minutes before he was moderately composed.
Then there was a profound silence.

'Gentlemen,' said Doctor Blimber, 'rise for Grace! Cornelia, lift
Dombey down' - nothing of whom but his scalp was accordingly seen
above the tablecloth. 'Johnson will repeat to me tomorrow morning
before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, the
first chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will
resume our studies, Mr Feeder, in half-an-hour.'

The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. Mr Feeder did likewise.
During the half-hour, the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered
arm-in-arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house, or
endeavoured to kindle a spark of animation in the breast of Briggs.
But nothing happened so vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed
time, the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices
of Doctor Blimber and Mr Feeder, were resumed.

As the Olympic game of lounging up and down had been cut shorter
than usual that day, on Johnson's account, they all went out for a
walk before tea. Even Briggs (though he hadn't begun yet) partook of
this dissipation; in the enjoyment of which he looked over the cliff
two or three times darkly. Doctor Blimber accompanied them; and Paul
had the honour of being taken in tow by the Doctor himself: a
distinguished state of things, in which he looked very little and
feeble.

Tea was served in a style no less polite than the dinner; and after
tea, the young gentlemen rising and bowing as before, withdrew to
fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day, or to get up the already
looming tasks of to-morrow. In the meantime Mr Feeder withdrew to his
own room; and Paul sat in a corner wondering whether Florence was
thinking of him, and what they were all about at Mrs Pipchin's.

Mr Toots, who had been detained by an important letter from the
Duke of Wellington, found Paul out after a time; and having looked at
him for a long while, as before, inquired if he was fond of
waistcoats.

Paul said 'Yes, Sir.'

'So am I,' said Toots.

No word more spoke Toots that night; but he stood looking at Paul
as if he liked him; and as there was company in that, and Paul was not
inclined to talk, it answered his purpose better than conversation.

At eight o'clock or so, the gong sounded again for prayers in the
dining-room, where the butler afterwards presided over a side-table,
on which bread and cheese and beer were spread for such young
gentlemen as desired to partake of those refreshments. The ceremonies
concluded by the Doctor's saying, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our
studies at seven to-morrow;' and then, for the first time, Paul saw
Cornelia Blimber's eye, and saw that it was upon him. When the Doctor
had said these words, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies at seven
tomorrow,' the pupils bowed again, and went to bed.

In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head
ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it
wasn't for his mother, and a blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say
much, but he sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his
turn would come to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he
undressed himself moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed
too, and Paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared
to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant
dreams. But his benevolent wishes were in vain, as far as Briggs and
Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay awake for a long while, and
often woke afterwards, found that Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a
nightmare: and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by
similar causes, in a minor degree talked unknown tongues, or scraps of
Greek and Latin - it was all one to Paul- which, in the silence of
night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.

Paul had sunk into a sweet sleep, and dreamed that he was walking
hand in hand with Florence through beautiful gardens, when they came
to a large sunflower which suddenly expanded itself into a gong, and
began to sound. Opening his eyes, he found that it was a dark, windy
morning, with a drizzling rain: and that the real gong was giving
dreadful note of preparation, down in the hall.

So he got up directly, and found Briggs with hardly any eyes, for
nightmare and grief had made his face puffy, putting his boots on:
while Tozer stood shivering and rubbing his shoulders in a very bad
humour. Poor Paul couldn't dress himself easily, not being used to it,
and asked them if they would have the goodness to tie some strings for
him; but as Briggs merely said 'Bother!' and Tozer, 'Oh yes!' he went
down when he was otherwise ready, to the next storey, where he saw a
pretty young woman in leather gloves, cleaning a stove. The young
woman seemed surprised at his appearance, and asked him where his
mother was. When Paul told her she was dead, she took her gloves off,
and did what he wanted; and furthermore rubbed his hands to warm them;
and gave him a kiss; and told him whenever he wanted anything of that
sort - meaning in the dressing way - to ask for 'Melia; which Paul,
thanking her very much, said he certainly would. He then proceeded
softly on his journey downstairs, towards the room in which the young
gentlemen resumed their studies, when, passing by a door that stood
ajar, a voice from within cried, 'Is that Dombey?' On Paul replying,
'Yes, Ma'am:' for he knew the voice to be Miss Blimber's: Miss Blimber
said, 'Come in, Dombey.' And in he went. Miss Blimber presented
exactly the appearance she had presented yesterday, except that she
wore a shawl. Her little light curls were as crisp as ever, and she
had already her spectacles on, which made Paul wonder whether she went
to bed in them. She had a cool little sitting-room of her own up
there, with some books in it, and no fire But Miss Blimber was never
cold, and never sleepy.

Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I am going out for a
constitutional.'

Paul wondered what that was, and why she didn't send the footman
out to get it in such unfavourable weather. But he made no observation
on the subject: his attention being devoted to a little pile of new
books, on which Miss Blimber appeared to have been recently engaged.

'These are yours, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber.

'All of 'em, Ma'am?' said Paul.

'Yes,' returned Miss Blimber; 'and Mr Feeder will look you out some
more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be,
Dombey.'

'Thank you, Ma'am,' said Paul.

'I am going out for a constitutional,' resumed Miss Blimber; 'and
while I am gone, that is to say in the interval between this and
breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in these
books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to
learn. Don't lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take
them downstairs, and begin directly.'

'Yes, Ma'am,' answered Paul.

There were so many of them, that although Paul put one hand under
the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and
hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached
the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Miss Blimber
said, 'Oh, Dombey, Dombey, this is really very careless!' and piled
them up afresh for him; and this time, by dint of balancing them with
great nicety, Paul got out of the room, and down a few stairs before
two of them escaped again. But he held the rest so tight, that he only
left one more on the first floor, and one in the passage; and when he
had got the main body down into the schoolroom, he set off upstairs
again to collect the stragglers. Having at last amassed the whole
library, and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a
remark from Tozer to the effect that he 'was in for it now;' which was
the only interruption he received till breakfast time. At that meal,
for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and
genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed Miss
Blimber upstairs.

'Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'How have you got on with those
books?'

They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin - names of
things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon,
and preliminary rules - a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient
history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three
weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul
had spelt out number two, he found he had no idea of number one;
fragments whereof afterwards obtruded themselves into number three,
which slided into number four, which grafted itself on to number two.
So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic haec hoc was
troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three
times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.

'Oh, Dombey, Dombey!' said Miss Blimber, 'this is very shocking.'

'If you please,' said Paul, 'I think if I might sometimes talk a
little to old Glubb, I should be able to do better.'

'Nonsense, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't hear of it. This
is not the place for Glubbs of any kind. You must take the books down,
I suppose, Dombey, one by one, and perfect yourself in the day's
instalment of subject A, before you turn at all to subject B. I am
sorry to say, Dombey, that your education appears to have been very
much neglected.'

'So Papa says,' returned Paul; 'but I told you - I have been a weak
child. Florence knows I have. So does Wickam.'

'Who is Wickam?' asked Miss Blimber.

'She has been my nurse,' Paul answered.

'I must beg you not to mention Wickam to me, then,' said Miss
Blimber.'I couldn't allow it'.

'You asked me who she was,' said Paul.

'Very well,' returned Miss Blimber; 'but this is all very different
indeed from anything of that sort, Dombey, and I couldn't think of
permitting it. As to having been weak, you must begin to be strong.
And now take away the top book, if you please, Dombey, and return when
you are master of the theme.'

Miss Blimber expressed her opinions on the subject of Paul's
uninstructed state with a gloomy delight, as if she had expected this
result, and were glad to find that they must be in constant
communication. Paul withdrew with the top task, as he was told, and
laboured away at it, down below: sometimes remembering every word of
it, and sometimes forgetting it all, and everything else besides:
until at last he ventured upstairs again to repeat the lesson, when it
was nearly all driven out of his head before he began, by Miss
Blimber's shutting up the book, and saying, 'Good, Dombey!' a
proceeding so suggestive of the knowledge inside of her, that Paul
looked upon the young lady with consternation, as a kind of learned
Guy Faux, or artificial Bogle, stuffed full of scholastic straw.

He acquitted himself very well, nevertheless; and Miss Blimber,
commending him as giving promise of getting on fast, immediately
provided him with subject B; from which he passed to C, and even D
before dinner. It was hard work, resuming his studies, soon after
dinner; and he felt giddy and confused and drowsy and dull. But all
the other young gentlemen had similar sensations, and were obliged to
resume their studies too, if there were any comfort in that. It was a
wonder that the great clock in the hall, instead of being constant to
its first inquiry, never said, 'Gentlemen, we will now resume our
studies,' for that phrase was often enough repeated in its
neighbourhood. The studies went round like a mighty wheel, and the
young gentlemen were always stretched upon it.

After tea there were exercises again, and preparations for next day
by candlelight. And in due course there was bed; where, but for that
resumption of the studies which took place in dreams, were rest and
sweet forgetfulness.

Oh Saturdays! Oh happy Saturdays, when Florence always came at
noon, and never would, in any weather, stay away, though Mrs Pipchin
snarled and growled, and worried her bitterly. Those Saturdays were
Sabbaths for at least two little Christians among all the Jews, and
did the holy Sabbath work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's
and a sister's love.

Not even Sunday nights - the heavy Sunday nights, whose shadow
darkened the first waking burst of light on Sunday mornings - could
mar those precious Saturdays. Whether it was the great sea-shore,
where they sat, and strolled together; or whether it was only Mrs
Pipchin's dull back room, in which she sang to him so softly, with his
drowsy head upon her arm; Paul never cared. It was Florence. That was
all he thought of. So, on Sunday nights, when the Doctor's dark door
stood agape to swallow him up for another week, the time was come for
taking leave of Florence; no one else.

Mrs Wickam had been drafted home to the house in town, and Miss
Nipper, now a smart young woman, had come down. To many a single
combat with Mrs Pipchin, did Miss Nipper gallantly devote herself, and
if ever Mrs Pipchin in all her life had found her match, she had found
it now. Miss Nipper threw away the scabbard the first morning she
arose in Mrs Pipchin's house. She asked and gave no quarter. She said
it must be war, and war it was; and Mrs Pipchin lived from that time
in the midst of surprises, harassings, and defiances, and skirmishing
attacks that came bouncing in upon her from the passage, even in
unguarded moments of chops, and carried desolation to her very toast.

Miss Nipper had returned one Sunday night with Florence, from
walking back with Paul to the Doctor's, when Florence took from her
bosom a little piece of paper, on which she had pencilled down some
words.

'See here, Susan,' she said. 'These are the names of the little
books that Paul brings home to do those long exercises with, when he
is so tired. I copied them last night while he was writing.'

'Don't show 'em to me, Miss Floy, if you please,' returned Nipper,
'I'd as soon see Mrs Pipchin.'

'I want you to buy them for me, Susan, if you will, tomorrow
morning. I have money enough,' said Florence.

'Why, goodness gracious me, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, 'how
can you talk like that, when you have books upon books already, and
masterses and mississes a teaching of you everything continual, though
my belief is that your Pa, Miss Dombey, never would have learnt you
nothing, never would have thought of it, unless you'd asked him - when
be couldn't well refuse; but giving consent when asked, and offering
when unasked, Miss, is quite two things; I may not have my objections
to a young man's keeping company with me, and when he puts the
question, may say "yes," but that's not saying "would you be so kind
as like me."'

'But you can buy me the books, Susan; and you will, when you know
why I want them.'

'Well, Miss, and why do you want 'em?' replied Nipper; adding, in a
lower voice, 'If it was to fling at Mrs Pipchin's head, I'd buy a
cart-load.'

'Paul has a great deal too much to do, Susan,' said Florence, 'I am
sure of it.'

'And well you may be, Miss,' returned her maid, 'and make your mind
quite easy that the willing dear is worked and worked away. If those
is Latin legs,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, with strong feeling - in
allusion to Paul's; 'give me English ones.'

'I am afraid he feels lonely and lost at Doctor Blimber's, Susan,'
pursued Florence, turning away her face.

'Ah,' said Miss Nipper, with great sharpness, 'Oh, them "Blimbers"'

'Don't blame anyone,' said Florence. 'It's a mistake.'

'I say nothing about blame, Miss,' cried Miss Nipper, 'for I know
that you object, but I may wish, Miss, that the family was set to work
to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front and had the
pickaxe.'

After this speech, Miss Nipper, who was perfectly serious, wiped
her eyes.

'I think I could perhaps give Paul some help, Susan, if I had these
books,' said Florence, 'and make the coming week a little easier to
him. At least I want to try. So buy them for me, dear, and I will
never forget how kind it was of you to do it!'

It must have been a harder heart than Susan Nipper's that could
have rejected the little purse Florence held out with these words, or
the gentle look of entreaty with which she seconded her petition.
Susan put the purse in her pocket without reply, and trotted out at
once upon her errand.

The books were not easy to procure; and the answer at several shops
was, either that they were just out of them, or that they never kept
them, or that they had had a great many last month, or that they
expected a great many next week But Susan was not easily baffled in
such an enterprise; and having entrapped a white-haired youth, in a
black calico apron, from a library where she was known, to accompany
her in her quest, she led him such a life in going up and down, that
he exerted himself to the utmost, if it were only to get rid of her;
and finally enabled her to return home in triumph.

With these treasures then, after her own daily lessons were over,
Florence sat down at night to track Paul's footsteps through the
thorny ways of learning; and being possessed of a naturally quick and
sound capacity, and taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it
was not long before she gained upon Paul's heels, and caught and
passed him.

Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs Pipchin: but many a night
when they were all in bed, and when Miss Nipper, with her hair in
papers and herself asleep in some uncomfortable attitude, reposed
unconscious by her side; and when the chinking ashes in the grate were
cold and grey; and when the candles were burnt down and guttering out;
- Florence tried so hard to be a substitute for one small Dombey, that
her fortitude and perseverance might have almost won her a free right
to bear the name herself.

And high was her reward, when one Saturday evening, as little Paul
was sitting down as usual to 'resume his studies,' she sat down by his
side, and showed him all that was so rough, made smooth, and all that
was so dark, made clear and plain, before him. It was nothing but a
startled look in Paul's wan face - a flush - a smile - and then a
close embrace - but God knows how her heart leapt up at this rich
payment for her trouble.

'Oh, Floy!' cried her brother, 'how I love you! How I love you,
Floy!'

'And I you, dear!'

'Oh! I am sure of that, Floy.'

He said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her,
very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within
hers, three or four times, that he loved her.

Regularly, after that, Florence was prepared to sit down with Paul
on Saturday night, and patiently assist him through so much as they
could anticipate together of his next week's work. The cheering
thought that he was labouring on where Florence had just toiled before
him, would, of itself, have been a stimulant to Paul in the perpetual
resumption of his studies; but coupled with the actual lightening of
his load, consequent on this assistance, it saved him, possibly, from
sinking underneath the burden which the fair Cornelia Blimber piled
upon his back.

It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that
Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in
general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred;
and the Doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the
young gentlemen as if they were all Doctors, and were born grown up.
Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen's nearest relations,
and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would
have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or
trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack.

Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great
progress and was naturally clever, Mr Dombey was more bent than ever
on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor
Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not
naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In
short, however high and false the temperature at which the Doctor kept
his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a
helping hand at the bellows, and to stir the fire.

Such spirits as he had in the outset, Paul soon lost of course. But
he retained all that was strange, and old, and thoughtful in his
character: and under circumstances so favourable to the development of
those tendencies, became even more strange, and old, and thoughtful,
than before.

The only difference was, that he kept his character to himself. He
grew more thoughtful and reserved, every day; and had no such
curiosity in any living member of the Doctor's household, as he had
had in Mrs Pipchin. He loved to be alone; and in those short intervals
when he was not occupied with his books, liked nothing so well as
wandering about the house by himself, or sitting on the stairs,
listening to the great clock in the hall. He was intimate with all the
paperhanging in the house; saw things that no one else saw in the
patterns; found out miniature tigers and lions running up the bedroom
walls, and squinting faces leering in the squares and diamonds of the
floor-cloth.

The solitary child lived on, surrounded by this arabesque work of
his musing fancy, and no one understood him. Mrs Blimber thought him
'odd,' and sometimes the servants said among themselves that little
Dombey 'moped;' but that was all.

Unless young Toots had some idea on the subject, to the expression
of which he was wholly unequal. Ideas, like ghosts (according to the
common notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before they will
explain themselves; and Toots had long left off asking any questions
of his own mind. Some mist there may have been, issuing from that
leaden casket, his cranium, which, if it could have taken shape and
form, would have become a genie; but it could not; and it only so far
followed the example of the smoke in the Arabian story, as to roll out
in a thick cloud, and there hang and hover. But it left a little
figure visible upon a lonely shore, and Toots was always staring at
it.

'How are you?' he would say to Paul, fifty times a day. 'Quite
well, Sir, thank you,' Paul would answer. 'Shake hands,' would be
Toots's next advance.

Which Paul, of course, would immediately do. Mr Toots generally
said again, after a long interval of staring and hard breathing, 'How
are you?' To which Paul again replied, 'Quite well, Sir, thank you.'

One evening Mr Toots was sitting at his desk, oppressed by
correspondence, when a great purpose seemed to flash upon him. He laid
down his pen, and went off to seek Paul, whom he found at last, after
a long search, looking through the window of his little bedroom.

'I say!' cried Toots, speaking the moment he entered the room, lest
he should forget it; 'what do you think about?'

'Oh! I think about a great many things,' replied Paul.

'Do you, though?' said Toots, appearing to consider that fact in
itself surprising. 'If you had to die,' said Paul, looking up into his
face - Mr Toots started, and seemed much disturbed.

'Don't you think you would rather die on a moonlight night, when
the sky was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as it did last night?'

Mr Toots said, looking doubtfully at Paul, and shaking his head,
that he didn't know about that.

'Not blowing, at least,' said Paul, 'but sounding in the air like
the sea sounds in the shells. It was a beautiful night. When I had
listened to the water for a long time, I got up and looked out. There
was a boat over there, in the full light of the moon; a boat with a
sail.'

The child looked at him so steadfastly, and spoke so earnestly,
that Mr Toots, feeling himself called upon to say something about this
boat, said, 'Smugglers.' But with an impartial remembrance of there
being two sides to every question, he added, 'or Preventive.'

'A boat with a sail,' repeated Paul, 'in the full light of the
moon. The sail like an arm, all silver. It went away into the
distance, and what do you think it seemed to do as it moved with the
waves?'

'Pitch,' said Mr Toots.

'It seemed to beckon,' said the child, 'to beckon me to come! -
There she is! There she is!'

Toots was almost beside himself with dismay at this sudden
exclamation, after what had gone before, and cried 'Who?'

'My sister Florence!' cried Paul, 'looking up here, and waving her
hand. She sees me - she sees me! Good-night, dear, good-night,
good-night.'

His quick transition to a state of unbounded pleasure, as he stood
at his window, kissing and clapping his hands: and the way in which
the light retreated from his features as she passed out of his view,
and left a patient melancholy on the little face: were too remarkable
wholly to escape even Toots's notice. Their interview being
interrupted at this moment by a visit from Mrs Pipchin, who usually
brought her black skirts to bear upon Paul just before dusk, once or
twice a week, Toots had no opportunity of improving the occasion: but
it left so marked an impression on his mind that he twice returned,
after having exchanged the usual salutations, to ask Mrs Pipchin how
she did. This the irascible old lady conceived to be a deeply devised
and long-meditated insult, originating in the diabolical invention of
the weak-eyed young man downstairs, against whom she accordingly
lodged a formal complaint with Doctor Blimber that very night; who
mentioned to the young man that if he ever did it again, he should be
obliged to part with him.

The evenings being longer now, Paul stole up to his window every
evening to look out for Florence. She always passed and repassed at a
certain time, until she saw him; and their mutual recognition was a
gleam of sunshine in Paul's daily life. Often after dark, one other
figure walked alone before the Doctor's house. He rarely joined them
on the Saturdays now. He could not bear it. He would rather come
unrecognised, and look up at the windows where his son was qualifying
for a man; and wait, and watch, and plan, and hope.

Oh! could he but have seen, or seen as others did, the slight spare
boy above, watching the waves and clouds at twilight, with his earnest
eyes, and breasting the window of his solitary cage when birds flew
by, as if he would have emulated them, and soared away!

CHAPTER 13.

Shipping Intelligence and Office Business

Mr Dombey's offices were in a court where there was an
old-established stall of choice fruit at the corner: where
perambulating merchants, of both sexes, offered for sale at any time
between the hours of ten and five, slippers, pocket-books, sponges,
dogs' collars, and Windsor soap; and sometimes a pointer or an
oil-painting.

The pointer always came that way, with a view to the Stock
Exchange, where a sporting taste (originating generally in bets of new
hats) is much in vogue. The other commodities were addressed to the
general public; but they were never offered by the vendors to Mr
Dombey. When he appeared, the dealers in those wares fell off
respectfully. The principal slipper and dogs' collar man - who
considered himself a public character, and whose portrait was screwed
on to an artist's door in Cheapside - threw up his forefinger to the
brim of his hat as Mr Dombey went by. The ticket-porter, if he were
not absent on a job, always ran officiously before, to open Mr
Dombey's office door as wide as possible, and hold it open, with his
hat off, while he entered.

The clerks within were not a whit behind-hand in their
demonstrations of respect. A solemn hush prevailed, as Mr Dombey
passed through the outer office. The wit of the Counting-House became
in a moment as mute as the row of leathern fire-buckets hanging up
behind him. Such vapid and flat daylight as filtered through the
ground-glass windows and skylights, leaving a black sediment upon the
panes, showed the books and papers, and the figures bending over them,
enveloped in a studious gloom, and as much abstracted in appearance,
from the world without, as if they were assembled at the bottom of the
sea; while a mouldy little strong room in the obscure perspective,
where a shaded lamp was always burning, might have represented the
cavern of some ocean monster, looking on with a red eye at these
mysteries of the deep.

When Perch the messenger, whose place was on a little bracket, like
a timepiece, saw Mr Dombey come in - or rather when he felt that he
was coming, for he had usually an instinctive sense of his approach -
he hurried into Mr Dombey's room, stirred the fire, carried fresh
coals from the bowels of the coal-box, hung the newspaper to air upon
the fender, put the chair ready, and the screen in its place, and was
round upon his heel on the instant of Mr Dombey's entrance, to take
his great-coat and hat, and hang them up. Then Perch took the
newspaper, and gave it a turn or two in his hands before the fire, and
laid it, deferentially, at Mr Dombey's elbow. And so little objection
had Perch to being deferential in the last degree, that if he might
have laid himself at Mr Dombey's feet, or might have called him by
some such title as used to be bestowed upon the Caliph Haroun
Alraschid, he would have been all the better pleased.

As this honour would have been an innovation and an experiment,
Perch was fain to content himself by expressing as well as he could,
in his manner, You are the light of my Eyes. You are the Breath of my
Soul. You are the commander of the Faithful Perch! With this imperfect
happiness to cheer him, he would shut the door softly, walk away on
tiptoe, and leave his great chief to be stared at, through a
dome-shaped window in the leads, by ugly chimney-pots and backs of
houses, and especially by the bold window of a hair-cutting saloon on
a first floor, where a waxen effigy, bald as a Mussulman in the
morning, and covered, after eleven o'clock in the day, with luxuriant
hair and whiskers in the latest Christian fashion, showed him the
wrong side of its head for ever.

Between Mr Dombey and the common world, as it was accessible
through the medium of the outer office - to which Mr Dombey's presence
in his own room may be said to have struck like damp, or cold air -
there were two degrees of descent. Mr Carker in his own office was the
first step; Mr Morfin, in his own office, was the second. Each of
these gentlemen occupied a little chamber like a bath-room, opening
from the passage outside Mr Dombey's door. Mr Carker, as Grand Vizier,
inhabited the room that was nearest to the Sultan. Mr Morfin, as an
officer of inferior state, inhabited the room that was nearest to the
clerks.

The gentleman last mentioned was a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed
elderly bachelor: gravely attired, as to his upper man, in black; and
as to his legs, in pepper-and-salt colour. His dark hair was just
touched here and there with specks of gray, as though the tread of
Time had splashed it; and his whiskers were already white. He had a
mighty respect for Mr Dombey, and rendered him due homage; but as he
was of a genial temper himself, and never wholly at his ease in that
stately presence, he was disquieted by no jealousy of the many
conferences enjoyed by Mr Carker, and felt a secret satisfaction in
having duties to discharge, which rarely exposed him to be singled out
for such distinction. He was a great musical amateur in his way -
after business; and had a paternal affection for his violoncello,
which was once in every week transported from Islington, his place of
abode, to a certain club-room hard by the Bank, where quartettes of
the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every
Wednesday evening by a private party.

Mr Carker was a gentleman thirty-eight or forty years old, of a
florid complexion, and with two unbroken rows of glistening teeth,
whose regularity and whiteness were quite distressing. It was
impossible to escape the observation of them, for he showed them
whenever he spoke; and bore so wide a smile upon his countenance (a
smile, however, very rarely, indeed, extending beyond his mouth), that
there was something in it like the snarl of a cat. He affected a stiff
white cravat, after the example of his principal, and was always
closely buttoned up and tightly dressed. His manner towards Mr Dombey
was deeply conceived and perfectly expressed. He was familiar with
him, in the very extremity of his sense of the distance between them.
'Mr Dombey, to a man in your position from a man in mine, there is no
show of subservience compatible with the transaction of business
between us, that I should think sufficient. I frankly tell you, Sir, I
give it up altogether. I feel that I could not satisfy my own mind;
and Heaven knows, Mr Dombey, you can afford to dispense with the
endeavour.' If he had carried these words about with him printed on a
placard, and had constantly offered it to Mr Dombey's perusal on the
breast of his coat, he could not have been more explicit than he was.

This was Carker the Manager. Mr Carker the Junior, Walter's friend,
was his brother; two or three years older than he, but widely removed
in station. The younger brother's post was on the top of the official
ladder; the elder brother's at the bottom. The elder brother never
gained a stave, or raised his foot to mount one. Young men passed
above his head, and rose and rose; but he was always at the bottom. He
was quite resigned to occupy that low condition: never complained of
it: and certainly never hoped to escape from it.

'How do you do this morning?' said Mr Carker the Manager, entering
Mr Dombey's room soon after his arrival one day: with a bundle of
papers in his hand.

'How do you do, Carker?' said Mr Dombey.

'Coolish!' observed Carker, stirring the fire.

'Rather,' said Mr Dombey.

'Any news of the young gentleman who is so important to us all?'
asked Carker, with his whole regiment of teeth on parade.

'Yes - not direct news- I hear he's very well,' said Mr Dombey. Who
had come from Brighton over-night. But no one knew It.

'Very well, and becoming a great scholar, no doubt?' observed the
Manager.

'I hope so,' returned Mr Dombey.

'Egad!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head, 'Time flies!'

'I think so, sometimes,' returned Mr Dombey, glancing at his
newspaper.

'Oh! You! You have no reason to think so,' observed Carker. 'One
who sits on such an elevation as yours, and can sit there, unmoved, in
all seasons - hasn't much reason to know anything about the flight of
time. It's men like myself, who are low down and are not superior in
circumstances, and who inherit new masters in the course of Time, that
have cause to look about us. I shall have a rising sun to worship,
soon.'

'Time enough, time enough, Carker!' said Mr Dombey, rising from his
chair, and standing with his back to the fire. 'Have you anything
there for me?'

'I don't know that I need trouble you,' returned Carker, turning
over the papers in his hand. 'You have a committee today at three, you
know.'

'And one at three, three-quarters,' added Mr Dombey.

'Catch you forgetting anything!' exclaimed Carker, still turning
over his papers. 'If Mr Paul inherits your memory, he'll be a
troublesome customer in the House. One of you is enough'

'You have an accurate memory of your own,' said Mr Dombey.

'Oh! I!' returned the manager. 'It's the only capital of a man like
me.'

Mr Dombey did not look less pompous or at all displeased, as he
stood leaning against the chimney-piece, surveying his (of course
unconscious) clerk, from head to foot. The stiffness and nicety of Mr
Carker's dress, and a certain arrogance of manner, either natural to
him or imitated from a pattern not far off, gave great additional
effect to his humility. He seemed a man who would contend against the
power that vanquished him, if he could, but who was utterly borne down
by the greatness and superiority of Mr Dombey.

'Is Morfin here?' asked Mr Dombey after a short pause, during which
Mr Carker had been fluttering his papers, and muttering little
abstracts of their contents to himself.

'Morfin's here,' he answered, looking up with his widest and almost
sudden smile; 'humming musical recollections - of his last night's
quartette party, I suppose - through the walls between us, and driving
me half mad. I wish he'd make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn
his music-books in it.'

'You respect nobody, Carker, I think,' said Mr Dombey.

'No?' inquired Carker, with another wide and most feline show of
his teeth. 'Well! Not many people, I believe. I wouldn't answer
perhaps,' he murmured, as if he were only thinking it, 'for more than
one.'

A dangerous quality, if real; and a not less dangerous one, if
feigned. But Mr Dombey hardly seemed to think so, as he still stood
with his back to the fire, drawn up to his full height, and looking at
his head-clerk with a dignified composure, in which there seemed to
lurk a stronger latent sense of power than usual.

'Talking of Morfin,' resumed Mr Carker, taking out one paper from
the rest, 'he reports a junior dead in the agency at Barbados, and
proposes to reserve a passage in the Son and Heir - she'll sail in a
month or so - for the successor. You don't care who goes, I suppose?
We have nobody of that sort here.'

Mr Dombey shook his head with supreme indifference.

'It's no very precious appointment,' observed Mr Carker, taking up
a pen, with which to endorse a memorandum on the back of the paper. 'I
hope he may bestow it on some orphan nephew of a musical friend. It
may perhaps stop his fiddle-playing, if he has a gift that way. Who's
that? Come in!'

'I beg your pardon, Mr Carker. I didn't know you were here, Sir,'
answered Walter; appearing with some letters in his hand, unopened,
and newly arrived. 'Mr Carker the junior, Sir - '

At the mention of this name, Mr Carker the Manager was or affected
to be, touched to the quick with shame and humiliation. He cast his
eyes full on Mr Dombey with an altered and apologetic look, abased
them on the ground, and remained for a moment without speaking.

'I thought, Sir,' he said suddenly and angrily, turning on Walter,
'that you had been before requested not to drag Mr Carker the Junior
into your conversation.'

'I beg your pardon,' returned Walter. 'I was only going to say that
Mr Carker the Junior had told me he believed you were gone out, or I
should not have knocked at the door when you were engaged with Mr
Dombey. These are letters for Mr Dombey, Sir.'

'Very well, Sir,' returned Mr Carker the Manager, plucking them
sharply from his hand. 'Go about your business.'

But in taking them with so little ceremony, Mr Carker dropped one
on the floor, and did not see what he had done; neither did Mr Dombey
observe the letter lying near his feet. Walter hesitated for a moment,
thinking that one or other of them would notice it; but finding that
neither did, he stopped, came back, picked it up, and laid it himself
on Mr Dombey's desk. The letters were post-letters; and it happened
that the one in question was Mrs Pipchin's regular report, directed as
usual - for Mrs Pipchin was but an indifferent penwoman - by Florence.
Mr Dombey, having his attention silently called to this letter by
Walter, started, and looked fiercely at him, as if he believed that he
had purposely selected it from all the rest.

'You can leave the room, Sir!' said Mr Dombey, haughtily.

He crushed the letter in his hand; and having watched Walter out at
the door, put it in his pocket without breaking the seal.

'These continual references to Mr Carker the Junior,' Mr Carker the
Manager began, as soon as they were alone, 'are, to a man in my
position, uttered before one in yours, so unspeakably distressing - '

'Nonsense, Carker,' Mr Dombey interrupted. 'You are too sensitive.'

'I am sensitive,' he returned. 'If one in your position could by
any possibility imagine yourself in my place: which you cannot: you
would be so too.'

As Mr Dombey's thoughts were evidently pursuing some other subject,
his discreet ally broke off here, and stood with his teeth ready to
present to him, when he should look up.

'You want somebody to send to the West Indies, you were saying,'
observed Mr Dombey, hurriedly.

'Yes,' replied Carker.

'Send young Gay.'

'Good, very good indeed. Nothing easier,' said Mr Carker, without
any show of surprise, and taking up the pen to re-endorse the letter,
as coolly as he had done before. '"Send young Gay."'

'Call him back,' said Mr Dombey.

Mr Carker was quick to do so, and Walter was quick to return.

'Gay,' said Mr Dombey, turning a little to look at him over his
shoulder. 'Here is a -

'An opening,' said Mr Carker, with his mouth stretched to the
utmost.

'In the West Indies. At Barbados. I am going to send you,' said Mr
Dombey, scorning to embellish the bare truth, 'to fill a junior
situation in the counting-house at Barbados. Let your Uncle know from
me, that I have chosen you to go to the West Indies.'

Walter's breath was so completely taken away by his astonishment,
that he could hardly find enough for the repetition of the words 'West
Indies.'

'Somebody must go,' said Mr Dombey, 'and you are young and healthy,
and your Uncle's circumstances are not good. Tell your Uncle that you
are appointed. You will not go yet. There will be an interval of a
month - or two perhaps.'

'Shall I remain there, Sir?' inquired Walter.

'Will you remain there, Sir!' repeated Mr Dombey, turning a little
more round towards him. 'What do you mean? What does he mean, Carker?'

'Live there, Sir,' faltered Walter.

'Certainly,' returned Mr Dombey.

Walter bowed.

'That's all,' said Mr Dombey, resuming his letters. 'You will
explain to him in good time about the usual outfit and so forth,
Carker, of course. He needn't wait, Carker.'

'You needn't wait, Gay,' observed Mr Carker: bare to the gums.

'Unless,' said Mr Dombey, stopping in his reading without looking
off the letter, and seeming to listen. 'Unless he has anything to
say.'

'No, Sir,' returned Walter, agitated and confused, and almost
stunned, as an infinite variety of pictures presented themselves to
his mind; among which Captain Cuttle, in his glazed hat, transfixed
with astonishment at Mrs MacStinger's, and his uncle bemoaning his
loss in the little back parlour, held prominent places. 'I hardly know
- I - I am much obliged, Sir.'

'He needn't wait, Carker,' said Mr Dombey.

And as Mr Carker again echoed the words, and also collected his
papers as if he were going away too, Walter felt that his lingering
any longer would be an unpardonable intrusion - especially as he had
nothing to say - and therefore walked out quite confounded.

Going along the passage, with the mingled consciousness and
helplessness of a dream, he heard Mr Dombey's door shut again, as Mr
Carker came out: and immediately afterwards that gentleman called to
him.

'Bring your friend Mr Carker the Junior to my room, Sir, if you
please.'

Walter went to the outer office and apprised Mr Carker the Junior
of his errand, who accordingly came out from behind a partition where
he sat alone in one corner, and returned with him to the room of Mr
Carker the Manager.

That gentleman was standing with his back to the fire, and his
hands under his coat-tails, looking over his white cravat, as
unpromisingly as Mr Dombey himself could have looked. He received them
without any change in his attitude or softening of his harsh and black
expression: merely signing to Walter to close the door.

'John Carker,' said the Manager, when this was done, turning
suddenly upon his brother, with his two rows of teeth bristling as if
he would have bitten him, 'what is the league between you and this
young man, in virtue of which I am haunted and hunted by the mention
of your name? Is it not enough for you, John Carker, that I am your
near relation, and can't detach myself from that - '

'Say disgrace, James,' interposed the other in a low voice, finding
that he stammered for a word. 'You mean it, and have reason, say
disgrace.'

'From that disgrace,' assented his brother with keen emphasis, 'but
is the fact to be blurted out and trumpeted, and proclaimed
continually in the presence of the very House! In moments of
confidence too? Do you think your name is calculated to harmonise in
this place with trust and confidence, John Carker?'

'No,' returned the other. 'No, James. God knows I have no such
thought.'

'What is your thought, then?' said his brother, 'and why do you
thrust yourself in my way? Haven't you injured me enough already?'

'I have never injured you, James, wilfully.'

'You are my brother,' said the Manager. 'That's injury enough.'

'I wish I could undo it, James.'

'I wish you could and would.'

During this conversation, Walter had looked from one brother to the
other, with pain and amazement. He who was the Senior in years, and
Junior in the House, stood, with his eyes cast upon the ground, and
his head bowed, humbly listening to the reproaches of the other.
Though these were rendered very bitter by the tone and look with which
they were accompanied, and by the presence of Walter whom they so much
surprised and shocked, he entered no other protest against them than
by slightly raising his right hand in a deprecatory manner, as if he
would have said, 'Spare me!' So, had they been blows, and he a brave
man, under strong constraint, and weakened by bodily suffering, he
might have stood before the executioner.

Generous and quick in all his emotions, and regarding himself as
the innocent occasion of these taunts, Walter now struck in, with all
the earnestness he felt.

'Mr Carker,' he said, addressing himself to the Manager. 'Indeed,
indeed, this is my fault solely. In a kind of heedlessness, for which
I cannot blame myself enough, I have, I have no doubt, mentioned Mr
Carker the Junior much oftener than was necessary; and have allowed
his name sometimes to slip through my lips, when it was against your
expressed wish. But it has been my own mistake, Sir. We have never
exchanged one word upon the subject - very few, indeed, on any
subject. And it has not been,' added Walter, after a moment's pause,
'all heedlessness on my part, Sir; for I have felt an interest in Mr
Carker ever since I have been here, and have hardly been able to help
speaking of him sometimes, when I have thought of him so much!'

Walter said this from his soul, and with the very breath of honour.
For he looked upon the bowed head, and the downcast eyes, and upraised
hand, and thought, 'I have felt it; and why should I not avow it in
behalf of this unfriended, broken man!'

Mr Carker the Manager looked at him, as he spoke, and when he had
finished speaking, with a smile that seemed to divide his face into
two parts.

'You are an excitable youth, Gay,' he said; 'and should endeavour
to cool down a little now, for it would be unwise to encourage
feverish predispositions. Be as cool as you can, Gay. Be as cool as
you can. You might have asked Mr John Carker himself (if you have not
done so) whether he claims to be, or is, an object of such strong
interest.'

'James, do me justice,' said his brother. 'I have claimed nothing;
and I claim nothing. Believe me, on my -

'Honour?' said his brother, with another smile, as he warmed
himself before the fire.

'On my Me - on my fallen life!' returned the other, in the same low
voice, but with a deeper stress on his words than he had yet seemed
capable of giving them. 'Believe me, I have held myself aloof, and
kept alone. This has been unsought by me. I have avoided him and
everyone.

'Indeed, you have avoided me, Mr Carker,' said Walter, with the
tears rising to his eyes; so true was his compassion. 'I know it, to
my disappointment and regret. When I first came here, and ever since,
I am sure I have tried to be as much your friend, as one of my age
could presume to be; but it has been of no use.

'And observe,' said the Manager, taking him up quickly, 'it will be
of still less use, Gay, if you persist in forcing Mr John Carker's
name on people's attention. That is not the way to befriend Mr John
Carker. Ask him if he thinks it is.'

'It is no service to me,' said the brother. 'It only leads to such
a conversation as the present, which I need not say I could have well
spared. No one can be a better friend to me:' he spoke here very
distinctly, as if he would impress it upon Walter: 'than in forgetting
me, and leaving me to go my way, unquestioned and unnoticed.'

'Your memory not being retentive, Gay, of what you are told by
others,' said Mr Carker the Manager, warming himself with great and
increased satisfaction, 'I thought it well that you should be told
this from the best authority,' nodding towards his brother. 'You are
not likely to forget it now, I hope. That's all, Gay. You can go.

Walter passed out at the door, and was about to close it after him,
when, hearing the voices of the brothers again, and also the mention
of his own name, he stood irresolutely, with his hand upon the lock,
and the door ajar, uncertain whether to return or go away. In this
position he could not help overhearing what followed.

'Think of me more leniently, if you can, James,' said John Carker,
'when I tell you I have had - how could I help having, with my
history, written here' - striking himself upon the breast - 'my whole
heart awakened by my observation of that boy, Walter Gay. I saw in him
when he first came here, almost my other self.'

'Your other self!' repeated the Manager, disdainfully.

'Not as I am, but as I was when I first came here too; as sanguine,
giddy, youthful, inexperienced; flushed with the same restless and
adventurous fancies; and full of the same qualities, fraught with the
same capacity of leading on to good or evil.'

'I hope not,' said his brother, with some hidden and sarcastic
meaning in his tone.

'You strike me sharply; and your hand is steady, and your thrust is
very deep,' returned the other, speaking (or so Walter thought) as if
some cruel weapon actually stabbed him as he spoke. 'I imagined all
this when he was a boy. I believed it. It was a truth to me. I saw him
lightly walking on the edge of an unseen gulf where so many others
walk with equal gaiety, and from which

'The old excuse,' interrupted his brother, as he stirred the fire.
'So many. Go on. Say, so many fall.'

'From which ONE traveller fell,' returned the other, 'who set
forward, on his way, a boy like him, and missed his footing more and
more, and slipped a little and a little lower; and went on stumbling
still, until he fell headlong and found himself below a shattered man.
Think what I suffered, when I watched that boy.'

'You have only yourself to thank for it,' returned the brother.

'Only myself,' he assented with a sigh. 'I don't seek to divide the
blame or shame.'

'You have divided the shame,' James Carker muttered through his
teeth. And, through so many and such close teeth, he could mutter
well.

'Ah, James,' returned his brother, speaking for the first time in
an accent of reproach, and seeming, by the sound of his voice, to have
covered his face with his hands, 'I have been, since then, a useful
foil to you. You have trodden on me freely in your climbing up. Don't
spurn me with your heel!'

A silence ensued. After a time, Mr Carker the Manager was heard
rustling among his papers, as if he had resolved to bring the
interview to a conclusion. At the same time his brother withdrew
nearer to the door.

'That's all,' he said. 'I watched him with such trembling and such
fear, as was some little punishment to me, until he passed the place
where I first fell; and then, though I had been his father, I believe
I never could have thanked God more devoutly. I didn't dare to warn
him, and advise him; but if I had seen direct cause, I would have
shown him my example. I was afraid to be seen speaking with him, lest
it should be thought I did him harm, and tempted him to evil, and
corrupted him: or lest I really should. There may be such contagion in
me; I don't know. Piece out my history, in connexion with young Walter
Gay, and what he has made me feel; and think of me more leniently,
James, if you can.

With these words he came out to where Walter was standing. He
turned a little paler when he saw him there, and paler yet when Walter
caught him by the hand, and said in a whisper:

'Mr Carker, pray let me thank you! Let me say how much I feel for
you! How sorry I am, to have been the unhappy cause of all this! How I
almost look upon you now as my protector and guardian! How very, very
much, I feel obliged to you and pity you!' said Walter, squeezing both
his hands, and hardly knowing, in his agitation, what he did or said.

Mr Morfin's room being close at hand and empty, and the door wide
open, they moved thither by one accord: the passage being seldom free
from someone passing to or fro. When they were there, and Walter saw
in Mr Carker's face some traces of the emotion within, he almost felt
as if he had never seen the face before; it was so greatly changed.

'Walter,' he said, laying his hand on his shoulder. 'I am far
removed from you, and may I ever be. Do you know what I am?'

'What you are!' appeared to hang on Walter's lips, as he regarded
him attentively.

'It was begun,' said Carker, 'before my twenty-first birthday - led
up to, long before, but not begun till near that time. I had robbed
them when I came of age. I robbed them afterwards. Before my
twenty-second birthday, it was all found out; and then, Walter, from
all men's society, I died.'

Again his last few words hung trembling upon Walter's lips, but he
could neither utter them, nor any of his own.

'The House was very good to me. May Heaven reward the old man for
his forbearance! This one, too, his son, who was then newly in the
Firm, where I had held great trust! I was called into that room which
is now his - I have never entered it since - and came out, what you
know me. For many years I sat in my present seat, alone as now, but
then a known and recognised example to the rest. They were all
merciful to me, and I lived. Time has altered that part of my poor
expiation; and I think, except the three heads of the House, there is
no one here who knows my story rightly. Before the little boy grows
up, and has it told to him, my corner may be vacant. I would rather
that it might be so! This is the only change to me since that day,
when I left all youth, and hope, and good men's company, behind me in
that room. God bless you, Walter! Keep you, and all dear to you, in
honesty, or strike them dead!'

Some recollection of his trembling from head to foot, as if with
excessive cold, and of his bursting into tears, was all that Walter
could add to this, when he tried to recall exactly what had passed
between them.

When Walter saw him next, he was bending over his desk in his old
silent, drooping, humbled way. Then, observing him at his work, and
feeling how resolved he evidently was that no further intercourse
should arise between them, and thinking again and again on all he had
seen and heard that morning in so short a time, in connexion with the
history of both the Carkers, Walter could hardly believe that he was
under orders for the West Indies, and would soon be lost to Uncle Sol,
and Captain Cuttle, and to glimpses few and far between of Florence
Dombey - no, he meant Paul - and to all he loved, and liked, and
looked for, in his daily life.

But it was true, and the news had already penetrated to the outer
office; for while he sat with a heavy heart, pondering on these
things, and resting his head upon his arm, Perch the messenger,
descending from his mahogany bracket, and jogging his elbow, begged
his pardon, but wished to say in his ear, Did he think he could
arrange to send home to England a jar of preserved Ginger, cheap, for
Mrs Perch's own eating, in the course of her recovery from her next
confinement?

CHAPTER 14.

Paul grows more and more Old-fashioned, and goes Home for the Holidays

When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations
of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at
Doctor Blimber's. Any such violent expression as 'breaking up,' would
have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young
gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they
never broke up. They would have scorned the action.

Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white
cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs Tozer,
his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he
couldn't be in that forward state of preparation too soon - Tozer
said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would
rather stay where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this
declaration might appear with that passage in Tozer's Essay on the
subject, wherein he had observed 'that the thoughts of home and all
its recollections, awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of
anticipation and delight,' and had also likened himself to a Roman
General, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden with
Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours' march of the
Capitol, presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the
dwelling-place of Mrs Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it
seemed that Tozer had a dreadful Uncle, who not only volunteered
examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted
innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell
purpose. So that if this Uncle took him to the Play, or, on a similar
pretence of kindness, carried him to see a Giant, or a Dwarf, or a
Conjuror, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical
allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of
mortal apprehension: not foreseeing where he might break out, or what
authority he might not quote against him.

As to Briggs, his father made no show of artifice about it. He
never would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental
trials of that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of
the family (then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached
the ornamental piece of water in Kensington Gardens,' without a vague
expectation of seeing Master Briggs's hat floating on the surface, and
an unfinished exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not
at all sanguine on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of
little Paul's bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in
general, that the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of
those festive periods with genteel resignation.

It was far otherwise with little Paul. The end of these first
holidays was to witness his separation from Florence, but who ever
looked forward to the end of holidays whose beginning was not yet
come! Not Paul, assuredly. As the happy time drew near, the lions and
tigers climbing up the bedroom walls became quite tame and frolicsome.
The grim sly faces in the squares and diamonds of the floor-cloth,
relaxed and peeped out at him with less wicked eyes. The grave old
clock had more of personal interest in the tone of its formal inquiry;
and the restless sea went rolling on all night, to the sounding of a
melancholy strain - yet it was pleasant too - that rose and fell with
the waves, and rocked him, as it were, to sleep.

Mr Feeder, B.A., seemed to think that he, too, would enjoy the
holidays very much. Mr Toots projected a life of holidays from that
time forth; for, as he regularly informed Paul every day, it was his
'last half' at Doctor Blimber's, and he was going to begin to come
into his property directly.

It was perfectly understood between Paul and Mr Toots, that they
were intimate friends, notwithstanding their distance in point of
years and station. As the vacation approached, and Mr Toots breathed
harder and stared oftener in Paul's society, than he had done before,
Paul knew that he meant he was sorry they were going to lose sight of
each other, and felt very much obliged to him for his patronage and
good opinion.

It was even understood by Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss
Blimber, as well as by the young gentlemen in general, that Toots had
somehow constituted himself protector and guardian of Dombey, and the
circumstance became so notorious, even to Mrs Pipchin, that the good
old creature cherished feelings of bitterness and jealousy against
Toots; and, in the sanctuary of her own home, repeatedly denounced him
as a 'chuckle-headed noodle.' Whereas the innocent Toots had no more
idea of awakening Mrs Pipchin's wrath, than he had of any other
definite possibility or proposition. On the contrary, he was disposed
to consider her rather a remarkable character, with many points of
interest about her. For this reason he smiled on her with so much
urbanity, and asked her how she did, so often, in the course of her
visits to little Paul, that at last she one night told him plainly,
she wasn't used to it, whatever he might think; and she could not, and
she would not bear it, either from himself or any other puppy then
existing: at which unexpected acknowledgment of his civilities, Mr
Toots was so alarmed that he secreted himself in a retired spot until
she had gone. Nor did he ever again face the doughty Mrs Pipchin,
under Doctor Blimber's roof.

They were within two or three weeks of the holidays, when, one day,
Cornelia Blimber called Paul into her room, and said, 'Dombey, I am
going to send home your analysis.'

'Thank you, Ma'am,' returned Paul.

'You know what I mean, do you, Dombey?' inquired Miss Blimber,
looking hard at him, through the spectacles.

'No, Ma'am,' said Paul.

'Dombey, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, 'I begin to be afraid you are
a sad boy. When you don't know the meaning of an expression, why don't
you seek for information?'

'Mrs Pipchin told me I wasn't to ask questions,' returned Paul.

'I must beg you not to mention Mrs Pipchin to me, on any account,
Dombey,' returned Miss Blimber. 'I couldn't think of allowing it. The
course of study here, is very far removed from anything of that sort.
A repetition of such allusions would make it necessary for me to
request to hear, without a mistake, before breakfast-time to-morrow
morning, from Verbum personale down to simillimia cygno.'

'I didn't mean, Ma'am - ' began little Paul.

'I must trouble you not to tell me that you didn't mean, if you
please, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, who preserved an awful politeness
in her admonitions. 'That is a line of argument I couldn't dream of
permitting.'

Paul felt it safest to say nothing at all, so he only looked at
Miss Blimber's spectacles. Miss Blimber having shaken her head at him
gravely, referred to a paper lying before her.

'"Analysis of the character of P. Dombey." If my recollection
serves me,' said Miss Blimber breaking off, 'the word analysis as
opposed to synthesis, is thus defined by Walker. "The resolution of an
object, whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first
elements." As opposed to synthesis, you observe. Now you know what
analysis is, Dombey.'

Dombey didn't seem to be absolutely blinded by the light let in
upon his intellect, but he made Miss Blimber a little bow.

'"Analysis,"' resumed Miss Blimber, casting her eye over the paper,
'"of the character of P. Dombey." I find that the natural capacity of
Dombey is extremely good; and that his general disposition to study
may be stated in an equal ratio. Thus, taking eight as our standard
and highest number, I find these qualities in Dombey stated each at
six three-fourths!'

Miss Blimber paused to see how Paul received this news. Being
undecided whether six three-fourths meant six pounds fifteen, or
sixpence three farthings, or six foot three, or three quarters past
six, or six somethings that he hadn't learnt yet, with three unknown
something elses over, Paul rubbed his hands and looked straight at
Miss Blimber. It happened to answer as well as anything else he could
have done; and Cornelia proceeded.

'"Violence two. Selfishness two. Inclination to low company, as
evinced in the case of a person named Glubb, originally seven, but
since reduced. Gentlemanly demeanour four, and improving with
advancing years." Now what I particularly wish to call your attention
to, Dombey, is the general observation at the close of this analysis.'

Paul set himself to follow it with great care.

'"It may be generally observed of Dombey,"' said Miss Blimber,
reading in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her
spectacles towards the little figure before her: '"that his abilities
and inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as
under the circumstances could have been expected. But it is to be
lamented of this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually
termed old-fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that, without
presenting anything in either which distinctly calls for reprobation,
he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social
position." Now, Dombey,' said Miss Blimber, laying down the paper, 'do
you understand that?'

'I think I do, Ma'am,' said Paul.

'This analysis, you see, Dombey,' Miss Blimber continued, 'is going
to be sent home to your respected parent. It will naturally be very
painful to him to find that you are singular in your character and
conduct. It is naturally painful to us; for we can't like you, you
know, Dombey, as well as we could wish.'

She touched the child upon a tender point. He had secretly become
more and more solicitous from day to day, as the time of his departure
drew more near, that all the house should like him. From some hidden
reason, very imperfectly understood by himself - if understood at all
- he felt a gradually increasing impulse of affection, towards almost
everything and everybody in the place. He could not bear to think that
they would be quite indifferent to him when he was gone. He wanted
them to remember him kindly; and he had made it his business even to
conciliate a great hoarse shaggy dog, chained up at the back of the
house, who had previously been the terror of his life: that even he
might miss him when he was no longer there.

Little thinking that in this, he only showed again the difference
between himself and his compeers, poor tiny Paul set it forth to Miss
Blimber as well as he could, and begged her, in despite of the
official analysis, to have the goodness to try and like him. To Mrs
Blimber, who had joined them, he preferred the same petition: and when
that lady could not forbear, even in his presence, from giving
utterance to her often-repeated opinion, that he was an odd child,
Paul told her that he was sure she was quite right; that he thought it
must be his bones, but he didn't know; and that he hoped she would
overlook it, for he was fond of them all.

'Not so fond,' said Paul, with a mixture of timidity and perfect
frankness, which was one of the most peculiar and most engaging
qualities of the child, 'not so fond as I am of Florence, of course;
that could never be. You couldn't expect that, could you, Ma'am?'

'Oh! the old-fashioned little soul!' cried Mrs Blimber, in a
whisper.

'But I like everybody here very much,' pursued Paul, 'and I should
grieve to go away, and think that anyone was glad that I was gone, or
didn't care.'

Mrs Blimber was now quite sure that Paul was the oddest child in
the world; and when she told the Doctor what had passed, the Doctor
did not controvert his wife's opinion. But he said, as he had said
before, when Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also
said, as he had said on that occasion, 'Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring
him on!'

Cornelia had always brought him on as vigorously as she could; and
Paul had had a hard life of it. But over and above the getting through
his tasks, he had long had another purpose always present to him, and
to which he still held fast. It was, to be a gentle, useful, quiet
little fellow, always striving to secure the love and attachment of
the rest; and though he was yet often to be seen at his old post on
the stairs, or watching the waves and clouds from his solitary window,
he was oftener found, too, among the other boys, modestly rendering
them some little voluntary service. Thus it came to pass, that even
among those rigid and absorbed young anchorites, who mortified
themselves beneath the roof of Doctor Blimber, Paul was an object of
general interest; a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and
that no one would have thought of treating roughly. But he could not
change his nature, or rewrite the analysis; and so they all agreed
that Dombey was old-fashioned.

There were some immunities, however, attaching to the character
enjoyed by no one else. They could have better spared a
newer-fashioned child, and that alone was much. When the others only
bowed to Doctor Blimber and family on retiring for the night, Paul
would stretch out his morsel of a hand, and boldly shake the Doctor's;
also Mrs Blimber's; also Cornelia's. If anybody was to be begged off
from impending punishment, Paul was always the delegate. The weak-eyed
young man himself had once consulted him, in reference to a little
breakage of glass and china. And it was darKly rumoured that the
butler, regarding him with favour such as that stern man had never
shown before to mortal boy, had sometimes mingled porter with his
table-beer to make him strong.

Over and above these extensive privileges, Paul had free right of
entry to Mr Feeder's room, from which apartment he had twice led Mr
Toots into the open air in a state of faintness, consequent on an
unsuccessful attempt to smoke a very blunt cigar: one of a bundle
which that young gentleman had covertly purchased on the shingle from
a most desperate smuggler, who had acknowledged, in confidence, that
two hundred pounds was the price set upon his head, dead or alive, by
the Custom House. It was a snug room, Mr Feeder's, with his bed in
another little room inside of it; and a flute, which Mr Feeder
couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of learning, he said,
hanging up over the fireplace. There were some books in it, too, and a
fishing-rod; for Mr Feeder said he should certainly make a point of
learning to fish, when he could find time. Mr Feeder had amassed, with
similar intentions, a beautiful little curly secondhand key-bugle, a
chess-board and men, a Spanish Grammar, a set of sketching materials,
and a pair of boxing-gloves. The art of self-defence Mr Feeder said he
should undoubtedly make a point of learning, as he considered it the
duty of every man to do; for it might lead to the protection of a
female in distress. But Mr Feeder's great possession was a large green
jar of snuff, which Mr Toots had brought down as a present, at the
close of the last vacation; and for which he had paid a high price,
having been the genuine property of the Prince Regent. Neither Mr
Toots nor Mr Feeder could partake of this or any other snuff, even in
the most stinted and moderate degree, without being seized with
convulsions of sneezing. Nevertheless it was their great delight to
moisten a box-full with cold tea, stir it up on a piece of parchment
with a paper-knife, and devote themselves to its consumption then and
there. In the course of which cramming of their noses, they endured
surprising torments with the constancy of martyrs: and, drinking
table-beer at intervals, felt all the glories of dissipation.

To little Paul sitting silent in their company, and by the side of
his chief patron, Mr Toots, there was a dread charm in these reckless
occasions: and when Mr Feeder spoke of the dark mysteries of London,
and told Mr Toots that he was going to observe it himself closely in
all its ramifications in the approaching holidays, and for that
purpose had made arrangements to board with two old maiden ladies at
Peckham, Paul regarded him as if he were the hero of some book of
travels or wild adventure, and was almost afraid of such a slashing
person.

Going into this room one evening, when the holidays were very near,
Paul found Mr Feeder filling up the blanks in some printed letters,
while some others, already filled up and strewn before him, were being
folded and sealed by Mr Toots. Mr Feeder said, 'Aha, Dombey, there you
are, are you?' - for they were always kind to him, and glad to see him
- and then said, tossing one of the letters towards him, 'And there
you are, too, Dombey. That's yours.'

'Mine, Sir?' said Paul.

'Your invitation,' returned Mr Feeder.

Paul, looking at it, found, in copper-plate print, with the
exception of his own name and the date, which were in Mr Feeder's
penmanship, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr
P. Dombey's company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the
Seventeenth Instant; and that the hour was half-past seven o'clock;
and that the object was Quadrilles. Mr Toots also showed him, by
holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber
requested the pleasure of Mr Toots's company at an early party on
Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was half-past
seven o'clock, and when the object was Quadrilles. He also found, on
glancing at the table where Mr Feeder sat, that the pleasure of Mr
Briggs's company, and of Mr Tozer's company, and of every young
gentleman's company, was requested by Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the
same genteel Occasion.

Mr Feeder then told him, to his great joy, that his sister was
invited, and that it was a half-yearly event, and that, as the
holidays began that day, he could go away with his sister after the
party, if he liked, which Paul interrupted him to say he would like,
very much. Mr Feeder then gave him to understand that he would be
expected to inform Doctor and Mrs Blimber, in superfine small-hand,
that Mr P. Dombey would be happy to have the honour of waiting on
them, in accordance with their polite invitation. Lastly, Mr Feeder
said, he had better not refer to the festive occasion, in the hearing
of Doctor and Mrs Blimber; as these preliminaries, and the whole of
the arrangements, were conducted on principles of classicality and
high breeding; and that Doctor and Mrs Blimber on the one hand, and
the young gentlemen on the other, were supposed, in their scholastic
capacities, not to have the least idea of what was in the wind.

Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his
invitation, sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But
Paul's head, which had long been ailing more or less, and was
sometimes very heavy and painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he
was obliged to support it on his hand. And yet it dropped so, that by
little and little it sunk on Mr Toots's knee, and rested there, as if
it had no care to be ever lifted up again.

That was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he
thought, for, by and by, he heard Mr Feeder calling in his ear, and
gently shaking him to rouse his attention. And when he raised his
head, quite scared, and looked about him, he found that Doctor Blimber
had come into the room; and that the window was open, and that his
forehead was wet with sprinkled water; though how all this had been
done without his knowledge, was very curious indeed.

'Ah! Come, come! That's well! How is my little friend now?' said
Doctor Blimber, encouragingly.

'Oh, quite well, thank you, Sir,' said Paul.

But there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he
couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were
inclined to turn round and round, and could only be stopped by being
looked at very hard indeed. Mr Toots's head had the appearance of
being at once bigger and farther off than was quite natural; and when
he took Paul in his arms, to carry him upstairs, Paul observed with
astonishment that the door was in quite a different place from that in
which he had expected to find it, and almost thought, at first, that
Mr Toots was going to walk straight up the chimney.

It was very kind of Mr Toots to carry him to the top of the house
so tenderly; and Paul told him that it was. But Mr Toots said he would
do a great deal more than that, if he could; and indeed he did more as
it was: for he helped Paul to undress, and helped him to bed, in the
kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled
very much; while Mr Feeder, B.A., leaning over the bottom of the
bedstead, set all the little bristles on his head bolt upright with
his bony hands, and then made believe to spar at Paul with great
science, on account of his being all right again, which was so
uncommonly facetious, and kind too in Mr Feeder, that Paul, not being
able to make up his mind whether it was best to laugh or cry at him,
did both at once.

How Mr Toots melted away, and Mr Feeder changed into Mrs Pipchin,
Paul never thought of asking; neither was he at all curious to know;
but when he saw Mrs Pipchin standing at the bottom of the bed, instead
of Mr Feeder, he cried out, 'Mrs Pipchin, don't tell Florence!'

'Don't tell Florence what, my little Paul?' said Mrs Pipchin,
coming round to the bedside, and sitting down in the chair.

'About me,' said Paul.

'No, no,' said Mrs Pipchin.

'What do you think I mean to do when I grow up, Mrs Pipchin?'
inquired Paul, turning his face towards her on his pillow, and resting
his chin wistfully on his folded hands.

Mrs Pipchin couldn't guess.

'I mean,' said Paul, 'to put my money all together in one Bank,
never try to get any more, go away into the country with my darling
Florence, have a beautiful garden, fields, and woods, and live there
with her all my life!'

'Indeed!' cried Mrs Pipchin.

'Yes,' said Paul. 'That's what I mean to do, when I - ' He stopped,
and pondered for a moment.

Mrs Pipchin's grey eye scanned his thoughtful face.

'If I grow up,' said Paul. Then he went on immediately to tell Mrs
Pipchin all about the party, about Florence's invitation, about the
pride he would have in the admiration that would be felt for her by
all the boys, about their being so kind to him and fond of him, about
his being so fond of them, and about his being so glad of it. Then he
told Mrs Pipchin about the analysis, and about his being certainly
old-fashioned, and took Mrs Pipchin's opinion on that point, and
whether she knew why it was, and what it meant. Mrs Pipchin denied the
fact altogether, as the shortest way of getting out of the difficulty;
but Paul was far from satisfied with that reply, and looked so
searchingly at Mrs Pipchin for a truer answer, that she was obliged to
get up and look out of the window to avoid his eyes.

There was a certain calm Apothecary, 'who attended at the
establishment when any of the young gentlemen were ill, and somehow he
got into the room and appeared at the bedside, with Mrs Blimber. How
they came there, or how long they had been there, Paul didn't know;
but when he saw them, he sat up in bed, and answered all the
Apothecary's questions at full length, and whispered to him that
Florence was not to know anything about it, if he pleased, and that he
had set his mind upon her coming to the party. He was very chatty with
the Apothecary, and they parted excellent friends. Lying down again
with his eyes shut, he heard the Apothecary say, out of the room and
quite a long way off - or he dreamed it - that there was a want of
vital power (what was that, Paul wondered!) and great constitutional
weakness. That as the little fellow had set his heart on parting with
his school-mates on the seventeenth, it would be better to indulge the
fancy if he grew no worse. That he was glad to hear from Mrs Pipchin,
that the little fellow would go to his friends in London on the
eighteenth. That he would write to Mr Dombey, when he should have
gained a better knowledge of the case, and before that day. That there
was no immediate cause for - what? Paul lost that word And that the
little fellow had a fine mind, but was an old-fashioned boy.

What old fashion could that be, Paul wondered with a palpitating
heart, that was so visibly expressed in him; so plainly seen by so
many people!

He could neither make it out, nor trouble himself long with the
effort. Mrs Pipchin was again beside him, if she had ever been away
(he thought she had gone out with the Doctor, but it was all a dream
perhaps), and presently a bottle and glass got into her hands
magically, and she poured out the contents for him. After that, he had
some real good jelly, which Mrs Blimber brought to him herself; and
then he was so well, that Mrs Pipchin went home, at his urgent
solicitation, and Briggs and Tozer came to bed. Poor Briggs grumbled
terribly about his own analysis, which could hardly have discomposed
him more if it had been a chemical process; but he was very good to
Paul, and so was Tozer, and so were all the rest, for they every one
looked in before going to bed, and said, 'How are you now, Dombey?'
'Cheer up, little Dombey!' and so forth. After Briggs had got into
bed, he lay awake for a long time, still bemoaning his analysis, and
saying he knew it was all wrong, and they couldn't have analysed a
murderer worse, and - how would Doctor Blimber like it if his
pocket-money depended on it? It was very easy, Briggs said, to make a
galley-slave of a boy all the half-year, and then score him up idle;
and to crib two dinners a-week out of his board, and then score him up
greedy; but that wasn't going to be submitted to, he believed, was it?
Oh! Ah!

Before the weak-eyed young man performed on the gong next morning,
he came upstairs to Paul and told him he was to lie still, which Paul
very gladly did. Mrs Pipchin reappeared a little before the
Apothecary, and a little after the good young woman whom Paul had seen
cleaning the stove on that first morning (how long ago it seemed now!)
had brought him his breakfast. There was another consultation a long
way off, or else Paul dreamed it again; and then the Apothecary,
coming back with Doctor and Mrs Blimber, said:

'Yes, I think, Doctor Blimber, we may release this young gentleman
from his books just now; the vacation being so very near at hand.'

'By all means,' said Doctor Blimber. 'My love, you will inform
Cornelia, if you please.'

'Assuredly,' said Mrs Blimber.

The Apothecary bending down, looked closely into Paul's eyes, and
felt his head, and his pulse, and his heart, with so much interest and
care, that Paul said, 'Thank you, Sir.'

'Our little friend,' observed Doctor Blimber, 'has never
complained.'

'Oh no!' replied the Apothecary. 'He was not likely to complain.'

'You find him greatly better?' said Doctor Blimber.

'Oh! he is greatly better, Sir,' returned the Apothecary.

Paul had begun to speculate, in his own odd way, on the subject
that might occupy the Apothecary's mind just at that moment; so
musingly had he answered the two questions of Doctor Blimber. But the
Apothecary happening to meet his little patient's eyes, as the latter
set off on that mental expedition, and coming instantly out of his
abstraction with a cheerful smile, Paul smiled in return and abandoned
it.

He lay in bed all that day, dozing and dreaming, and looking at Mr
Toots; but got up on the next, and went downstairs. Lo and behold,
there was something the matter with the great clock; and a workman on
a pair of steps had taken its face off, and was poking instruments
into the works by the light of a candle! This was a great event for
Paul, who sat down on the bottom stair, and watched the operation
attentively: now and then glancing at the clock face, leaning all
askew, against the wall hard by, and feeling a little confused by a
suspicion that it was ogling him.

The workman on the steps was very civil; and as he said, when he
observed Paul, 'How do you do, Sir?' Paul got into conversation with
him, and told him he hadn't been quite well lately. The ice being thus
broken, Paul asked him a multitude of questions about chimes and
clocks: as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by
night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people
died, and whether those were different bells from wedding bells, or
only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living. Finding that his new
acquaintance was not very well informed on the subject of the Curfew
Bell of ancient days, Paul gave him an account of that institution;
and also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about King
Alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles; to which
the workman replied, that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock
trade if it was to come up again. In fine, Paul looked on, until the
clock had quite recovered its familiar aspect, and resumed its sedate
inquiry; when the workman, putting away his tools in a long basket,
bade him good day, and went away. Though not before he had whispered
something, on the door-mat, to the footman, in which there was the
phrase 'old-fashioned' - for Paul heard it. What could that old
fashion be, that seemed to make the people sorry! What could it be!

Having nothing to learn now, he thought of this frequently; though
not so often as he might have done, if he had had fewer things to
think of. But he had a great many; and was always thinking, all day
long.

First, there was Florence coming to the party. Florence would see
that the boys were fond of him; and that would make her happy. This
was his great theme. Let Florence once be sure that they were gentle
and good to him, and that he had become a little favourite among them,
and then the would always think of the time he had passed there,
without being very sorry. Florence might be all the happier too for
that, perhaps, when he came back.

When he came back! Fifty times a day, his noiseless little feet
went up the stairs to his own room, as he collected every book, and
scrap, and trifle that belonged to him, and put them all together
there, down to the minutest thing, for taking home! There was no shade
of coming back on little Paul; no preparation for it, or other
reference to it, grew out of anything he thought or did, except this
slight one in connexion with his sister. On the contrary, he had to
think of everything familiar to him, in his contemplative moods and in
his wanderings about the house, as being to be parted with; and hence
the many things he had to think of, all day long.

He had to peep into those rooms upstairs, and think how solitary
they would be when he was gone, and wonder through how many silent
days, weeks, months, and years, they would continue just as grave and
undisturbed. He had to think - would any other child (old-fashioned,
like himself stray there at any time, to whom the same grotesque
distortions of pattern and furniture would manifest themselves; and
would anybody tell that boy of little Dombey, who had been there once?
He had to think of a portrait on the stairs, which always looked
earnestly after him as he went away, eyeing it over his shoulder; and
which, when he passed it in the company of anyone, still seemed to
gaze at him, and not at his companion. He had much to think of, in
association with a print that hung up in another place, where, in the
centre of a wondering group, one figure that he knew, a figure with a
light about its head - benignant, mild, and merciful - stood pointing
upward.

At his own bedroom window, there were crowds of thoughts that mixed
with these, and came on, one upon another, like the rolling waves.
Where those wild birds lived, that were always hovering out at sea in
troubled weather; where the clouds rose and first began; whence the
wind issued on its rushing flight, and where it stopped; whether the
spot where he and Florence had so often sat, and watched, and talked
about these things, could ever be exactly as it used to be without
them; whether it could ever be the same to Florence, if he were in
some distant place, and she were sitting there alone.

He had to think, too, of Mr Toots, and Mr Feeder, B.A., of all the
boys; and of Doctor Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber; of home,
and of his aunt and Miss Tox; of his father; Dombey and Son, Walter
with the poor old Uncle who had got the money he wanted, and that
gruff-voiced Captain with the iron hand. Besides all this, he had a
number of little visits to pay, in the course of the day; to the
schoolroom, to Doctor Blimber's study, to Mrs Blimber's private
apartment, to Miss Blimber's, and to the dog. For he was free of the
whole house now, to range it as he chose; and, in his desire to part
with everybody on affectionate terms, he attended, in his way, to them
all. Sometimes he found places in books for Briggs, who was always
losing them; sometimes he looked up words in dictionaries for other
young gentlemen who were in extremity; sometimes he held skeins of
silk for Mrs Blimber to wind; sometimes he put Cornelia's desk to
rights; sometimes he would even creep into the Doctor's study, and,
sitting on the carpet near his learned feet, turn the globes softly,
and go round the world, or take a flight among the far-off stars.

In those days immediately before the holidays, in short, when the
other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life through a general
resumption of the studies of the whole half-year, Paul was such a
privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. He could
hardly believe it himself; but his liberty lasted from hour to hour,
and from day to day; and little Dombey was caressed by everyone.
Doctor Blimber was so particular about him, that he requested Johnson
to retire from the dinner-table one day, for having thoughtlessly
spoken to him as 'poor little Dombey;' which Paul thought rather hard
and severe, though he had flushed at the moment, and wondered why
Johnson should pity him. It was the more questionable justice, Paul
thought, in the Doctor, from his having certainly overheard that great
authority give his assent on the previous evening, to the proposition
(stated by Mrs Blimber) that poor dear little Dombey was more
old-fashioned than ever. And now it was that Paul began to think it
must surely be old-fashioned to be very thin, and light, and easily
tired, and soon disposed to lie down anywhere and rest; for he
couldn't help feeling that these were more and more his habits every
day.

At last the party-day arrived; and Doctor Blimber said at
breakfast, 'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth
of next month.' Mr Toots immediately threw off his allegiance, and put
on his ring: and mentioning the Doctor in casual conversation shortly
afterwards, spoke of him as 'Blimber'! This act of freedom inspired
the older pupils with admiration and envy; but the younger spirits
were appalled, and seemed to marvel that no beam fell down and crushed
him.

Not the least allusion was made to the ceremonies of the evening,
either at breakfast or at dinner; but there was a bustle in the house
all day, and in the course of his perambulations, Paul made
acquaintance with various strange benches and candlesticks, and met a
harp in a green greatcoat standing on the landing outside the
drawing-room door. There was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber's
head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and
though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each
temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath,
and in a play-bill too; for Paul read 'Theatre Royal' over one of her
sparkling spectacles, and 'Brighton' over the other.

There was a grand array of white waistcoats and cravats in the
young gentlemen's bedrooms as evening approached; and such a smell of
singed hair, that Doctor Blimber sent up the footman with his
compliments, and wished to know if the house was on fire. But it was
only the hairdresser curling the young gentlemen, and over-heating his
tongs in the ardour of business.

When Paul was dressed - which was very soon done, for he felt
unwell and drowsy, and was not able to stand about it very long - he
went down into the drawing-room; where he found Doctor Blimber pacing
up and down the room full dressed, but with a dignified and
unconcerned demeanour, as if he thought it barely possible that one or
two people might drop in by and by. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Blimber
appeared, looking lovely, Paul thought; and attired in such a number
of skirts that it was quite an excursion to walk round her. Miss
Blimber came down soon after her Mama; a little squeezed in
appearance, but very charming.

Mr Toots and Mr Feeder were the next arrivals. Each of these
gentlemen brought his hat in his hand, as if he lived somewhere else;
and when they were announced by the butler, Doctor Blimber said, 'Ay,
ay, ay! God bless my soul!' and seemed extremely glad to see them. Mr
Toots was one blaze of jewellery and buttons; and he felt the
circumstance so strongly, that when he had shaken hands with the
Doctor, and had bowed to Mrs Blimber and Miss Blimber, he took Paul
aside, and said, 'What do you think of this, Dombey?'

But notwithstanding this modest confidence in himself, Mr Toots
appeared to be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the
whole, it was judicious to button the bottom button of his waistcoat,
and whether, on a calm revision of all the circumstances, it was best
to wear his waistbands turned up or turned down. Observing that Mr
Feeder's were turned up, Mr Toots turned his up; but the waistbands of
the next arrival being turned down, Mr Toots turned his down. The
differences in point of waistcoat-buttoning, not only at the bottom,
but at the top too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals
thickened, that Mr Toots was continually fingering that article of
dress, as if he were performing on some instrument; and appeared to
find the incessant execution it demanded, quite bewildering. All the
young gentlemen, tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and with their
best hats in their hands, having been at different times announced and
introduced, Mr Baps, the dancing-master, came, accompanied by Mrs
Baps, to whom Mrs Blimber was extremely kind and condescending. Mr
Baps was a very grave gentleman, with a slow and measured manner of
speaking; and before he had stood under the lamp five minutes, he
began to talk to Toots (who had been silently comparing pumps with
him) about what you were to do with your raw materials when they came
into your ports in return for your drain of gold. Mr Toots, to whom
the question seemed perplexing, suggested 'Cook 'em.' But Mr Baps did
not appear to think that would do.

Paul now slipped away from the cushioned corner of a sofa, which
had been his post of observation, and went downstairs into the
tea-room to be ready for Florence, whom he had not seen for nearly a
fortnight, as he had remained at Doctor Blimber's on the previous
Saturday and Sunday, lest he should take cold. Presently she came:
looking so beautiful in her simple ball dress, with her fresh flowers
in her hand, that when she knelt down on the ground to take Paul round
the neck and kiss him (for there was no one there, but his friend and
another young woman waiting to serve out the tea), he could hardly
make up his mind to let her go again, or to take away her bright and
loving eyes from his face.

'But what is the matter, Floy?' asked Paul, almost sure that he saw
a tear there.

'Nothing, darling; nothing,' returned Florence.

Paul touched her cheek gently with his finger - and it was a tear!
'Why, Floy!' said he.

'We'll go home together, and I'll nurse you, love,' said Florence.

'Nurse me!' echoed Paul.

Paul couldn't understand what that had to do with it, nor why the
two young women looked on so seriously, nor why Florence turned away
her face for a moment, and then turned it back, lighted up again with
smiles.

'Floy,' said Paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand.
'Tell me, dear, Do you think I have grown old-fashioned?'

His sister laughed, and fondled him, and told him 'No.'

'Because I know they say so,' returned Paul, 'and I want to know
what they mean, Floy.' But a loud double knock coming at the door, and
Florence hurrying to the table, there was no more said between them.
Paul wondered again when he saw his friend whisper to Florence, as if
she were comforting her; but a new arrival put that out of his head
speedily.

It was Sir Barnet Skettles, Lady Skettles, and Master Skettles.
Master Skettles was to be a new boy after the vacation, and Fame had
been busy, in Mr Feeder's room, with his father, who was in the House
of Commons, and of whom Mr Feeder had said that when he did catch the
Speaker's eye (which he had been expected to do for three or four
years), it was anticipated that he would rather touch up the Radicals.

'And what room is this now, for instance?' said Lady Skettles to
Paul's friend, 'Melia.

'Doctor Blimber's study, Ma'am,' was the reply.

Lady Skettles took a panoramic survey of it through her glass, and
said to Sir Barnet Skettles, with a nod of approval, 'Very good.' Sir
Barnet assented, but Master Skettles looked suspicious and doubtful.

'And this little creature, now,' said Lady Skettles, turning to
Paul. 'Is he one of the

'Young gentlemen, Ma'am; yes, Ma'am,' said Paul's friend.

'And what is your name, my pale child?' said Lady Skettles.

'Dombey,' answered Paul.

Sir Barnet Skettles immediately interposed, and said that he had
had the honour of meeting Paul's father at a public dinner, and that
he hoped he was very well. Then Paul heard him say to Lady Skettles,
'City - very rich - most respectable - Doctor mentioned it.' And then
he said to Paul, 'Will you tell your good Papa that Sir Barnet
Skettles rejoiced to hear that he was very well, and sent him his best
compliments?'

'Yes, Sir,' answered Paul.

'That is my brave boy,' said Sir Barnet Skettles. 'Barnet,' to
Master Skettles, who was revenging himself for the studies to come, on
the plum-cake, 'this is a young gentleman you ought to know. This is a
young gentleman you may know, Barnet,' said Sir Barnet Skettles, with
an emphasis on the permission.

'What eyes! What hair! What a lovely face!' exclaimed Lady Skettles
softly, as she looked at Florence through her glass. 'My sister,' said
Paul, presenting her.

The satisfaction of the Skettleses was now complex And as Lady
Skettles had conceived, at first sight, a liking for Paul, they all
went upstairs together: Sir Barnet Skettles taking care of Florence,
and young Barnet following.

Young Barnet did not remain long in the background after they had
reached the drawing-room, for Dr Blimber had him out in no time,
dancing with Florence. He did not appear to Paul to be particularly
happy, or particularly anything but sulky, or to care much what he was
about; but as Paul heard Lady Skettles say to Mrs Blimber, while she
beat time with her fan, that her dear boy was evidently smitten to
death by that angel of a child, Miss Dombey, it would seem that
Skettles Junior was in a state of bliss, without showing it.

Little Paul thought it a singular coincidence that nobody had
occupied his place among the pillows; and that when he came into the
room again, they should all make way for him to go back to it,
remembering it was his. Nobody stood before him either, when they
observed that he liked to see Florence dancing, but they left the
space in front quite clear, so that he might follow her with his eyes.
They were so kind, too, even the strangers, of whom there were soon a
great many, that they came and spoke to him every now and then, and
asked him how he was, and if his head ached, and whether he was tired.
He was very much obliged to them for all their kindness and attention,
and reclining propped up in his corner, with Mrs Blimber and Lady
Skettles on the same sofa, and Florence coming and sitting by his side
as soon as every dance was ended, he looked on very happily indeed.

Florence would have sat by him all night, and would not have danced
at all of her own accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how much
it pleased him. And he told her the truth, too; for his small heart
swelled, and his face glowed, when he saw how much they all admired
her, and how she was the beautiful little rosebud of the room.

From his nest among the pillows, Paul could see and hear almost
everything that passed as if the whole were being done for his
amusement. Among other little incidents that he observed, he observed
Mr Baps the dancing-master get into conversation with Sir Barnet
Skettles, and very soon ask him, as he had asked Mr Toots, what you
were to do with your raw materials, when they came into your ports in
return for your drain of gold - which was such a mystery to Paul that
he was quite desirous to know what ought to be done with them. Sir
Barnet Skettles had much to say upon the question, and said it; but it
did not appear to solve the question, for Mr Baps retorted, Yes, but
supposing Russia stepped in with her tallows; which struck Sir Barnet
almost dumb, for he could only shake his head after that, and say, Why
then you must fall back upon your cottons, he supposed.

Sir Barnet Skettles looked after Mr Baps when he went to cheer up
Mrs Baps (who, being quite deserted, was pretending to look over the
music-book of the gentleman who played the harp), as if he thought him
a remarkable kind of man; and shortly afterwards he said so in those
words to Doctor Blimber, and inquired if he might take the liberty of
asking who he was, and whether he had ever been in the Board of Trade.
Doctor Blimber answered no, he believed not; and that in fact he was a
Professor of - '

'Of something connected with statistics, I'll swear?' observed Sir
Barnet Skettles.

'Why no, Sir Barnet,' replied Doctor Blimber, rubbing his chin.
'No, not exactly.'

'Figures of some sort, I would venture a bet,' said Sir Barnet
Skettles.

'Why yes,' said Doctor Blimber, yes, but not of that sort. Mr Baps
is a very worthy sort of man, Sir Barnet, and - in fact he's our
Professor of dancing.'

Paul was amazed to see that this piece of information quite altered
Sir Barnet Skettles's opinion of Mr Baps, and that Sir Barnet flew
into a perfect rage, and glowered at Mr Baps over on the other side of
the room. He even went so far as to D Mr Baps to Lady Skettles, in
telling her what had happened, and to say that it was like his most
con-sum-mate and con-foun-ded impudence.

There was another thing that Paul observed. Mr Feeder, after
imbibing several custard-cups of negus, began to enjoy himself. The
dancing in general was ceremonious, and the music rather solemn - a
little like church music in fact - but after the custard-cups, Mr
Feeder told Mr Toots that he was going to throw a little spirit into
the thing. After that, Mr Feeder not only began to dance as if he
meant dancing and nothing else, but secretly to stimulate the music to
perform wild tunes. Further, he became particular in his attentions to
the ladies; and dancing with Miss Blimber, whispered to her -
whispered to her! - though not so softly but that Paul heard him say
this remarkable poetry,

             'Had I a heart for falsehood framed,

              I ne'er could injure You!'
This, Paul heard him repeat to four young ladies, in succession. Well
might Mr Feeder say to Mr Toots, that he was afraid he should be the
worse for it to-morrow!

Mrs Blimber was a little alarmed by this - comparatively speaking -
profligate behaviour; and especially by the alteration in the
character of the music, which, beginning to comprehend low melodies
that were popular in the streets, might not unnaturally be supposed to
give offence to Lady Skettles. But Lady Skettles was so very kind as
to beg Mrs Blimber not to mention it; and to receive her explanation
that Mr Feeder's spirits sometimes betrayed him into excesses on these
occasions, with the greatest courtesy and politeness; observing, that
he seemed a very nice sort of person for his situation, and that she
particularly liked the unassuming style of his hair - which (as
already hinted) was about a quarter of an inch long.

Once, when there was a pause in the dancing, Lady Skettles told
Paul that he seemed very fond of music. Paul replied, that he was; and
if she was too, she ought to hear his sister, Florence, sing. Lady
Skettles presently discovered that she was dying with anxiety to have
that gratification; and though Florence was at first very much
frightened at being asked to sing before so many people, and begged
earnestly to be excused, yet, on Paul calling her to him, and saying,
'Do, Floy! Please! For me, my dear!' she went straight to the piano,
and began. When they all drew a little away, that Paul might see her;
and when he saw her sitting there all alone, so young, and good, and
beautiful, and kind to him; and heard her thrilling voice, so natural
and sweet, and such a golden link between him and all his life's love
and happiness, rising out of the silence; he turned his face away, and
hid his tears. Not, as he told them when they spoke to him, not that
the music was too plaintive or too sorrowful, but it was so dear to
him.

They all loved Florence. How could they help it! Paul had known
beforehand that they must and would; and sitting in his cushioned
corner, with calmly folded hands; and one leg loosely doubled under
him, few would have thought what triumph and delight expanded his
childish bosom while he watched her, or what a sweet tranquillity he
felt. Lavish encomiums on 'Dombey's sister' reached his ears from all
the boys: admiration of the self-possessed and modest little beauty
was on every lip: reports of her intelligence and accomplishments
floated past him, constantly; and, as if borne in upon the air of the
summer night, there was a half intelligible sentiment diffused around,
referring to Florence and himself, and breathing sympathy for both,
that soothed and touched him.

He did not know why. For all that the child observed, and felt, and
thought, that night - the present and the absent; what was then and
what had been - were blended like the colours in the rainbow, or in
the plumage of rich birds when the sun is shining on them, or in the
softening sky when the same sun is setting. The many things he had had
to think of lately, passed before him in the music; not as claiming
his attention over again, or as likely evermore to occupy it, but as
peacefully disposed of and gone. A solitary window, gazed through
years ago, looked out upon an ocean, miles and miles away; upon its
waters, fancies, busy with him only yesterday, were hushed and lulled
to rest like broken waves. The same mysterious murmur he had wondered
at, when lying on his couch upon the beach, he thought he still heard
sounding through his sister's song, and through the hum of voices, and
the tread of feet, and having some part in the faces flitting by, and
even in the heavy gentleness of Mr Toots, who frequently came up to
shake him by the hand. Through the universal kindness he still thought
he heard it, speaking to him; and even his old-fashioned reputation
seemed to be allied to it, he knew not how. Thus little Paul sat
musing, listening, looking on, and dreaming; and was very happy.

Until the time arrived for taking leave: and then, indeed, there
was a sensation in the party. Sir Barnet Skettles brought up Skettles
Junior to shake hands with him, and asked him if he would remember to
tell his good Papa, with his best compliments, that he, Sir Barnet
Skettles, had said he hoped the two young gentlemen would become
intimately acquainted. Lady Skettles kissed him, and patted his hair
upon his brow, and held him in her arms; and even Mrs Baps - poor Mrs
Baps! Paul was glad of that - came over from beside the music-book of
the gentleman who played the harp, and took leave of him quite as
heartily as anybody in the room.

'Good-bye, Doctor Blimber,' said Paul, stretching out his hand.

'Good-bye, my little friend,' returned the Doctor.

'I'm very much obliged to you, Sir,' said Paul, looking innocently
up into his awful face. 'Ask them to take care of Diogenes, if you
please.'

Diogenes was the dog: who had never in his life received a friend
into his confidence, before Paul. The Doctor promised that every
attention should he paid to Diogenes in Paul's absence, and Paul
having again thanked him, and shaken hands with him, bade adieu to Mrs
Blimber and Cornelia with such heartfelt earnestness that Mrs Blimber
forgot from that moment to mention Cicero to Lady Skettles, though she
had fully intended it all the evening. Cornelia, taking both Paul's
hands in hers, said,'Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite
pupil. God bless you!' And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one
might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it - though she
was a Forcer - and felt it.

A boy then went round among the young gentlemen, of 'Dombey's
going!' 'Little Dombey's going!' and there was a general move after
Paul and Florence down the staircase and into the hall, in which the
whole Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr Feeder
said aloud, as had never happened in the case of any former young
gentleman within his experience; but it would be difficult to say if
this were sober fact or custard-cups. The servants, with the butler at
their head, had all an interest in seeing Little Dombey go; and even
the weak-eyed young man, taking out his books and trunks to the coach
that was to carry him and Florence to Mrs Pipchin's for the night,
melted visibly.

Not even the influence of the softer passion on the young gentlemen
- and they all, to a boy, doted on Florence - could restrain them from
taking quite a noisy leave of Paul; waving hats after him, pressing
downstairs to shake hands with him, crying individually 'Dombey, don't
forget me!' and indulging in many such ebullitions of feeling,
uncommon among those young Chesterfields. Paul whispered Florence, as
she wrapped him up before the door was opened, Did she hear them?
Would she ever forget it? Was she glad to know it? And a lively
delight was in his eyes as he spoke to her.

Once, for a last look, he turned and gazed upon the faces thus
addressed to him, surprised to see how shining and how bright, and
numerous they were, and how they were all piled and heaped up, as
faces are at crowded theatres. They swam before him as he looked, like
faces in an agitated glass; and next moment he was in the dark coach
outside, holding close to Florence. From that time, whenever he
thought of Doctor Blimber's, it came back as he had seen it in this
last view; and it never seemed to be a real place again, but always a
dream, full of eyes.

This was not quite the last of Doctor Blimber's, however. There was
something else. There was Mr Toots. Who, unexpectedly letting down one
of the coach-windows, and looking in, said, with a most egregious
chuckle, 'Is Dombey there?' and immediately put it up again, without
waiting for an answer. Nor was this quite the last of Mr Toots, even;
for before the coachman could drive off, he as suddenly let down the
other window, and looking in with a precisely similar chuckle, said in
a precisely similar tone of voice, 'Is Dombey there?' and disappeared
precisely as before.

How Florence laughed! Paul often remembered it, and laughed himself
whenever he did so.

But there was much, soon afterwards - next day, and after that -
which Paul could only recollect confusedly. As, why they stayed at Mrs
Pipchin's days and nights, instead of going home; why he lay in bed,
with Florence sitting by his side; whether that had been his father in
the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall; whether he had heard his
doctor say, of someone, that if they had removed him before the
occasion on which he had built up fancies, strong in proportion to his
own weakness, it was very possible he might have pined away.

He could not even remember whether he had often said to Florence,
'Oh Floy, take me home, and never leave me!' but he thought he had. He
fancied sometimes he had heard himself repeating, 'Take me home, Floy!
take me home!'

But he could remember, when he got home, and was carried up the
well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach
for many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence
still beside him, and old Mrs Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered
his old bed too, when they laid him down in it: his aunt, Miss Tox,
and Susan: but there was something else, and recent too, that still
perplexed him.

'I want to speak to Florence, if you please,' he said. 'To Florence
by herself, for a moment!'

She bent down over him, and the others stood away.

'Floy, my pet, wasn't that Papa in the hall, when they brought me
from the coach?'

'Yes, dear.'

'He didn't cry, and go into his room, Floy, did he, when he saw me
coming in?'

Florence shook her head, and pressed her lips against his cheek.

'I'm very glad he didn't cry,' said little Paul. 'I thought he did.
Don't tell them that I asked.'

CHAPTER 15.

Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a new Pursuit for Walter Gay

Walter could not, for several days, decide what to do in the
Barbados business; and even cherished some faint hope that Mr Dombey
might not have meant what he had said, or that he might change his
mind, and tell him he was not to go. But as nothing occurred to give
this idea (which was sufficiently improbable in itself) any touch of
confirmation, and as time was slipping by, and he had none to lose, he
felt that he must act, without hesitating any longer.

Walter's chief difficulty was, how to break the change in his
affairs to Uncle Sol, to whom he was sensible it would he a terrible
blow. He had the greater difficulty in dashing Uncle Sol's spirits
with such an astounding piece of intelligence, because they had lately
recovered very much, and the old man had become so cheerful, that the
little back parlour was itself again. Uncle Sol had paid the first
appointed portion of the debt to Mr Dombey, and was hopeful of working
his way through the rest; and to cast him down afresh, when he had
sprung up so manfully from his troubles, was a very distressing
necessity.

Yet it would never do to run away from him. He must know of it
beforehand; and how to tell him was the point. As to the question of
going or not going, Walter did not consider that he had any power of
choice in the matter. Mr Dombey had truly told him that he was young,
and that his Uncle's circumstances were not good; and Mr Dombey had
plainly expressed, in the glance with which he had accompanied that
reminder, that if he declined to go he might stay at home if he chose,
but not in his counting-house. His Uncle and he lay under a great
obligation to Mr Dombey, which was of Walter's own soliciting. He
might have begun in secret to despair of ever winning that gentleman's
favour, and might have thought that he was now and then disposed to
put a slight upon him, which was hardly just. But what would have been
duty without that, was still duty with it - or Walter thought so- and
duty must be done.

When Mr Dombey had looked at him, and told him he was young, and
that his Uncle's circumstances were not good, there had been an
expression of disdain in his face; a contemptuous and disparaging
assumption that he would be quite content to live idly on a reduced
old man, which stung the boy's generous soul. Determined to assure Mr
Dombey, in so far as it was possible to give him the assurance without
expressing it in words, that indeed he mistook his nature, Walter had
been anxious to show even more cheerfulness and activity after the
West Indian interview than he had shown before: if that were possible,
in one of his quick and zealous disposition. He was too young and
inexperienced to think, that possibly this very quality in him was not
agreeable to Mr Dombey, and that it was no stepping-stone to his good
opinion to be elastic and hopeful of pleasing under the shadow of his
powerful displeasure, whether it were right or wrong. But it may have
been - it may have been- that the great man thought himself defied in
this new exposition of an honest spirit, and purposed to bring it
down.

'Well! at last and at least, Uncle Sol must be told,' thought
Walter, with a sigh. And as Walter was apprehensive that his voice
might perhaps quaver a little, and that his countenance might not be
quite as hopeful as he could wish it to be, if he told the old man
himself, and saw the first effects of his communication on his
wrinkled face, he resolved to avail himself of the services of that
powerful mediator, Captain Cuttle. Sunday coming round, he set off
therefore, after breakfast, once more to beat up Captain Cuttle's
quarters.

It was not unpleasant to remember, on the way thither, that Mrs
MacStinger resorted to a great distance every Sunday morning, to
attend the ministry of the Reverend Melchisedech Howler, who, having
been one day discharged from the West India Docks on a false suspicion
(got up expressly against him by the general enemy) of screwing
gimlets into puncheons, and applying his lips to the orifice, had
announced the destruction of the world for that day two years, at ten
in the morning, and opened a front parlour for the reception of ladies
and gentlemen of the Ranting persuasion, upon whom, on the first
occasion of their assemblage, the admonitions of the Reverend
Melchisedech had produced so powerful an effect, that, in their
rapturous performance of a sacred jig, which closed the service, the
whole flock broke through into a kitchen below, and disabled a mangle
belonging to one of the fold.

This the Captain, in a moment of uncommon conviviality, had
confided to Walter and his Uncle, between the repetitions of lovely
Peg, on the night when Brogley the broker was paid out. The Captain
himself was punctual in his attendance at a church in his own
neighbourhood, which hoisted the Union Jack every Sunday morning; and
where he was good enough - the lawful beadle being infirm - to keep an
eye upon the boys, over whom he exercised great power, in virtue of
his mysterious hook. Knowing the regularity of the Captain's habits,
Walter made all the haste he could, that he might anticipate his going
out; and he made such good speed, that he had the pleasure, on turning
into Brig Place, to behold the broad blue coat and waistcoat hanging
out of the Captain's oPen window, to air in the sun.

It appeared incredible that the coat and waistcoat could be seen by
mortal eyes without the Captain; but he certainly was not in them,
otherwise his legs - the houses in Brig Place not being lofty- would
have obstructed the street door, which was perfectly clear. Quite
wondering at this discovery, Walter gave a single knock.

'Stinger,' he distinctly heard the Captain say, up in his room, as
if that were no business of his. Therefore Walter gave two knocks.

'Cuttle,' he heard the Captain say upon that; and immediately
afterwards the Captain, in his clean shirt and braces, with his
neckerchief hanging loosely round his throat like a coil of rope, and
his glazed hat on, appeared at the window, leaning out over the broad
blue coat and waistcoat.

'Wal'r!' cried the Captain, looking down upon him in amazement.

'Ay, ay, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter, 'only me'

'What's the matter, my lad?' inquired the Captain, with great
concern. 'Gills an't been and sprung nothing again?'

'No, no,' said Walter. 'My Uncle's all right, Captain Cuttle.'

The Captain expressed his gratification, and said he would come
down below and open the door, which he did.

'Though you're early, Wal'r,' said the Captain, eyeing him still
doubtfully, when they got upstairs:

'Why, the fact is, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, sitting down, 'I
was afraid you would have gone out, and I want to benefit by your
friendly counsel.'

'So you shall,' said the Captain; 'what'll you take?'

'I want to take your opinion, Captain Cuttle,' returned Walter,
smiling. 'That's the only thing for me.'

'Come on then,' said the Captain. 'With a will, my lad!'

Walter related to him what had happened; and the difficulty in
which he felt respecting his Uncle, and the relief it would be to him
if Captain Cuttle, in his kindness, would help him to smooth it away;
Captain Cuttle's infinite consternation and astonishment at the
prospect unfolded to him, gradually swallowing that gentleman up,
until it left his face quite vacant, and the suit of blue, the glazed
hat, and the hook, apparently without an owner.

'You see, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Walter, 'for myself, I am young,
as Mr Dombey said, and not to be considered. I am to fight my way
through the world, I know; but there are two points I was thinking, as
I came along, that I should be very particular about, in respect to my
Uncle. I don't mean to say that I deserve to be the pride and delight
of his life - you believe me, I know - but I am. Now, don't you think
I am?'

The Captain seemed to make an endeavour to rise from the depths of
his astonishment, and get back to his face; but the effort being
ineffectual, the glazed hat merely nodded with a mute, unutterable
meaning.

'If I live and have my health,' said Walter, 'and I am not afraid
of that, still, when I leave England I can hardly hope to see my Uncle
again. He is old, Captain Cuttle; and besides, his life is a life of
custom - '

'Steady, Wal'r! Of a want of custom?' said the Captain, suddenly
reappearing.

'Too true,' returned Walter, shaking his head: 'but I meant a life
of habit, Captain Cuttle - that sort of custom. And if (as you very
truly said, I am sure) he would have died the sooner for the loss of
the stock, and all those objects to which he has been accustomed for
so many years, don't you think he might die a little sooner for the
loss of - '

'Of his Nevy,' interposed the Captain. 'Right!'

'Well then,' said Walter, trying to speak gaily, 'we must do our
best to make him believe that the separation is but a temporary one,
after all; but as I know better, or dread that I know better, Captain
Cuttle, and as I have so many reasons for regarding him with
affection, and duty, and honour, I am afraid I should make but a very
poor hand at that, if I tried to persuade him of it. That's my great
reason for wishing you to break it out to him; and that's the first
point.'

'Keep her off a point or so!' observed the Captain, in a
comtemplative voice.

'What did you say, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter.

'Stand by!' returned the Captain, thoughtfully.

Walter paused to ascertain if the Captain had any particular
information to add to this, but as he said no more, went on.

'Now, the second point, Captain Cuttle. I am sorry to say, I am not
a favourite with Mr Dombey. I have always tried to do my best, and I
have always done it; but he does not like me. He can't help his
likings and dislikings, perhaps. I say nothing of that. I only say
that I am certain he does not like me. He does not send me to this
post as a good one; he disclaims to represent it as being better than
it is; and I doubt very much if it will ever lead me to advancement in
the House - whether it does not, on the contrary, dispose of me for
ever, and put me out of the way. Now, we must say nothing of this to
my Uncle, Captain Cuttle, but must make it out to be as favourable and
promising as we can; and when I tell you what it really is, I only do
so, that in case any means should ever arise of lending me a hand, so
far off, I may have one friend at home who knows my real situation.

'Wal'r, my boy,' replied the Captain, 'in the Proverbs of Solomon
you will find the following words, "May we never want a friend in
need, nor a bottle to give him!" When found, make a note of.'

Here the Captain stretched out his hand to Walter, with an air of
downright good faith that spoke volumes; at the same time repeating
(for he felt proud of the accuracy and pointed application of his
quotation), 'When found, make a note of.'

'Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, taking the immense fist extended to
him by the Captain in both his hands, which it completely filled, next
to my Uncle Sol, I love you. There is no one on earth in whom I can
more safely trust, I am sure. As to the mere going away, Captain
Cuttle, I don't care for that; why should I care for that! If I were
free to seek my own fortune - if I were free to go as a common sailor
- if I were free to venture on my own account to the farthest end of
the world - I would gladly go! I would have gladly gone, years ago,
and taken my chance of what might come of it. But it was against my
Uncle's wishes, and against the plans he had formed for me; and there
was an end of that. But what I feel, Captain Cuttle, is that we have
been a little mistaken all along, and that, so far as any improvement
in my prospects is concerned, I am no better off now than I was when I
first entered Dombey's House - perhaps a little worse, for the House
may have been kindly inclined towards me then, and it certainly is not
now.'

'Turn again, Whittington,' muttered the disconsolate Captain, after
looking at Walter for some time.

'Ay,' replied Walter, laughing, 'and turn a great many times, too,
Captain Cuttle, I'm afraid, before such fortune as his ever turns up
again. Not that I complain,' he added, in his lively, animated,
energetic way. 'I have nothing to complain of. I am provided for. I
can live. When I leave my Uncle, I leave him to you; and I can leave
him to no one better, Captain Cuttle. I haven't told you all this
because I despair, not I; it's to convince you that I can't pick and
choose in Dombey's House, and that where I am sent, there I must go,
and what I am offered, that I must take. It's better for my Uncle that
I should be sent away; for Mr Dombey is a valuable friend to him, as
he proved himself, you know when, Captain Cuttle; and I am persuaded
he won't be less valuable when he hasn't me there, every day, to
awaken his dislike. So hurrah for the West Indies, Captain Cuttle! How
does that tune go that the sailors sing?

              'For the Port of Barbados, Boys!

                                            Cheerily!

              Leaving old England behind us, Boys!

                                            Cheerily!'
Here the Captain roared in chorus -

              'Oh cheerily, cheerily!

                                            Oh cheer-i-ly!'

The last line reaching the quick ears of an ardent skipper not
quite sober, who lodged opposite, and who instantly sprung out of bed,
threw up his window, and joined in, across the street, at the top of
his voice, produced a fine effect. When it was impossible to sustain
the concluding note any longer, the skipper bellowed forth a terrific
'ahoy!' intended in part as a friendly greeting, and in part to show
that he was not at all breathed. That done, he shut down his window,
and went to bed again.

'And now, Captain Cuttle,' said Walter, handing him the blue coat
and waistcoat, and bustling very much, 'if you'll come and break the
news to Uncle Sol (which he ought to have known, days upon days ago,
by rights), I'll leave you at the door, you know, and walk about until
the afternoon.'

The Captain, however, scarcely appeared to relish the commission,
or to be by any means confident of his powers of executing it. He had
arranged the future life and adventures of Walter so very differently,
and so entirely to his own satisfaction; he had felicitated himself so
often on the sagacity and foresight displayed in that arrangement, and
had found it so complete and perfect in all its parts; that to suffer
it to go to pieces all at once, and even to assist in breaking it up,
required a great effort of his resolution. The Captain, too, found it
difficult to unload his old ideas upon the subject, and to take a
perfectly new cargo on board, with that rapidity which the
circumstances required, or without jumbling and confounding the two.
Consequently, instead of putting on his coat and waistcoat with
anything like the impetuosity that could alone have kept pace with
Walter's mood, he declined to invest himself with those garments at
all at present; and informed Walter that on such a serious matter, he
must be allowed to 'bite his nails a bit'

'It's an old habit of mine, Wal'r,' said the Captain, 'any time
these fifty year. When you see Ned Cuttle bite his nails, Wal'r, then
you may know that Ned Cuttle's aground.'

Thereupon the Captain put his iron hook between his teeth, as if it
were a hand; and with an air of wisdom and profundity that was the
very concentration and sublimation of all philosophical reflection and
grave inquiry, applied himself to the consideration of the subject in
its various branches.

'There's a friend of mine,' murmured the Captain, in an absent
manner, 'but he's at present coasting round to Whitby, that would
deliver such an opinion on this subject, or any other that could be
named, as would give Parliament six and beat 'em. Been knocked
overboard, that man,' said the Captain, 'twice, and none the worse for
it. Was beat in his apprenticeship, for three weeks (off and on),
about the head with a ring-bolt. And yet a clearer-minded man don't
walk.'

Despite of his respect for Captain Cuttle, Walter could not help
inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping
that his limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his
difficulties until they were quite settled.

'If you was to take and show that man the buoy at the Nore,' said
Captain Cuttle in the same tone, 'and ask him his opinion of it,
Wal'r, he'd give you an opinion that was no more like that buoy than
your Uncle's buttons are. There ain't a man that walks - certainly not
on two legs - that can come near him. Not near him!'

'What's his name, Captain Cuttle?' inquired Walter, determined to
be interested in the Captain's friend.

'His name's Bunsby, said the Captain. 'But Lord, it might be
anything for the matter of that, with such a mind as his!'

The exact idea which the Captain attached to this concluding piece
of praise, he did not further elucidate; neither did Walter seek to
draw it forth. For on his beginning to review, with the vivacity
natural to himself and to his situation, the leading points in his own
affairs, he soon discovered that the Captain had relapsed into his
former profound state of mind; and that while he eyed him steadfastly
from beneath his bushy eyebrows, he evidently neither saw nor heard
him, but remained immersed in cogitation.

In fact, Captain Cuttle was labouring with such great designs, that
far from being aground, he soon got off into the deepest of water, and
could find no bottom to his penetration. By degrees it became
perfectly plain to the Captain that there was some mistake here; that
it was undoubtedly much more likely to be Walter's mistake than his;
that if there were really any West India scheme afoot, it was a very
different one from what Walter, who was young and rash, supposed; and
could only be some new device for making his fortune with unusual
celerity. 'Or if there should be any little hitch between 'em,'
thought the Captain, meaning between Walter and Mr Dombey, 'it only
wants a word in season from a friend of both parties, to set it right
and smooth, and make all taut again.' Captain Cuttle's deduction from
these considerations was, that as he already enjoyed the pleasure of
knowing Mr Dombey, from having spent a very agreeable half-hour in his
company at Brighton (on the morning when they borrowed the money); and
that, as a couple of men of the world, who understood each other, and
were mutually disposed to make things comfortable, could easily
arrange any little difficulty of this sort, and come at the real
facts; the friendly thing for him to do would be, without saying
anything about it to Walter at present, just to step up to Mr Dombey's
house - say to the servant 'Would ye be so good, my lad, as report
Cap'en Cuttle here?' - meet Mr Dombey in a confidential spirit- hook
him by the button-hole - talk it over - make it all right - and come
away triumphant!

As these reflections presented themselves to the Captain's mind,
and by slow degrees assumed this shape and form, his visage cleared
like a doubtful morning when it gives place to a bright noon. His
eyebrows, which had been in the highest degree portentous, smoothed
their rugged bristling aspect, and became serene; his eyes, which had
been nearly closed in the severity of his mental exercise, opened
freely; a smile which had been at first but three specks - one at the
right-hand corner of his mouth, and one at the corner of each eye -
gradually overspread his whole face, and, rippling up into his
forehead, lifted the glazed hat: as if that too had been aground with
Captain Cuttle, and were now, like him, happily afloat again.

Finally, the Captain left off biting his nails, and said, 'Now,
Wal'r, my boy, you may help me on with them slops.' By which the
Captain meant his coat and waistcoat.

Walter little imagined why the Captain was so particular in the
arrangement of his cravat, as to twist the pendent ends into a sort of
pigtail, and pass them through a massive gold ring with a picture of a
tomb upon it, and a neat iron railing, and a tree, in memory of some
deceased friend. Nor why the Captain pulled up his shirt-collar to the
utmost limits allowed by the Irish linen below, and by so doing
decorated himself with a complete pair of blinkers; nor why he changed
his shoes, and put on an unparalleled pair of ankle-jacks, which he
only wore on extraordinary occasions. The Captain being at length
attired to his own complete satisfaction, and having glanced at
himself from head to foot in a shaving-glass which he removed from a
nail for that purpose, took up his knotted stick, and said he was
ready.

The Captain's walk was more complacent than usual when they got out
into the street; but this Walter supposed to be the effect of the
ankle-jacks, and took little heed of. Before they had gone very far,
they encountered a woman selling flowers; when the Captain stopping
short, as if struck by a happy idea, made a purchase of the largest
bundle in her basket: a most glorious nosegay, fan-shaped, some two
feet and a half round, and composed of all the jolliest-looking
flowers that blow.

Armed with this little token which he designed for Mr Dombey,
Captain Cuttle walked on with Walter until they reached the
Instrument-maker's door, before which they both paused.

'You're going in?' said Walter.

'Yes,' returned the Captain, who felt that Walter must be got rid
of before he proceeded any further, and that he had better time his
projected visit somewhat later in the day.

'And you won't forget anything?'

'No,' returned the Captain.

'I'll go upon my walk at once,' said Walter, 'and then I shall be
out of the way, Captain Cuttle.'

'Take a good long 'un, my lad!' replied the Captain, calling after
him. Walter waved his hand in assent, and went his way.

His way was nowhere in particular; but he thought he would go out
into the fields, where he could reflect upon the unknown life before
him, and resting under some tree, ponder quietly. He knew no better
fields than those near Hampstead, and no better means of getting at
them than by passing Mr Dombey's house.

It was as stately and as dark as ever, when he went by and glanced
up at its frowning front. The blinds were all pulled down, but the
upper windows stood wide open, and the pleasant air stirring those
curtains and waving them to and fro was the only sign of animation in
the whole exterior. Walter walked softly as he passed, and was glad
when he had left the house a door or two behind.

He looked back then; with the interest he had always felt for the
place since the adventure of the lost child, years ago; and looked
especially at those upper windows. While he was thus engaged, a
chariot drove to the door, and a portly gentleman in black, with a
heavy watch-chain, alighted, and went in. When he afterwards
remembered this gentleman and his equipage together, Walter had no
doubt be was a physician; and then he wondered who was ill; but the
discovery did not occur to him until he had walked some distance,
thinking listlessly of other things.

Though still, of what the house had suggested to him; for Walter
pleased hImself with thinking that perhaps the time might come, when
the beautiful child who was his old friend and had always been so
grateful to him and so glad to see him since, might interest her
brother in his behalf and influence his fortunes for the better. He
liked to imagine this - more, at that moment, for the pleasure of
imagining her continued remembrance of him, than for any worldly
profit he might gain: but another and more sober fancy whispered to
him that if he were alive then, he would be beyond the sea and
forgotten; she married, rich, proud, happy. There was no more reason
why she should remember him with any interest in such an altered state
of things, than any plaything she ever had. No, not so much.

Yet Walter so idealised the pretty child whom he had found
wandering in the rough streets, and so identified her with her
innocent gratitude of that night and the simplicity and truth of its
expression, that he blushed for himself as a libeller when he argued
that she could ever grow proud. On the other hand, his meditations
were of that fantastic order that it seemed hardly less libellous in
him to imagine her grown a woman: to think of her as anything but the
same artless, gentle, winning little creature, that she had been in
the days of Good Mrs Brown. In a word, Walter found out that to reason
with himself about Florence at all, was to become very unreasonable
indeed; and that he could do no better than preserve her image in his
mind as something precious, unattainable, unchangeable, and indefinite
- indefinite in all but its power of giving him pleasure, and
restraining him like an angel's hand from anything unworthy.

It was a long stroll in the fields that Walter took that day,
listening to the birds, and the Sunday bells, and the softened murmur
of the town - breathing sweet scents; glancing sometimes at the dim
horizon beyond which his voyage and his place of destination lay; then
looking round on the green English grass and the home landscape. But
he hardly once thought, even of going away, distinctly; and seemed to
put off reflection idly, from hour to hour, and from minute to minute,
while he yet went on reflecting all the time.

Walter had left the fields behind him, and was plodding homeward in
the same abstracted mood, when he heard a shout from a man, and then a
woman's voice calling to him loudly by name. Turning quickly in his
surprise, he saw that a hackney-coach, going in the contrary
direction, had stopped at no great distance; that the coachman was
looking back from his box and making signals to him with his whip; and
that a young woman inside was leaning out of the window, and beckoning
with immense energy. Running up to this coach, he found that the young
woman was Miss Nipper, and that Miss Nipper was in such a flutter as
to be almost beside herself.

'Staggs's Gardens, Mr Walter!' said Miss Nipper; 'if you please, oh
do!'

'Eh?' cried Walter; 'what is the matter?'

'Oh, Mr Walter, Staggs's Gardens, if you please!' said Susan.

'There!' cried the coachman, appealing to Walter, with a sort of
exalting despair; 'that's the way the young lady's been a goin' on for
up'ards of a mortal hour, and me continivally backing out of no
thoroughfares, where she would drive up. I've had a many fares in this
coach, first and last, but never such a fare as her.'

'Do you want to go to Staggs's Gardens, Susan?' inquired Walter.

'Ah! She wants to go there! WHERE IS IT?' growled the coachman.

'I don't know where it is!' exclaimed Susan, wildly. 'Mr Walter, I
was there once myself, along with Miss Floy and our poor darling
Master Paul, on the very day when you found Miss Floy in the City, for
we lost her coming home, Mrs Richards and me, and a mad bull, and Mrs
Richards's eldest, and though I went there afterwards, I can't
remember where it is, I think it's sunk into the ground. Oh, Mr
Walter, don't desert me, Staggs's Gardens, if you please! Miss Floy's
darling - all our darlings - little, meek, meek Master Paul! Oh Mr
Walter!'

'Good God!' cried Walter. 'Is he very ill?'

'The pretty flower!' cried Susan, wringing her hands, 'has took the
fancy that he'd like to see his old nurse, and I've come to bring her
to his bedside, Mrs Staggs, of Polly Toodle's Gardens, someone pray!'

Greatly moved by what he heard, and catching Susan's earnestness
immediately, Walter, now that he understood the nature of her errand,
dashed into it with such ardour that the coachman had enough to do to
follow closely as he ran before, inquiring here and there and
everywhere, the way to Staggs's Gardens.

There was no such place as Staggs's Gardens. It had vanished from
the earth. Where the old rotten summer-houses once had stood, palaces
now reared their heads, and granite columns of gigantic girth opened a
vista to the railway world beyond. The miserable waste ground, where
the refuse-matter had been heaped of yore, was swallowed up and gone;
and in its frowsy stead were tiers of warehouses, crammed with rich
goods and costly merchandise. The old by-streets now swarmed with
passengers and vehicles of every kind: the new streets that had
stopped disheartened in the mud and waggon-ruts, formed towns within
themselves, originating wholesome comforts and conveniences belonging
to themselves, and never tried nor thought of until they sprung into
existence. Bridges that had led to nothing, led to villas, gardens,
churches, healthy public walks. The carcasses of houses, and
beginnings of new thoroughfares, had started off upon the line at
steam's own speed, and shot away into the country in a monster train.'

As to the neighbourhood which had hesitated to acknowledge the
railroad in its straggling days, that had grown wise and penitent, as
any Christian might in such a case, and now boasted of its powerful
and prosperous relation. There were railway patterns in its drapers'
shops, and railway journals in the windows of its newsmen. There were
railway hotels, office-houses, lodging-houses, boarding-houses;
railway plans, maps, views, wrappers, bottles, sandwich-boxes, and
time-tables; railway hackney-coach and stands; railway omnibuses,
railway streets and buildings, railway hangers-on and parasites, and
flatterers out of all calculation. There was even railway time
observed in clocks, as if the sun itself had given in. Among the
vanquished was the master chimney-sweeper, whilom incredulous at
Staggs's Gardens, who now lived in a stuccoed house three stories
high, and gave himself out, with golden flourishes upon a varnished
board, as contractor for the cleansing of railway chimneys by
machinery.

To and from the heart of this great change, all day and night,
throbbing currents rushed and returned incessantly like its life's
blood. Crowds of people and mountains of goods, departing and arriving
scores upon scores of times in every four-and-twenty hours, produced a
fermentation in the place that was always in action. The very houses
seemed disposed to pack up and take trips. Wonderful Members of
Parliament, who, little more than twenty years before, had made
themselves merry with the wild railroad theories of engineers, and
given them the liveliest rubs in cross-examination, went down into the
north with their watches in their hands, and sent on messages before
by the electric telegraph, to say that they were coming. Night and day
the conquering engines rumbled at their distant work, or, advancing
smoothly to their journey's end, and gliding like tame dragons into
the allotted corners grooved out to the inch for their reception,
stood bubbling and trembling there, making the walls quake, as if they
were dilating with the secret knowledge of great powers yet
unsuspected in them, and strong purposes not yet achieved.

But Staggs's Gardens had been cut up root and branch. Oh woe the
day when 'not a rood of English ground' - laid out in Staggs's Gardens
- is secure!

At last, after much fruitless inquiry, Walter, followed by the
coach and Susan, found a man who had once resided in that vanished
land, and who was no other than the master sweep before referred to,
grown stout, and knocking a double knock at his own door. He knowed
Toodle, he said, well. Belonged to the Railroad, didn't he?

'Yes' sir, yes!' cried Susan Nipper from the coach window.

Where did he live now? hastily inquired Walter.

He lived in the Company's own Buildings, second turning to the
right, down the yard, cross over, and take the second on the right
again. It was number eleven; they couldn't mistake it; but if they
did, they had only to ask for Toodle, Engine Fireman, and any one
would show them which was his house. At this unexpected stroke of
success Susan Nipper dismounted from the coach with all speed, took
Walter's arm, and set off at a breathless pace on foot; leaving the
coach there to await their return.

'Has the little boy been long ill, Susan?' inquired Walter, as they
hurried on.

'Ailing for a deal of time, but no one knew how much,' said Susan;
adding, with excessive sharpness, 'Oh, them Blimbers!'

'Blimbers?' echoed Walter.

'I couldn't forgive myself at such a time as this, Mr Walter,' said
Susan, 'and when there's so much serious distress to think about, if I
rested hard on anyone, especially on them that little darling Paul
speaks well of, but I may wish that the family was set to work in a
stony soil to make new roads, and that Miss Blimber went in front, and
had the pickaxe!'

Miss Nipper then took breath, and went on faster than before, as if
this extraordinary aspiration had relieved her. Walter, who had by
this time no breath of his own to spare, hurried along without asking
any more questions; and they soon, in their impatience, burst in at a
little door and came into a clean parlour full of children.

'Where's Mrs Richards?' exclaimed Susan Nipper, looking round. 'Oh
Mrs Richards, Mrs Richards, come along with me, my dear creetur!'

'Why, if it ain't Susan!' cried Polly, rising with her honest face
and motherly figure from among the group, in great surprIse.

'Yes, Mrs Richards, it's me,' said Susan, 'and I wish it wasn't,
though I may not seem to flatter when I say so, but little Master Paul
is very ill, and told his Pa today that he would like to see the face
of his old nurse, and him and Miss Floy hope you'll come along with me
- and Mr Walter, Mrs Richards - forgetting what is past, and do a
kindness to the sweet dear that is withering away. Oh, Mrs Richards,
withering away!' Susan Nipper crying, Polly shed tears to see her, and
to hear what she had said; and all the children gathered round
(including numbers of new babies); and Mr Toodle, who had just come
home from Birmingham, and was eating his dinner out of a basin, laid
down his knife and fork, and put on his wife's bonnet and shawl for
her, which were hanging up behind the door; then tapped her on the
back; and said, with more fatherly feeling than eloquence, 'Polly! cut
away!'

So they got back to the coach, long before the coachman expected
them; and Walter, putting Susan and Mrs Richards inside, took his seat
on the box himself that there might be no more mistakes, and deposited
them safely in the hall of Mr Dombey's house - where, by the bye, he
saw a mighty nosegay lying, which reminded him of the one Captain
Cuttle had purchased in his company that morning. He would have
lingered to know more of the young invalid, or waited any length of
time to see if he could render the least service; but, painfully
sensible that such conduct would be looked upon by Mr Dombey as
presumptuous and forward, he turned slowly, sadly, anxiously, away.

He had not gone five minutes' walk from the door, when a man came
running after him, and begged him to return. Walter retraced his steps
as quickly as he could, and entered the gloomy house with a sorrowful
foreboding.

CHAPTER 16.

What the Waves were always saying

Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening
to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the
time went, but watching it and watching everything about him with
observing eyes.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds,
and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that
evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the
reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he
watched it deepen, deepen, deepen, into night. Then he thought how the
long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were
shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the
river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he
thought how black it was, and how deep it would look, reflecting the
hosts of stars - and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to
meet the sea.

As it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became
so rare that he could hear them coming, count them as they passed, and
lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the
many-coloured ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. His
only trouble was, the swift and rapid river. He felt forced,
sometimes, to try to stop it - to stem it with his childish hands - or
choke its way with sand - and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he
cried out! But a word from Florence, who was always at his side,
restored him to himself; and leaning his poor head upon her breast, he
told Floy of his dream, and smiled.

When day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun; and when its
cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself -
pictured! he saw - the high church towers rising up into the morning
sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the
river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the
country bright with dew. Familiar sounds and cries came by degrees
into the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy;
faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly
how he was. Paul always answered for himself, 'I am better. I am a
great deal better, thank you! Tell Papa so!'

By little and little, he got tired of the bustle of the day, the
noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and
would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense
again - the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping
or his waking moments - of that rushing river. 'Why, will it never
stop, Floy?' he would sometimes ask her. 'It is bearing me away, I
think!'

But Floy could always soothe and reassure him; and it was his daily
delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some
rest.

'You are always watching me, Floy, let me watch you, now!' They
would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he
would recline the while she lay beside him: bending forward oftentimes
to kiss her, and whispering to those who were near that she was tired,
and how she had sat up so many nights beside him.

Thus, the flush of the day, in its heat and light, would gradually
decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall.

He was visited by as many as three grave doctors - they used to
assemble downstairs, and come up together - and the room was so quiet,
and Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody
what they said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of
their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always
took his seat on the side of the bed. For Paul had heard them say long
ago, that that gentleman had been with his Mama when she clasped
Florence in her arms, and died. And he could not forget it, now. He
liked him for it. He was not afraid.

The people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first
night at Doctor Blimber's - except Florence; Florence never changed -
and what had been Sir Parker Peps, was now his father, sitting with
his head upon his hand. Old Mrs Pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often
changed to Miss Tox, or his aunt; and Paul was quite content to shut
his eyes again, and see what happened next, without emotion. But this
figure with its head upon its hand returned so often, and remained so
long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken
to, and rarely lifting up its face, that Paul began to wonder
languidly, if it were real; and in the night-time saw it sitting
there, with fear.

'Floy!' he said. 'What is that?'

'Where, dearest?'

'There! at the bottom of the bed.'

'There's nothing there, except Papa!'

The figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside,
said:

'My own boy! Don't you know me?'

Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was this his father? But
the face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it
were in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it
between them, and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly
from the little bed, and went out at the door.

Paul looked at Florence with a fluttering heart, but he knew what
she was going to say, and stopped her with his face against her lips.
The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed,
he called to it.

'Don't be sorry for me, dear Papa! Indeed I am quite happy!'

His father coming and bending down to him - which he did quickly,
and without first pausing by the bedside - Paul held him round the
neck, and repeated those words to him several times, and very
earnestly; and Paul never saw him in his room again at any time,
whether it were day or night, but he called out, 'Don't be sorry for
me! Indeed I am quite happy!' This was the beginning of his always
saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they
were to tell his father so.

How many times the golden water danced upon the wall; how many
nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him;
Paul never counted, never sought to know. If their kindness, or his
sense of it, could have increased, they were more kind, and he more
grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few, appeared
of little moment now, to the gentle boy.

One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in
the drawing-room downstairs, and thought she must have loved sweet
Florence better than his father did, to have held her in her arms when
she felt that she was dying - for even he, her brother, who had such
dear love for her, could have no greater wish than that. The train of
thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother?
for he could not remember whether they had told him, yes or no, the
river running very fast, and confusing his mind.

'Floy, did I ever see Mama?'

'No, darling, why?'

'Did I ever see any kind face, like Mama's, looking at me when I
was a baby, Floy?'

He asked, incredulously, as if he had some vision of a face before
him.

'Oh yes, dear!'

'Whose, Floy?'

'Your old nurse's. Often.'

'And where is my old nurse?' said Paul. 'Is she dead too? Floy, are
we all dead, except you?'

There was a hurry in the room, for an instant - longer, perhaps;
but it seemed no more - then all was still again; and Florence, with
her face quite colourless, but smiling, held his head upon her arm.
Her arm trembled very much.

'Show me that old nurse, Floy, if you please!'

'She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow.'

'Thank you, Floy!'

Paul closed his eyes with those words, and fell asleep. When he
awoke, the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and He lay a
little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains
rustling in the air, and waving to and fro: then he said, 'Floy, is it
tomorrow? Is she come?'

Someone seemed to go in quest of her. Perhaps it was Susan. Paul
thought he heard her telling him when he had closed his eyes again,
that she would soon be back; but he did not open them to see. She kept
her word - perhaps she had never been away - but the next thing that
happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then Paul woke -
woke mind and body - and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about
him. There was no grey mist before them, as there had been sometimes
in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their names.

'And who is this? Is this my old nurse?' said the child, regarding
with a radiant smile, a figure coming in.

Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of
him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor
blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and
taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one
who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so
forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of
tenderness and pity.

'Floy! this is a kind good face!' said Paul. 'I am glad to see it
again. Don't go away, old nurse! Stay here.'

His senses were all quickened, and he heard a name he knew.

'Who was that, who said "Walter"?' he asked, looking round.
'Someone said Walter. Is he here? I should like to see him very much.'

Nobody replied directly; but his father soon said to Susan, 'Call
him back, then: let him come up!' Alter a short pause of expectation,
during which he looked with smiling interest and wonder, on his nurse,
and saw that she had not forgotten Floy, Walter was brought into the
room. His open face and manner, and his cheerful eyes, had always made
him a favourite with Paul; and when Paul saw him' he stretched Out his
hand, and said 'Good-bye!'

'Good-bye, my child!' said Mrs Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head.
'Not good-bye?'

For an instant, Paul looked at her with the wistful face with which
he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. 'Yes,' he
said placidly, 'good-bye! Walter dear, good-bye!' - turning his head
to where he stood, and putting out his hand again. 'Where is Papa?'

He felt his father's breath upon his cheek, before the words had
parted from his lips.

'Remember Walter, dear Papa,' he whispered, looking in his face.
'Remember Walter. I was fond of Walter!' The feeble hand waved in the
air, as if it cried 'good-bye!' to Walter once again.

'Now lay me down,' he said, 'and, Floy, come close to me, and let
me see you!'

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the
golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.

'How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes,
'Floy! But it's very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said
so!'

Presently he told her the motion of the boat upon the stream was
lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the
flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out
at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him.
Who stood on the bank! -

He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his
prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold
them so, behind her neck.

'Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that
the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light
about the head is shining on me as I go!'

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else
stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in
with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has
run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The
old, old fashion - Death!

Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of
Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards
not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

'Dear me, dear me! To think,' said Miss Tox, bursting out afresh
that night, as if her heart were broken, 'that Dombey and Son should
be a Daughter after all!'

CHAPTER 17.

Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People

Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for
deep-laid and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in
men of transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be
endowed by nature, had gone to Mr Dombey's house on the eventful
Sunday, winking all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity,
and had presented himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before
the eyes of Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great
concern, of the impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy,
sheered off again confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small
mark of his solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the
family in general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope
that they would lay their heads well to the wind under existing
circumstances, and a friendly intimation that he would 'look up again'
to-morrow.

The Captain's compliments were never heard of any more. The
Captain's nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into
the dust-bin next morning; and the Captain's sly arrangement, involved
in one catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, was crushed
to pieces. So, when an avalanche bears down a mountain-forest, twigs
and bushes suffer with the trees, and all perish together.

When Walter returned home on the Sunday evening from his long walk,
and its memorable close, he was too much occupied at first by the
tidings he had to give them, and by the emotions naturally awakened in
his breast by the scene through which he had passed, to observe either
that his Uncle was evidently unacquainted with the intelligence the
Captain had undertaken to impart, or that the Captain made signals
with his hook, warning him to avoid the subject. Not that the
Captain's signals were calculated to have proved very comprehensible,
however attentively observed; for, like those Chinese sages who are
said in their conferences to write certain learned words in the air
that are wholly impossible of pronunciation, the Captain made such
waves and flourishes as nobody without a previous knowledge of his
mystery, would have been at all likely to understand.

Captain Cuttle, however, becoming cognisant of what had happened,
relinquished these attempts, as he perceived the slender chance that
now existed of his being able to obtain a little easy chat with Mr
Dombey before the period of Walter's departure. But in admitting to
himself, with a disappointed and crestfallen countenance, that Sol
Gills must be told, and that Walter must go - taking the case for the
present as he found it, and not having it enlightened or improved
beforehand by the knowing management of a friend - the Captain still
felt an unabated confidence that he, Ned Cuttle, was the man for Mr
Dombey; and that, to set Walter's fortunes quite square, nothing was
wanted but that they two should come together. For the Captain never
could forget how well he and Mr Dombey had got on at Brighton; with
what nicety each of them had put in a word when it was wanted; how
exactly they had taken one another's measure; nor how Ned Cuttle had
pointed out that resources in the first extremity, and had brought the
interview to the desired termination. On all these grounds the Captain
soothed himself with thinking that though Ned Cuttle was forced by the
pressure of events to 'stand by' almost useless for the present, Ned
would fetch up with a wet sail in good time, and carry all before him.

Under the influence of this good-natured delusion, Captain Cuttle
even went so far as to revolve in his own bosom, while he sat looking
at Walter and listening with a tear on his shirt-collar to what he
related, whether it might not be at once genteel and politic to give
Mr Dombey a verbal invitation, whenever they should meet, to come and
cut his mutton in Brig Place on some day of his own naming, and enter
on the question of his young friend's prospects over a social glass.
But the uncertain temper of Mrs MacStinger, and the possibility of her
setting up her rest in the passage during such an entertainment, and
there delivering some homily of an uncomplimentary nature, operated as
a check on the Captain's hospitable thoughts, and rendered him timid
of giving them encouragement.

One fact was quite clear to the Captain, as Walter, sitting
thoughtfully over his untasted dinner, dwelt on all that had happened;
namely, that however Walter's modesty might stand in the way of his
perceiving it himself, he was, as one might say, a member of Mr
Dombey's family. He had been, in his own person, connected with the
incident he so pathetically described; he had been by name remembered
and commended in close association with it; and his fortunes must have
a particular interest in his employer's eyes. If the Captain had any
lurking doubt whatever of his own conclusions, he had not the least
doubt that they were good conclusions for the peace of mind of the
Instrument-maker. Therefore he availed himself of so favourable a
moment for breaking the West Indian intelligence to his friend, as a
piece of extraordinary preferment; declaring that for his part he
would freely give a hundred thousand pounds (if he had it) for
Walter's gain in the long-run, and that he had no doubt such an
investment would yield a handsome premium.

Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the communication, which fell
upon the little back-parlour like a thunderbolt, and tore up the
hearth savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before
his dim sight: hinted so mysteriously at 'Whittingtonian consequences;
laid such emphasis on what Walter had just now told them: and appealed
to it so confidently as a corroboration of his predictions, and a
great advance towards the realisation of the romantic legend of Lovely
Peg: that he bewildered the old man. Walter, for his part, feigned to
be so full of hope and ardour, and so sure of coming home again soon,
and backed up the Captain with such expressive shakings of his head
and rubbings of his hands, that Solomon, looking first at him then at
Captain Cuttle, began to think he ought to be transported with joy.

'But I'm behind the time, you understand,' he observed in apology,
passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright buttons on his
coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he were telling
them twice over: 'and I would rather have my dear boy here. It's an
old-fashioned notion, I daresay. He was always fond of the sea He's' -
and he looked wistfully at Walter - 'he's glad to go.'

'Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, quickly, 'if you say that, I won't go.
No, Captain Cuttle, I won't. If my Uncle thinks I could be glad to
leave him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the Islands
in the West Indies, that's enough. I'm a fixture.'

'Wal'r, my lad,' said the Captain. 'Steady! Sol Gills, take an
observation of your nevy.

Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain's hook,
the old man looked at Walter.

'Here is a certain craft,' said the Captain, with a magnificent
sense of the allegory into which he was soaring, 'a-going to put out
on a certain voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is
it The Gay? or,' said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to
say, observe the point of this, 'is it The Gills?'

'Ned,' said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking his
arm tenderly through his, 'I know. I know. Of course I know that Wally
considers me more than himself always. That's in my mind. When I say
he is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned and you too,
Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I'm afraid my
being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is it really
good fortune for him, do you tell me, now?' said the old man, looking
anxiously from one to the other. 'Really and truly? Is it? I can
reconcile myself to almost anything that advances Wally, but I won't
have Wally putting himself at any disadvantage for me, or keeping
anything from me. You, Ned Cuttle!' said the old man, fastening on the
Captain, to the manifest confusion of that diplomatist; 'are you
dealing plainly by your old friend? Speak out, Ned Cuttle. Is there
anything behind? Ought he to go? How do you know it first, and why?'

As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck in
with infinite effect, to the Captain's relief; and between them they
tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the
project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain of
separation, was distinctly clear to his mind.

He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next
day, Walter received from Mr Carker the Manager, the necessary
credentials for his passage and outfit, together with the information
that the Son and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or
two afterwards at latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter
purposely enhanced as much as possible: the old man lost what little
selfpossession he ever had; and so the time of departure drew on
rapidly.

The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all
that passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the
time still tending on towards his going away, without any occasion
offering itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better
understanding of his position. It was after much consideration of this
fact, and much pondering over such an unfortunate combination of
circumstances, that a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he
made a call on Mr Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land
really lay!

Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a
moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place
after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his
conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by
what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it
would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr Carker
carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's
character, and discovered that they got on well together or the
reverse.

Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he
knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his
ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second
expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present
occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small
sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of
the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat,
bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son.

After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to
collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its
good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr Perch.

'Matey,' said the Captain, in persuasive accents. 'One of your
Governors is named Carker.' Mr Perch admitted it; but gave him to
understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were
engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more.

'Look'ee here, mate,' said the Captain in his ear; 'my name's
Cap'en Cuttle.'

The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to him, but Mr Perch
eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the
sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs Perch
might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady's hopes.

'If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle here, when you
get a chance,' said the Captain, 'I'll wait.'

Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr Perch's bracket, and
drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat which he
jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing
human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared
refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat
looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene
respect.

The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether
so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted.

'What name was it you said?' asked Mr Perch, bending down over him
as he sat on the bracket.

'Cap'en,' in a deep hoarse whisper.

'Yes,' said Mr Perch, keeping time with his head.

'Cuttle.'

'Oh!' said Mr Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and
couldn't help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive.
'I'll see if he's disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may be for
a minute.'

'Ay, ay, my lad, I won't detain him longer than a minute,' said the
Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within
him. Perch, soon returning, said, 'Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?'

Mr Carker the Manager, standing on the hearth-rug before the empty
fireplace, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown
paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special
encouragement.

'Mr Carker?' said Captain Cuttle.

'I believe so,' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth.

The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant.
'You see,' began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little
room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; 'I'm
a seafaring man myself, Mr Carker, and Wal'r, as is on your books
here, is almost a son of mine.'

'Walter Gay?' said Mr Carker, showing all his teeth again.

'Wal'r Gay it is,' replied the Captain, 'right!' The Captain's
manner expressed a warm approval of Mr Carker's quickness of
perception. 'I'm a intimate friend of his and his Uncle's. Perhaps,'
said the Captain, 'you may have heard your head Governor mention my
name? - Captain Cuttle.'

'No!' said Mr Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before.

'Well,' resumed the Captain, 'I've the pleasure of his
acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with
my young friend Wal'r, when - in short, when there was a little
accommodation wanted.' The Captain nodded his head in a manner that
was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. 'You remember, I
daresay?'

'I think,' said Mr Carker, 'I had the honour of arranging the
business.'

'To be sure!' returned the Captain. 'Right again! you had. Now I've
took the liberty of coming here -

'Won't you sit down?' said Mr Carker, smiling.

'Thank'ee,' returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. 'A
man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when
he sits down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?'

'No thank you,' said the Manager, standing, perhaps from the force
of winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking
down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. 'You have
taken the liberty, you were going to say - though it's none - '

'Thank'ee kindly, my lad,' returned the Captain: 'of coming here,
on account of my friend Wal'r. Sol Gills, his Uncle, is a man of
science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain't
what I should altogether call a able seaman - not man of practice.
Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he's a little down by the
head in one respect, and that is, modesty. Now what I should wish to
put to you,' said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a
kind of confidential growl, 'in a friendly way, entirely between you
and me, and for my own private reckoning, 'till your head Governor has
wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this - Is
everything right and comfortable here, and is Wal'r out'ard bound with
a pretty fair wind?'

'What do you think now, Captain Cuttle?' returned Carker, gathering
up his skirts and settling himself in his position. 'You are a
practical man; what do you think?'

The acuteness and the significance of the Captain's eye as he
cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words
before referred to could describe.

'Come!' said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, 'what do you say?
Am I right or wrong?'

So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and
incited by Mr Carker's smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as
fair a condition to put the question, as if he had expressed his
sentiments with the utmost elaboration.

'Right,' said Mr Carker, 'I have no doubt.'

'Out'ard bound with fair weather, then, I say,' cried Captain
Cuttle.

Mr Carker smiled assent.

'Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,' pursued the Captain.

Mr Carker smiled assent again.

'Ay, ay!' said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. 'I
know'd how she headed, well enough; I told Wal'r so. Thank'ee,
thank'ee.'

'Gay has brilliant prospects,' observed Mr Carker, stretching his
mouth wider yet: 'all the world before him.'

'All the world and his wife too, as the saying is,' returned the
delighted Captain.

At the word 'wife' (which he had uttered without design), the
Captain stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on
the top of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at
his always smiling friend.

'I'd bet a gill of old Jamaica,' said the Captain, eyeing him
attentively, 'that I know what you're a smiling at.'

Mr Carker took his cue, and smiled the more.

'It goes no farther?' said the Captain, making a poke at the door
with the knobby stick to assure himself that it was shut.

'Not an inch,' said Mr Carker.

'You're thinking of a capital F perhaps?' said the Captain.

Mr Carker didn't deny it.

'Anything about a L,' said the Captain, 'or a O?'

Mr Carker still smiled.

'Am I right, again?' inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the
scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.

Mr Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain
Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that
they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid
his course that way all along. 'He know'd her first,' said the
Captain, with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded,
'in an uncommon manner - you remember his finding her in the street
when she was a'most a babby - he has liked her ever since, and she
him, as much as two youngsters can. We've always said, Sol Gills and
me, that they was cut out for each other.'

A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not have
shown the Captain more teeth at one time, than Mr Carker showed him at
this period of their interview.

'There's a general indraught that way,' observed the happy Captain.
'Wind and water sets in that direction, you see. Look at his being
present t'other day!'

'Most favourable to his hopes,' said Mr Carker.

'Look at his being towed along in the wake of that day!' pursued
the Captain. 'Why what can cut him adrift now?'

'Nothing,' replied Mr Carker.

'You're right again,' returned the Captain, giving his hand another
squeeze. 'Nothing it is. So! steady! There's a son gone: pretty little
creetur. Ain't there?'

'Yes, there's a son gone,' said the acquiescent Carker.

'Pass the word, and there's another ready for you,' quoth the
Captain. 'Nevy of a scientific Uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r! Wal'r,
as is already in your business! And' - said the Captain, rising
gradually to a quotation he was preparing for a final burst, 'who -
comes from Sol Gills's daily, to your business, and your buzzums.' The
Captain's complacency as he gently jogged Mr Carker with his elbow, on
concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed
by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him
when he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity;
his great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a
masterpiece, and his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the
same cause.

'Am I right?' said the Captain.

'Captain Cuttle,' said Mr Carker, bending down at the knees, for a
moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the
whole of himself at once, 'your views in reference to Walter Gay are
thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together
in confidence.

'Honour!' interposed the Captain. 'Not a word.'

'To him or anyone?' pursued the Manager.

Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head.

'But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance - and guidance,
of course,' repeated Mr Carker, 'with a view to your future
proceedings.'

'Thank'ee kindly, I am sure,' said the Captain, listening with
great attention.

'I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. You have hit the
probabilities exactly.'

'And with regard to your head Governor,' said the Captain, 'why an
interview had better come about nat'ral between us. There's time
enough.'

Mr Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, 'Time enough.'
Not articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming
them with his tongue and lips.

'And as I know - it's what I always said- that Wal'r's in a way to
make his fortune,' said the Captain.

'To make his fortune,' Mr Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.

'And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in
his day's work, and a part of his general expectations here,' said the
Captain.

'Of his general expectations here,' assented Mr Carker, dumbly as
before.

'Why, so long as I know that,' pursued the Captain, 'there's no
hurry, and my mind's at ease.

Mr Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner,
Captain Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one
of the most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr Dombey
might improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness,
therefore, the Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not
unlike an old block in colour), and gave him a grip that left upon his
smoother flesh a proof impression of the chinks and crevices with
which the Captain's palm was liberally tattooed.

'Farewell!' said the Captain. 'I ain't a man of many words, but I
take it very kind of you to be so friendly, and above-board. You'll
excuse me if I've been at all intruding, will you?' said the Captain.

'Not at all,' returned the other.

'Thank'ee. My berth ain't very roomy,' said the Captain, turning
back again, 'but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself
near Brig Place, number nine, at any time - will you make a note of
it? - and would come upstairs, without minding what was said by the
person at the door, I should be proud to see you.

With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said 'Good day!' and
walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr Carker still reclining
against the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in
whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless
cravat and very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft
hand over his white linen and his smooth face; there was something
desperately cat-like.

The unconscious Captain walked out in a state of self-glorification
that imparted quite a new cut to the broad blue suit. 'Stand by, Ned!'
said the Captain to himself. 'You've done a little business for the
youngsters today, my lad!'

In his exultation, and in his familiarity, present and prospective,
with the House, the Captain, when he reached the outer office, could
not refrain from rallying Mr Perch a little, and asking him whether he
thought everybody was still engaged. But not to be bitter on a man who
had done his duty, the Captain whispered in his ear, that if he felt
disposed for a glass of rum-and-water, and would follow, he would be
happy to bestow the same upon him.

Before leaving the premises, the Captain, somewhat to the
astonishment of the clerks, looked round from a central point of view,
and took a general survey of the officers part and parcel of a project
in which his young friend was nearly interested. The strong-room
excited his especial admiration; but, that he might not appear too
particular, he limited himself to an approving glance, and, with a
graceful recognition of the clerks as a body, that was full of
politeness and patronage, passed out into the court. Being promptly
joined by Mr Perch, he conveyed that gentleman to the tavern, and
fulfilled his pledge - hastily, for Perch's time was precious.

'I'll give you for a toast,' said the Captain, 'Wal'r!'

'Who?' submitted Mr Perch.

'Wal'r!' repeated the Captain, in a voice of thunder.

Mr Perch, who seemed to remember having heard in infancy that there
was once a poet of that name, made no objection; but he was much
astonished at the Captain's coming into the City to propose a poet;
indeed, if he had proposed to put a poet's statue up - say
Shakespeare's for example - in a civic thoroughfare, he could hardly
have done a greater outrage to Mr Perch's experience. On the whole, he
was such a mysterious and incomprehensible character, that Mr Perch
decided not to mention him to Mrs Perch at all, in case of giving rise
to any disagreeable consequences.

Mysterious and incomprehensible, the Captain, with that lively
sense upon him of having done a little business for the youngsters,
remained all day, even to his most intimate friends; and but that
Walter attributed his winks and grins, and other such pantomimic
reliefs of himself, to his satisfaction in the success of their
innocent deception upon old Sol Gills, he would assuredly have
betrayed himself before night. As it was, however, he kept his own
secret; and went home late from the Instrument-maker's house, wearing
the glazed hat so much on one side, and carrying such a beaming
expression in his eyes, that Mrs MacStinger (who might have been
brought up at Doctor Blimber's, she was such a Roman matron) fortified
herself, at the first glimpse of him, behind the open street door, and
refused to come out to the contemplation of her blessed infants, until
he was securely lodged in his own room.

CHAPTER 18.

Father and Daughter

There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and
down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and
drink, and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs
Wickam, with her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy
anecdotes; and tells them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it
would be so, and takes more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry
but sociable. Cook's state of mind is similar. She promises a little
fry for supper, and struggles about equally against her feelings and
the onions. Towlinson begins to think there's a fate in it, and wants
to know if anybody can tell him ofany good that ever came of living in
a corner house. It seems to all of them as having happened a long time
ago; though yet the child lies, calm and beautiful, upon his little
bed.

After dark there come some visitors - noiseless visitors, with
shoes of felt - who have been there before; and with them comes that
bed of rest which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this
time, the bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for
he sits in an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there,
and never seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro.
But in the morning it is whispered among the household that he was
heard to go upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there - in
the room - until the sun was shining.

At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more
dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished
by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much
business done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make
assignations to eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river.
Perch, the messenger, stays long upon his errands; and finds himself
in bars of public-houses, invited thither by friends, and holding
forth on the uncertainty of human affairs. He goes home to Ball's Pond
earlier in the evening than usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal
cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker the Manager treats no one; neither is
he treated; but alone in his own room he shows his teeth all day; and
it would seem that there is something gone from Mr Carker's path -
some obstacle removed - which clears his way before him.

Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey's house, peep
from their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four
black horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers
tremble on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men
with scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to
twirl the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and
his trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters
to see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she
presses her baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne
forth; and the youngest of the rosy children at the high window
opposite, needs no restraining hand to check her in her glee, when,
pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse's face, and
asks 'What's that?'

And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the
weeping women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage
that is waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these
observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect,
his bearing is as stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind
no handkerchief, and looks before him. But that his face is something
sunk and rigid, and is pale, it bears the same expression as of old.
He takes his place within the carriage, and three other gentlemen
follow. Then the grand funeral moves slowly down the street. The
feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the
basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the
juggler's wife is less alert than usual with the money-box, for a
child's burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath
her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue
fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured worsted drawers, and tumble
in the mud.

The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come
within the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy
received all that will soon be left of him on earth - a name. All of
him that is dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his
mother. It is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks - oh
lonely, lonely walks! - may pass them any day.

The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks
round, demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been
requested to attend to receive instructions for the tablet, is there?

Someone comes forward, and says 'Yes.'

Mr Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him,
with his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to
follow the memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes
out the inscription, and gives it to him: adding, 'I wish to have it
done at once.

'It shall be done immediately, Sir.'

'There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see.'

The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr
Dombey not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads towards the
porch.

'I beg your pardon, Sir;' a touch falls gently on his mourning
cloak; 'but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand
when I get back - '

'Well?'

'Will you be so good as read it over again? I think there's a
mistake.'

'Where?'

The statuary gives him back the paper, and points out, with his
pocket rule, the words, 'beloved and only child.'

'It should be, "son," I think, Sir?'

'You are right. Of course. Make the correction.'

The father, with a hastier step, pursues his way to the coach. When
the other three, who follow closely, take their seats, his face is
hidden for the first time - shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it
any more that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his
own room. The other mourners (who are only Mr Chick, and two of the
medical attendants) proceed upstairs to the drawing-room, to be
received by Mrs Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the
shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart
is, what the contest or the suffering: no one knows.

The chief thing that they know, below stairs, in the kitchen, is
that 'it seems like Sunday.' They can hardly persuade themselves but
that there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of
the people out of doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and
wear their everyday attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds
up, and the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally
comfortable over bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a
festival. They are much inclined to moralise. Mr Towlinson proposes
with a sigh, 'Amendment to us all!' for which, as Cook says with
another sigh, 'There's room enough, God knows.' In the evening, Mrs
Chick and Miss Tox take to needlework again. In the evening also, Mr
Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who
has not yet tried her mourning bonnet. They are very tender to each
other at dusky street-corners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an
altered and blameless existence as a serious greengrocer in Oxford
Market.

There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr Dombey's house
tonight, than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens
the old household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy
children opposite run past with hoops. There is a splendid wedding in
the church. The juggler's wife is active with the money-box in another
quarter of the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out
P-A-U-L in the marble slab before him.

And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one
weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing
but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in
her innocent affliction, might have answered, 'Oh my brother, oh my
dearly loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my
slighted childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning
on your early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is
springing into life beneath this rain of tears!'

'My dear child,' said Mrs Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on
her, to improve the occasion, 'when you are as old as I am - '

'Which will be the prime of life,' observed Miss Tox.

'You will then,' pursued Mrs Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox's
hand in acknowledgment of her friendly remark, 'you will then know
that all grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit.'

'I will try, dear aunt I do try,' answered Florence, sobbing.

'I am glad to hear it,' said Mrs Chick, 'because; my love, as our
dear Miss Tox - of whose sound sense and excellent judgment, there
cannot possibly be two opinions - '

'My dear Louisa, I shall really be proud, soon,' said Miss Tox

- 'will tell you, and confirm by her experience,' pursued Mrs
Chick, 'we are called upon on all occasions to make an effort It is
required of us. If any - my dear,' turning to Miss Tox, 'I want a
word. Mis- Mis-'

'Demeanour?' suggested Miss Tox.

'No, no, no,' said Mrs Chic 'How can you! Goodness me, it's on, the
end of my tongue. Mis-'

Placed affection?' suggested Miss Tox, timidly.

'Good gracious, Lucretia!' returned Mrs Chick 'How very monstrous!
Misanthrope, is the word I want. The idea! Misplaced affection! I say,
if any misanthrope were to put, in my presence, the question "Why were
we born?" I should reply, "To make an effort"'

'Very good indeed,' said Miss Tox, much impressed by the
originality of the sentiment 'Very good.'

'Unhappily,' pursued Mrs Chick, 'we have a warning under our own
eyes. We have but too much reason to suppose, my dear child, that if
an effort had been made in time, in this family, a train of the most
trying and distressing circumstances might have been avoided. Nothing
shall ever persuade me,' observed the good matron, with a resolute
air, 'but that if that effort had been made by poor dear Fanny, the
poor dear darling child would at least have had a stronger
constitution.'

Mrs Chick abandoned herself to her feelings for half a moment; but,
as a practical illustration of her doctrine, brought herself up short,
in the middle of a sob, and went on again.

'Therefore, Florence, pray let us see that you have some strength
of mind, and do not selfishly aggravate the distress in which your
poor Papa is plunged.'

'Dear aunt!' said Florence, kneeling quickly down before her, that
she might the better and more earnestly look into her face. 'Tell me
more about Papa. Pray tell me about him! Is he quite heartbroken?'

Miss Tox was of a tender nature, and there was something in this
appeal that moved her very much. Whether she saw it in a succession,
on the part of the neglected child, to the affectionate concern so
often expressed by her dead brother - or a love that sought to twine
itself about the heart that had loved him, and that could not bear to
be shut out from sympathy with such a sorrow, in such sad community of
love and grief - or whether the only recognised the earnest and
devoted spirit which, although discarded and repulsed, was wrung with
tenderness long unreturned, and in the waste and solitude of this
bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort in it, and to give some, by
some small response - whatever may have been her understanding of it,
it moved Miss Tox. For the moment she forgot the majesty of Mrs Chick,
and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered
the tears to gush from her eyes, without waiting for a lead from that
wise matron.

Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which
she so much prided herself; and remained mute, looking on the
beautiful young face that had so long, so steadily, and patiently,
been turned towards the little bed. But recovering her voice - which
was synonymous with her presence of mind, indeed they were one and the
same thing - she replied with dignity:

'Florence, my dear child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and
to question me about him, is to question me upon a subject which I
really do not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much
influence with your Papa as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that
he has said very little to me; and that I have only seen him once or
twice for a minute at a time, and indeed have hardly seen him then,
for his room has been dark. I have said to your Papa, "Paul!" - that
is the exact expression I used - "Paul! why do you not take something
stimulating?" Your Papa's reply has always been, "Louisa, have the
goodness to leave me. I want nothing. I am better by myself." If I was
to be put upon my oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before a magistrate,' said
Mrs Chick, 'I have no doubt I could venture to swear to those
identical words.'

Miss Tox expressed her admiration by saying, 'My Louisa is ever
methodical!'

'In short, Florence,' resumed her aunt, 'literally nothing has
passed between your poor Papa and myself, until to-day; when I
mentioned to your Papa that Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles had written
exceedingly kind notes - our sweet boy! Lady Skettles loved him like a
- where's my pocket handkerchief?'

Miss Tox produced one.

'Exceedingly kind notes, proposing that you should visit them for
change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa that I thought Miss Tox and
myself might now go home (in which he quite agreed), I inquired if he
had any objection to your accepting this invitation. He said, "No,
Louisa, not the least!"' Florence raised her tearful eye

'At the same time, if you would prefer staying here, Florence, to
paying this visit at present, or to going home with me - '

'I should much prefer it, aunt,' was the faint rejoinder.

'Why then, child,'said Mrs Chick, 'you can. It's a strange choice,
I must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else at your time of
life, and after what has passed - my dear Miss Tox, I have lost my
pocket handkerchief again - would be glad to leave here, one would
suppose.

'I should not like to feel,' said Florence, 'as if the house was
avoided. I should not like to think that the - his - the rooms
upstairs were quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather stay here,
for the present. Oh my brother! oh my brother!'

It was a natural emotion, not to be suppressed; and it would make
way even between the fingers of the hands with which she covered up
her face. The overcharged and heavy-laden breast must some times have
that vent, or the poor wounded solitary heart within it would have
fluttered like a bird with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust'

'Well, child!' said Mrs Chick, after a pause 'I wouldn't on any
account say anything unkind to you, and that I'm sure you know. You
will remain here, then, and do exactly as you like. No one will
interfere with you, Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I'm sure.

Florence shook her head in sad assent'

'I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really
ought to seek some distraction and restoration in a temporary change,'
said Mrs Chick, 'than he told me he had already formed the intention
of going into the country for a short time. I'm sure I hope he'll go
very soon. He can't go too soon. But I suppose there are some
arrangements connected with his private papers and so forth,
consequent on the affliction that has tried us all so much - I can't
think what's become of mine: Lucretia, lend me yours, my dear - that
may occupy him for one or two evenings in his own room. Your Papa's a
Dombey, child, if ever there was one,' said Mrs Chick, drying both her
eyes at once with great care on opposite corners of Miss Tox's
handkerchief 'He'll make an effort. There's no fear of him.'

'Is there nothing, aunt,' said Florence, trembling, 'I might do to
-

'Lord, my dear child,' interposed Mrs Chick, hastily, 'what are you
talking about? If your Papa said to Me - I have given you his exact
words, "Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself" - what do you
think he'd say to you? You mustn't show yourself to him, child. Don't
dream of such a thing.'

'Aunt,' said Florence, 'I will go and lie down on my bed.'

Mrs Chick approved of this resolution, and dismissed her with a
kiss. But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking for the mislaid
handkerchief, went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen
minutes to comfort her, in spite of great discouragement from Susan
Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her burning zeal, disparaged Miss Tox as a
crocodile; yet her sympathy seemed genuine, and had at least the
vantage-ground of disinterestedness - there was little favour to be
won by it.

And was there no one nearer and dearer than Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its anguish? Was there no other neck to clasp; no
other face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep
sorrow? Was Florence so alone in the bleak world that nothing else
remained to her? Nothing. Stricken motherless and brotherless at once
- for in the loss of little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell
heavily upon her - this was the only help she had. Oh, who can tell
how much she needed help at first!

At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and
they had all gone away, except the servants, and her father shut up in
his own rooms, Florence could do nothing but weep, and wander up and
down, and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to
her own chamber, wring her hands, lay her face down on her bed, and
know no consolation: nothing but the bitterness and cruelty of grief.
This commonly ensued upon the recognition of some spot or object very
tenderly dated with him; and it made the ale house, at first, a place
of agony.

But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and
unkindly long. The flame that in its grosser composition has the taint
of earth may prey upon the breast that gives it shelter; but the fire
from heaven is as gentle in the heart, as when it rested on the heads
of the assembled twelve, and showed each man his brother, brightened
and unhurt. The image conjured up, there soon returned the placid
face, the softened voice, the loving looks, the quiet trustfulness and
peace; and Florence, though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and
courted the remembrance.

It was not very long before the golden water, dancing on the wall,
in the old place, at the old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon
it as it ebbed away. It was not very long before that room again knew
her, often; sitting there alone, as patient and as mild as when she
had watched beside the little bed. When any sharp sense of its being
empty smote upon her, she could kneel beside it, and pray GOD - it was
the pouring out of her full heart - to let one angel love her and
remember her.

It was not very long before, in the midst of the dismal house so
wide and dreary, her low voice in the twilight, slowly and stopping
sometimes, touched the old air to which he had so often listened, with
his drooping head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite
dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played
and sung, that it was more lIke the mournful recollection of what she
had done at his request on that last night, than the reality repeated.
But it was repeated, often - very often, in the shadowy solitude; and
broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the
sweet voice was hushed in tears.

Thus she gained heart to look upon the work with which her fingers
had been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very
long before she took to it again - with something of a human love for
it, as if it had been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a
window, near her mother's picture, in the unused room so long
deserted, wore away the thoughtful hours.

Why did the dark eyes turn so often from this work to where the
rosy children lived? They were not immediate!y suggestive of her loss;
for they were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless
like her - and had a father.

It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for
the elder child was always dressed and waiting for him at the
drawing-room window, or n the balcony; and when he appeared, her
expectant face lighted up with joy, while the others at the high
window, and always on the watch too, clapped their hands, and drummed
them on the sill, and called to him. The elder child would come down
to the hall, and put her hand in his, and lead him up the stairs; and
Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his side, or on his knee,
or hanging coaxingly about his neck and talking to him: and though
they were always gay together, he would often watch her face as if he
thought her like her mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes
look no more at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the
curtain as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet
she could not help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded
from her hands again.

It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so
for a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this
family had taken it; and it was repaired and newly painted; and there
were birds and flowers about it; and it looked very different from its
old self. But she never thought of the house. The children and their
father were all in all.

When he had dined, she could see them, through the open windows, go
down with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and
in the still summer weather, the sound of their childish voices and
clear laughter would come ringing across the street, into the drooping
air of the room in which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber
upstairs with him, and romp about him on the sofa, or group themselves
at his knee, a very nosegay of little faces, while he seemed to tell
them some story. Or they would come running out into the balcony; and
then Florence would hide herself quickly, lest it should check them in
their joy, to see her in her black dress, sitting there alone.

The elder child remained with her father when the rest had gone
away, and made his tea for him - happy little house-keeper she was
then! - and sat conversing with him, sometimes at the window,
sometimes in the room, until the candles came. He made her his
companion, though she was some years younger than Florence; and she
could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with her little book or
work-box, as a woman. When they had candles, Florence from her own
dark room was not afraid to look again. But when the time came for the
child to say 'Good-night, Papa,' and go to bed, Florence would sob and
tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more.

Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed
herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long
ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that
house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret
which she kept within her own young breast.

And did that breast of Florence - Florence, so ingenuous and true -
so worthy of the love that he had borne her, and had whispered in his
last faint words - whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of
her face, and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice - did that
young breast hold any other secret? Yes. One more.

When no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless
feet descend the staircase, and approach her father's door. Against
it, scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press
her lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold
stone floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath;
and in her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some
affection, to be a consolation to him, to win him over to the
endurance of some tenderness from her, his solitary child, she would
have knelt down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble supplication.

No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and
he shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the
house that he was very soon going on his country journey; but he lived
in those rooms, and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for
her. Perhaps he did not even know that she was in the house.

One day, about a week after the funeral, Florence was sitting at
her work, when Susan appeared, with a face half laughing and half
crying, to announce a visitor.

'A visitor! To me, Susan!' said Florence, looking up in
astonishment.

'Well, it is a wonder, ain't it now, Miss Floy?' said Susan; 'but I
wish you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you'd be all the
better for it, and it's my opinion that the sooner you and me goes
even to them old Skettleses, Miss, the better for both, I may not wish
to live in crowds, Miss Floy, but still I'm not a oyster.'

To do Miss Nipper justice, she spoke more for her young mistress
than herself; and her face showed it.

'But the visitor, Susan,' said Florence.

Susan, with an hysterical explosion that was as much a laugh as a
sob, and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,

'Mr Toots!'

The smile that appeared on Florence's face passed from it in a
moment, and her eyes filled with tears. But at any rate it was a
smile, and that gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.

'My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,' said Susan, putting her apron
to her eyes, and shaking her head. 'Immediately I see that Innocent in
the Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.'

Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like again on the
spot. In the meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after her, all
unconscious of the effect he produced, announced himself with his
knuckles on the door, and walked in very brisKly.

'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank
you; how are you?'

Mr Toots - than whom there were few better fellows in the world,
though there may have been one or two brighter spirits - had
laboriously invented this long burst of discourse with the view of
relieving the feelings both of Florence and himself. But finding that
he had run through his property, as it were, in an injudicious manner,
by squandering the whole before taking a chair, or before Florence had
uttered a word, or before he had well got in at the door, he deemed it
advisable to begin again.

'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank
you; how are you?'

Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.

'I'm very well indeed,' said Mr Toots, taking a chair. 'Very well
indeed, I am. I don't remember,' said Mr Toots, after reflecting a
little, 'that I was ever better, thank you.'

'It's very kind of you to come,' said Florence, taking up her work,
'I am very glad to see you.'

Mr Toots responded with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too
lively, he corrected it with a sigh. Thinking that might be too
melancholy, he corrected it with a chuckle. Not thoroughly pleasing
himself with either mode of reply, he breathed hard.

'You were very kind to my dear brother,' said Florence, obeying her
own natural impulse to relieve him by saying so. 'He often talked to
me about you.'

'Oh it's of no consequence,' said Mr Toots hastily. 'Warm, ain't
it?'

'It is beautiful weather,' replied Florence.

'It agrees with me!' said Mr Toots. 'I don't think I ever was so
well as I find myself at present, I'm obliged to you.

After stating this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell into
a deep well of silence.

'You have left Dr Blimber's, I think?' said Florence, trying to
help him out.

'I should hope so,' returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.

He remained at the bottom, apparently drowned, for at least ten
minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and
said,

'Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.'

'Are you going?' asked Florence, rising.

'I don't know, though. No, not just at present,' said Mr Toots,
sitting down again, most unexpectedly. 'The fact is - I say, Miss
Dombey!'

'Don't be afraid to speak to me,' said Florence, with a quiet
smile, 'I should he very glad if you would talk about my brother.'

'Would you, though?' retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every
fibre of his otherwise expressionless face. 'Poor Dombey! I'm sure I
never thought that Burgess and Co. - fashionable tailors (but very
dear), that we used to talk about - would make this suit of clothes
for such a purpose.' Mr Toots was dressed in mourning. 'Poor Dombey! I
say! Miss Dombey!' blubbered Toots.

'Yes,' said Florence.

'There's a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you'd
lIke to have him, perhaps, as a sort of keepsake. You remember his
remembering Diogenes?'

'Oh yes! oh yes' cried Florence.

'Poor Dombey! So do I,' said Mr Toots.

Mr Toots, seeing Florence in tears, had great difficulty in getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a
chucKle saved him on the brink.

'I say,' he proceeded, 'Miss Dombey! I could have had him stolen
for ten shillings, if they hadn't given him up: and I would: but they
were glad to get rid of him, I think. If you'd like to have him, he's
at the door. I brought him on purpose for you. He ain't a lady's dog,
you know,' said Mr Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'

In fact, Diogenes was at that moment, as they presently ascertained
from looking down into the street, staring through the window of a
hackney cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had
been ensnared, on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to
say, he was as unlike a lady's dog as might be; and in his gruff
anxiety to get out, presented an appearance sufficiently unpromising,
as he gave short yelps out of one side of his mouth, and overbalancing
himself by the intensity of every one of those efforts, tumbled down
into the straw, and then sprung panting up again, putting out his
tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to be examined for
his health.

But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with
on a summer's day; a blundering, ill-favoured, clumsy, bullet-headed
dog, continually acting on a wrong idea that there was an enemy in the
neighbourhood, whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was
far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all
over his eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff
voice; he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting
remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of,
than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was
this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she took the
jewelled hand of Mr Toots and kissed it in her gratitude. And when
Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and bouncing into the
room (such a business as there was, first, to get him out of the
cabriolet!), dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron
chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables,
and then tugged at it until his eyes became unnaturally visible, in
consequence of their nearly starting out of his head; and when he
growled at Mr Toots, who affected familiarity; and went pell-mell at
Towlinson, morally convinced that he was the enemy whom he had barked
at round the corner all his life and had never seen yet; Florence was
as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of discretion.

Mr Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so
delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his
coarse back with her little delicate hand - Diogenes graciously
allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance - that he felt
it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much
longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been
assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to
bay Mr Toots, and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not
exactly seeing his way to the end of these demonstrations, and
sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by the art of
Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out at
the door: by which, after looking in again two or three times, without
any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run
from Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away.

'Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let
us love each other, Di!'said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And
Di, the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the
tear that dropped upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put
his nose up to her face, and swore fidelity.

Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than
Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence.' He subscribed to the offer of his
little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A
banquet was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had
eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was
sitting, looking on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore
paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great
head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired.
Finally, Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went to sleep.

Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it
necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected
about her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to
utter little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched
himself, she was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr
Toots, and could not see Florence so alive to the attachment and
society of this rude friend of little Paul's, without some mental
comments thereupon that brought the water to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a
part of her reflections, may have been, in the association of ideas,
connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after observing Diogenes and
his mistress all the evening, and after exerting herself with much
good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in an ante-chamber outside his
mistress's door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving her
for the night:

'Your Pa's a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.'

'To-morrow morning, Susan?'

'Yes, Miss; that's the orders. Early.'

'Do you know,' asked Florence, without looking at her, 'where Papa
is going, Susan?'

'Not exactly, Miss. He's going to meet that precious Major first,
and I must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which
Heavens forbid), it shouldn't be a blue one!'

'Hush, Susan!' urged Florence gently.

'Well, Miss Floy,' returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning
indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. 'I can't help
it, blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would
have natural-coloured friends, or none.'

It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that
Mrs Chick had proposed the Major for Mr Dombey's companion, and that
Mr Dombey, after some hesitation, had invited him.

'Talk of him being a change, indeed!' observed Miss Nipper to
herself with boundless contempt. 'If he's a change, give me a
constancy.

'Good-night, Susan,' said Florence.

'Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.'

Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched,
but never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left
alone, laid her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her
swelling heart, held free communication with her sorrows.

It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and
dropping with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went
moaning round the house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill
noise quivered through the trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late,
and dreary midnight tolled out from the steeples.

Florence was little more than a child in years - not yet fourteen-
and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where
Death had lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set
an older fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination
was too full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her
thoughts but love - a wandering love, indeed, and castaway - but
turning always to her father. There was nothing in the dropping of the
rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering of the trees, the
striking of the solemn clocks, that shook this one thought, or
diminished its interest' Her recollections of the dear dead boy - and
they were never absent - were itself, the same thing. And oh, to be
shut out: to be so lost: never to have looked into her father's face
or touched him, since that hour!

She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since
then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have
been a strange sad sight, to see her' now, stealing lightly down the
stairs through the thick gloom, and stopping at it with a beating
heart, and blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought
of; and touching it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered
it, and no one knew.

The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found
that it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a
hair's-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the
timid child - and she yielded to it - was to retire swiftly. Her next,
to go back, and to enter; and this second impulse held her in
irresolution on the staircase.

In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed
to be hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from
within, stealing through the dark stern doorway, and falling in a
thread upon the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she
did, but urged on by the love within her, and the trial they had
undergone together, but not shared: and with her hands a little raised
and trembling, glided in.

Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter lay in
fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass
panes in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a
baby; and the low complainings of the wind were heard without.

But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so
immersed in thought, that a far heavier tread than the light foot of
his child could make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was
turned towards her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it
looked worn and dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding him,
there was an appeal to Florence that struck home.

'Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!'

He started at her voice, and leaped up from his seat. She was close
before him' with extended arms, but he fell back.

'What is the matter?' he said, sternly. 'Why do you come here? What
has frightened you?'

If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her.
The glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before
it, and she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.

There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not
one gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There
was a change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and
cold constraint had given place to something: what, she never thought
and did not dare to think, and yet she felt it in its force, and knew
it well without a name: that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a
shadow on her head.

Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health
and life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's
affection? Did a mad jealousy and withered pride, poison sweet
remembrances that should have endeared and made her precious to him?
Could it be possible that it was gall to him to look upon her in her
beauty and her promise: thinking of his infant boy!

Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is
spurned and hopeless: and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking
in her father's face.

'I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the
matter, that you come here?'

'I came, Papa - '

'Against my wishes. Why?'

She saw he knew why: it was written broadly on his face: and
dropped her head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry.

Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has faded from
the air, before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his
brain, as he believes, but it is there. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!

He took her by the arm. His hand was cold, and loose, and scarcely
closed upon her.

'You are tired, I daresay,' he said, taking up the light, and
leading her towards the door, 'and want rest. We all want rest. Go,
Florence. You have been dreaming.'

The dream she had had, was over then, God help her! and she felt
that it could never more come back

'I will remain here to light you up the stairs. The whole house is
yours above there,' said her father, slowly. 'You are its mistress
now. Good-night!'

Still covering her face, she sobbed, and answered 'Good-night, dear
Papa,' and silently ascended. Once she looked back as if she would
have returned to him, but for fear. It was a mommentary thought, too
hopeless to encourage; and her father stood there with the light -
hard, unresponsive, motionless - until the fluttering dress of his
fair child was lost in the darkness.

Let him remember it in that room, years to come. The rain that
falls upon the roof: the wind that mourns outside the door: may have
foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that
room, years to come!

The last time he had watched her, from the same place, winding up
those stairs, she had had her brother in her arms. It did not move his
heart towards her now, it steeled it: but he went into his room, and
locked his door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost
boy.

Diogenes was broad awake upon his post, and waiting for his little
mistress.

'Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!'

Diogenes already loved her for her own, and didn't care how much he
showed it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a
variety of uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded, when
poor Florence was at last asleep, and dreaming of the rosy children
opposite, by scratching open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into
a pillow: lying down on the boards, at the full length of his tether,
with his head towards her: and looking lazily at her, upside down, out
of the tops of his eyes, until from winking and winking he fell asleep
himself, and dreamed, with gruff barks, of his enemy.

CHAPTER 19.

Walter goes away

The wooden Midshipman at the Instrument-maker's door, like the
hard-hearted little Midshipman he was, remained supremely indifferent
to Walter's going away, even when the very last day of his sojourn in
the back parlour was on the decline. With his quadrant at his round
black knob of an eye, and his figure in its old attitude of
indomitable alacrity, the Midshipman displayed his elfin small-clothes
to the best advantage, and, absorbed in scientific pursuits, had no
sympathy with worldly concerns. He was so far the creature of
circumstances, that a dry day covered him with dust, and a misty day
peppered him with little bits of soot, and a wet day brightened up his
tarnished uniform for the moment, and a very hot day blistered him;
but otherwise he was a callous, obdurate, conceited Midshipman, intent
on his own discoveries, and caring as little for what went on about
him, terrestrially, as Archimedes at the taking of Syracuse.

Such a Midshipman he seemed to be, at least, in the then position
of domestic affairs. Walter eyed him kindly many a time in passing in
and out; and poor old Sol, when Walter was not there, would come and
lean against the doorpost, resting his weary wig as near the
shoe-buckles of the guardian genius of his trade and shop as he could.
But no fierce idol with a mouth from ear to ear, and a murderous
visage made of parrot's feathers, was ever more indifferent to the
appeals of its savage votaries, than was the Midshipman to these marks
of attachment.

Walter's heart felt heavy as he looked round his old bedroom, up
among the parapets and chimney-pots, and thought that one more night
already darkening would close his acquaintance with it, perhaps for
ever. Dismantled of his little stock of books and pictures, it looked
coldly and reproachfully on him for his desertion, and had already a
foreshadowing upon it of its coming strangeness. 'A few hours more,'
thought Walter, 'and no dream I ever had here when I was a schoolboy
will be so little mine as this old room. The dream may come back in my
sleep, and I may return waking to this place, it may be: but the dream
at least will serve no other master, and the room may have a score,
and every one of them may change, neglect, misuse it.'

But his Uncle was not to be left alone in the little back parlour,
where he was then sitting by himself; for Captain Cuttle, considerate
in his roughness, stayed away against his will, purposely that they
should have some talk together unobserved: so Walter, newly returned
home from his last day's bustle, descended briskly, to bear him
company.

'Uncle,' he said gaily, laying his hand upon the old man's
shoulder, 'what shall I send you home from Barbados?'

'Hope, my dear Wally. Hope that we shall meet again, on this side
of the grave. Send me as much of that as you can.'

'So I will, Uncle: I have enough and to spare, and I'll not be
chary of it! And as to lively turtles, and limes for Captain Cuttle's
punch, and preserves for you on Sundays, and all that sort of thing,
why I'll send you ship-loads, Uncle: when I'm rich enough.'

Old Sol wiped his spectacles, and faintly smiled.

'That's right, Uncle!' cried Walter, merrily, and clapping him half
a dozen times more upon the shoulder. 'You cheer up me! I'll cheer up
you! We'll be as gay as larks to-morrow morning, Uncle, and we'll fly
as high! As to my anticipations, they are singing out of sight now.

'Wally, my dear boy,' returned the old man, 'I'll do my best, I'll
do my best.'

'And your best, Uncle,' said Walter, with his pleasant laugh, 'is
the best best that I know. You'll not forget what you're to send me,
Uncle?'

'No, Wally, no,' replied the old man; 'everything I hear about Miss
Dombey, now that she is left alone, poor lamb, I'll write. I fear it
won't be much though, Wally.'

'Why, I'll tell you what, Uncle,' said Walter, after a moment's
hesitation, 'I have just been up there.'

'Ay, ay, ay?' murmured the old man, raising his eyebrows, and his
spectacles with them.

'Not to see her,' said Walter, 'though I could have seen her, I
daresay, if I had asked, Mr Dombey being out of town: but to say a
parting word to Susan. I thought I might venture to do that, you know,
under the circumstances, and remembering when I saw Miss Dombey last.'

'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, rousing himself from a
temporary abstraction.

'So I saw her,' pursued Walter, 'Susan, I mean: and I told her I
was off and away to-morrow. And I said, Uncle, that you had always had
an interest in Miss Dombey since that night when she was here, and
always wished her well and happy, and always would be proud and glad
to serve her in the least: I thought I might say that, you know, under
the circumstances. Don't you think so ?'

'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, in the tone as before.

'And I added,' pursued Walter, 'that if she - Susan, I mean - could
ever let you know, either through herself, or Mrs Richards, or anybody
else who might be coming this way, that Miss Dombey was well and
happy, you would take it very kindly, and would write so much to me,
and I should take it very kindly too. There! Upon my word, Uncle,'
said Walter, 'I scarcely slept all last night through thinking of
doing this; and could not make up my mind when I was out, whether to
do it or not; and yet I am sure it is the true feeling of my heart,
and I should have been quite miserable afterwards if I had not
relieved it.'

His honest voice and manner corroborated what he said, and quite
established its ingenuousness.

'So, if you ever see her, Uncle,' said Walter, 'I mean Miss Dombey
now - and perhaps you may, who knows! - tell her how much I felt for
her; how much I used to think of her when I was here; how I spoke of
her, with the tears in my eyes, Uncle, on this last night before I
went away. Tell her that I said I never could forget her gentle
manner, or her beautiful face, or her sweet kind disposition that was
better than all. And as I didn't take them from a woman's feet, or a
young lady's: only a little innocent child's,' said Walter: 'tell her,
if you don't mind, Uncle, that I kept those shoes - she'll remember
how often they fell off, that night - and took them away with me as a
remembrance!'

They were at that very moment going out at the door in one of
Walter's trunks. A porter carrying off his baggage on a truck for
shipment at the docks on board the Son and Heir, had got possession of
them; and wheeled them away under the very eye of the insensible
Midshipman before their owner had well finished speaking.

But that ancient mariner might have been excused his insensibility
to the treasure as it rolled away. For, under his eye at the same
moment, accurately within his range of observation, coming full into
the sphere of his startled and intensely wide-awake look-out, were
Florence and Susan Nipper: Florence looking up into his face half
timidly, and receiving the whole shock of his wooden ogling!

More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the
parlour door before they were observed by anybody but the Midshipman.
And Walter, having his back to the door, would have known nothing of
their apparition even then, but for seeing his Uncle spring out of his
own chair, and nearly tumble over another.

'Why, Uncle!' exclaimed Walter. 'What's the matter?'

Old Solomon replied, 'Miss Dombey!'

'Is it possible?' cried Walter, looking round and starting up in
his turn. 'Here!'

Why, It was so possible and so actual, that, while the words were
on his lips, Florence hurried past him; took Uncle Sol's
snuff-coloured lapels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek; and
turning, gave her hand to Walter with a simple truth and earnestness
that was her own, and no one else's in the world!

'Going away, Walter!' said Florence.

'Yes, Miss Dombey,' he replied, but not so hopefully as he
endeavoured: 'I have a voyage before me.'

'And your Uncle,' said Florence, looking back at Solomon. 'He is
sorry you are going, I am sure. Ah! I see he is! Dear Walter, I am
very sorry too.'

'Goodness knows,' exclaimed Miss Nipper, 'there's a many we could
spare instead, if numbers is a object, Mrs Pipchin as a overseer would
come cheap at her weight in gold, and if a knowledge of black slavery
should be required, them Blimbers is the very people for the
sitiwation.'

With that Miss Nipper untied her bonnet strings, and alter looking
vacantly for some moments into a little black teapot that was set
forth with the usual homely service on the table, shook her head and a
tin canister, and began unasked to make the tea.

In the meantime Florence had turned again to the Instrument-maker,
who was as full of admiration as surprise. 'So grown!' said old Sol.
'So improved! And yet not altered! Just the same!'

'Indeed!' said Florence.

'Ye - yes,' returned old Sol, rubbing his hands slowly, and
considering the matter half aloud, as something pensive in the bright
eyes looking at him arrested his attention. 'Yes, that expression was
in the younger face, too!'

'You remember me,' said Florence with a smile, 'and what a little
creature I was then?'

'My dear young lady,' returned the Instrument-maker, 'how could I
forget you, often as I have thought of you and heard of you since! At
the very moment, indeed, when you came in, Wally was talking about you
to me, and leaving messages for you, and - '

'Was he?' said Florence. 'Thank you, Walter! Oh thank you, Walter!
I was afraid you might be going away and hardly thinking of me;' and
again she gave him her little hand so freely and so faithfully that
Walter held it for some moments in his own, and could not bear to let
it go.

Yet Walter did not hold it as he might have held it once, nor did
its touch awaken those old day-dreams of his boyhood that had floated
past him sometimes even lately, and confused him with their indistinct
and broken shapes. The purity and innocence of her endearing manner,
and its perfect trustfulness, and the undisguised regard for him that
lay so deeply seated in her constant eyes, and glowed upon her fair
face through the smile that shaded - for alas! it was a smile too sad
to brighten - it, were not of their romantic race. They brought back
to his thoughts the early death-bed he had seen her tending, and the
love the child had borne her; and on the wings of such remembrances
she seemed to rise up, far above his idle fancies, into clearer and
serener air.

'I - I am afraid I must call you Walter's Uncle, Sir,' said
Florence to the old man, 'if you'll let me.'

'My dear young lady,' cried old Sol. 'Let you! Good gracious!'

'We always knew you by that name, and talked of you,' said
Florence, glancing round, and sighing gently. 'The nice old parlour!
Just the same! How well I recollect it!'

Old Sol looked first at her, then at his nephew, and then rubbed
his hands, and rubbed his spectacles, and said below his breath, 'Ah!
time, time, time!'

There was a short silence; during which Susan Nipper skilfully
impounded two extra cups and saucers from the cupboard, and awaited
the drawing of the tea with a thoughtful air.

'I want to tell Walter's Uncle,' said Florence, laying her hand
timidly upon the old man's as it rested on the table, to bespeak his
attention, 'something that I am anxious about. He is going to be left
alone, and if he will allow me - not to take Walter's place, for that
I couldn't do, but to be his true friend and help him if I ever can
while Walter is away, I shall be very much obliged to him indeed. Will
you? May I, Walter's Uncle?'

The Instrument-maker, without speaking, put her hand to his lips,
and Susan Nipper, leaning back with her arms crossed, in the chair of
presidency into which she had voted herself, bit one end of her bonnet
strings, and heaved a gentle sigh as she looked up at the skylight.

'You will let me come to see you,' said Florence, 'when I can; and
you will tell me everything about yourself and Walter; and you will
have no secrets from Susan when she comes and I do not, but will
confide in us, and trust us, and rely upon us. And you'll try to let
us be a comfort to you? Will you, Walter's Uncle?'

The sweet face looking into his, the gentle pleading eyes, the soft
voice, and the light touch on his arm made the more winning by a
child's respect and honour for his age, that gave to all an air of
graceful doubt and modest hesitation - these, and her natural
earnestness, so overcame the poor old Instrument-maker, that he only
answered:

'Wally! say a word for me, my dear. I'm very grateful.'

'No, Walter,' returned Florence with her quiet smile. 'Say nothing
for him, if you please. I understand him very well, and we must learn
to talk together without you, dear Walter.'

The regretful tone in which she said these latter words, touched
Walter more than all the rest.

'Miss Florence,' he replied, with an effort to recover the cheerful
manner he had preserved while talking with his Uncle, 'I know no more
than my Uncle, what to say in acknowledgment of such kindness, I am
sure. But what could I say, after all, if I had the power of talking
for an hour, except that it is like you?'

Susan Nipper began upon a new part of her bonnet string, and nodded
at the skylight, in approval of the sentiment expressed.

'Oh! but, Walter,' said Florence, 'there is something that I wish
to say to you before you go away, and you must call me Florence, if
you please, and not speak like a stranger.'

'Like a stranger!' returned Walter, 'No. I couldn't speak so. I am
sure, at least, I couldn't feel like one.'

'Ay, but that is not enough, and is not what I mean. For, Walter,'
added Florence, bursting into tears, 'he liked you very much, and said
before he died that he was fond of you, and said "Remember Walter!"
and if you'll be a brother to me, Walter, now that he is gone and I
have none on earth, I'll be your sister all my life, and think of you
like one wherever we may be! This is what I wished to say, dear
Walter, but I cannot say it as I would, because my heart is full.'

And in its fulness and its sweet simplicity, she held out both her
hands to him. Walter taking them, stooped down and touched the tearful
face that neither shrunk nor turned away, nor reddened as he did so,
but looked up at him with confidence and truth. In that one moment,
every shadow of doubt or agitation passed away from Walter's soul. It
seemed to him that he responded to her innocent appeal, beside the
dead child's bed: and, in the solemn presence he had seen there,
pledged himself to cherish and protect her very image, in his
banishment, with brotherly regard; to garner up her simple faith,
inviolate; and hold himself degraded if he breathed upon it any
thought that was not in her own breast when she gave it to him.

Susan Nipper, who had bitten both her bonnet strings at once, and
imparted a great deal of private emotion to the skylight, during this
transaction, now changed the subject by inquiring who took milk and
who took sugar; and being enlightened on these points, poured out the
tea. They all four gathered socially about the little table, and took
tea under that young lady's active superintendence; and the presence
of Florence in the back parlour, brightened the Tartar frigate on the
wall.

Half an hour ago Walter, for his life, would have hardly called her
by her name. But he could do so now when she entreated him. He could
think of her being there, without a lurking misgiving that it would
have been better if she had not come. He could calmly think how
beautiful she was, how full of promise, what a home some happy man
would find in such a heart one day. He could reflect upon his own
place in that heart, with pride; and with a brave determination, if
not to deserve it - he still thought that far above him - never to
deserve it less

Some fairy influence must surely have hovered round the hands of
Susan Nipper when she made the tea, engendering the tranquil air that
reigned in the back parlour during its discussion. Some
counter-influence must surely have hovered round the hands of Uncle
Sol's chronometer, and moved them faster than the Tartar frigate ever
went before the wind. Be this as it may, the visitors had a coach in
waiting at a quiet corner not far off; and the chronometer, on being
incidentally referred to, gave such a positive opinion that it had
been waiting a long time, that it was impossible to doubt the fact,
especially when stated on such unimpeachable authority. If Uncle Sol
had been going to be hanged by his own time, he never would have
allowed that the chronometer was too fast, by the least fraction of a
second.

Florence at parting recapitulated to the old man all that she had
said before, and bound him to the compact. Uncle Sol attended her
lovingly to the legs of the wooden Midshipman, and there resigned her
to Walter, who was ready to escort her and Susan Nipper to the coach.

'Walter,' said Florence by the way, 'I have been afraid to ask
before your Uncle. Do you think you will be absent very long?'

'Indeed,' said Walter, 'I don't know. I fear so. Mr Dombey
signified as much, I thought, when he appointed me.'

'Is it a favour, Walter?' inquired Florence, after a moment's
hesitation, and looking anxiously in his face.

'The appointment?' returned Walter.

'Yes.'

Walter would have given anything to have answered in the
affirmative, but his face answered before his lips could, and Florence
was too attentive to it not to understand its reply.

'I am afraid you have scarcely been a favourite with Papa,' she
said, timidly.

'There is no reason,' replied Walter, smiling, 'why I should be.'

'No reason, Walter!'

'There was no reason,' said Walter, understanding what she meant.
'There are many people employed in the House. Between Mr Dombey and a
young man like me, there's a wide space of separation. If I do my
duty, I do what I ought, and do no more than all the rest.'

Had Florence any misgiving of which she was hardly conscious: any
misgiving that had sprung into an indistinct and undefined existence
since that recent night when she had gone down to her father's room:
that Walter's accidental interest in her, and early knowledge of her,
might have involved him in that powerful displeasure and dislike? Had
Walter any such idea, or any sudden thought that it was in her mind at
that moment? Neither of them hinted at it. Neither of them spoke at
all, for some short time. Susan, walking on the other side of Walter,
eyed them both sharply; and certainly Miss Nipper's thoughts travelled
in that direction, and very confidently too.

'You may come back very soon,' said Florence, 'perhaps, Walter.'

'I may come back,' said Walter, 'an old man, and find you an old
lady. But I hope for better things.'

'Papa,' said Florence, after a moment, 'will - will recover from
his grief, and - speak more freely to me one day, perhaps; and if he
should, I will tell him how much I wish to see you back again, and ask
him to recall you for my sake.'

There was a touching modulation in these words about her father,
that Walter understood too well.

The coach being close at hand, he would have left her without
speaking, for now he felt what parting was; but Florence held his hand
when she was seated, and then he found there was a little packet in
her own.

'Walter,' she said, looking full upon him with her affectionate
eyes, 'like you, I hope for better things. I will pray for them, and
believe that they will arrive. I made this little gift for Paul. Pray
take it with my love, and do not look at it until you are gone away.
And now, God bless you, Walter! never forget me. You are my brother,
dear!'

He was glad that Susan Nipper came between them, or he might have
left her with a sorrowful remembrance of him. He was glad too that she
did not look out of the coach again, but waved the little hand to him
instead, as long as he could see it.

In spite of her request, he could not help opening the packet that
night when he went to bed. It was a little purse: and there was was
money in it.

Bright rose the sun next morning, from his absence in strange
countries and up rose Walter with it to receive the Captain, who was
already at the door: having turned out earlier than was necessary, in
order to get under weigh while Mrs MacStinger was still slumbering.
The Captain pretended to be in tip-top spirits, and brought a very
smoky tongue in one of the pockets of the of the broad blue coat for
breakfast.

'And, Wal'r,' said the Captain, when they took their seats at
table, if your Uncle's the man I think him, he'll bring out the last
bottle of the Madeira on the present occasion.'

'No, no, Ned,' returned the old man. 'No! That shall be opened when
Walter comes home again.'

'Well said!' cried the Captain. 'Hear him!'

'There it lies,' said Sol Gills, 'down in the little cellar,
covered with dirt and cobwebs. There may be dirt and cobwebs over you
and me perhaps, Ned, before it sees the light.'

'Hear him! 'cried the Captain. 'Good morality! Wal'r, my lad. Train
up a fig-tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under
the shade on it. Overhaul the - Well,' said the Captain on second
thoughts, 'I ain't quite certain where that's to be found, but when
found, make a note of. Sol Gills, heave ahead again!'

'But there or somewhere, it shall lie, Ned, until Wally comes back
to claim it,' said the old man. 'That's all I meant to say.'

'And well said too,' returned the Captain; 'and if we three don't
crack that bottle in company, I'll give you two leave to.'

Notwithstanding the Captain's excessive joviality, he made but a
poor hand at the smoky tongue, though he tried very hard, when anybody
looked at him, to appear as if he were eating with a vast apetite. He
was terribly afraid, likewise, of being left alone with either Uncle
or nephew; appearing to consider that his only chance of safety as to
keeping up appearances, was in there being always three together. This
terror on the part of the Captain, reduced him to such ingenious
evasions as running to the door, when Solomon went to put his coat on,
under pretence of having seen an extraordinary hackney-coach pass: and
darting out into the road when Walter went upstairs to take leave of
the lodgers, on a feint of smelling fire in a neighbouring chimney.
These artifices Captain Cuttle deemed inscrutable by any uninspired
observer.

Walter was coming down from his parting expedition upstairs, and
was crossing the shop to go back to the little parlour, when he saw a
faded face he knew, looking in at the door, and darted towards it.

'Mr Carker!' cried Walter, pressing the hand of John Carker the
Junior. 'Pray come in! This is kind of you, to be here so early to say
good-bye to me. You knew how glad it would make me to shake hands with
you, once, before going away. I cannot say how glad I am to have this
opportunity. Pray come in.'

'It is not likely that we may ever meet again, Walter,' returned
the other, gently resisting his invitation, 'and I am glad of this
opportunity too. I may venture to speak to you, and to take you by the
hand, on the eve of separation. I shall not have to resist your frank
approaches, Walter, any more.

There was a melancholy in his smile as he said it, that showed he
had found some company and friendship for his thoughts even in that.

'Ah, Mr Carker!' returned Walter. 'Why did you resist them? You
could have done me nothing but good, I am very sure.

He shook his head. 'If there were any good,' he said, 'I could do
on this earth, I would do it, Walter, for you. The sight of you from
day to day, has been at once happiness and remorse to me. But the
pleasure has outweighed the pain. I know that, now, by knowing what I
lose.'

'Come in, Mr Carker, and make acquaintance with my good old Uncle,'
urged Walter. 'I have often talked to him about you, and he will be
glad to tell you all he hears from me. I have not,' said Walter,
noticing his hesitation, and speaking with embarrassment himself: 'I
have not told him anything about our last conversation, Mr Carker; not
even him, believe me.

The grey Junior pressed his hand, and tears rose in his eyes.

'If I ever make acquaintance with him, Walter,' he returned, 'it
will be that I may hear tidings of you. Rely on my not wronging your
forbearance and consideration. It would be to wrong it, not to tell
him all the truth, before I sought a word of confidence from him. But
I have no friend or acquaintance except you: and even for your sake,
am little likely to make any.'

'I wish,' said Walter, 'you had suffered me to be your friend
indeed. I always wished it, Mr Carker, as you know; but never half so
much as now, when we are going to part'

'It is enough replied the other, 'that you have been the friend of
my own breast, and that when I have avoided you most, my heart
inclined the most towards you, and was fullest of you. Walter,
good-bye!'

'Good-bye, Mr Carker. Heaven be with you, Sir!' cried Walter with
emotion.

'If,' said the other, retaining his hand while he spoke; 'if when
you come back, you miss me from my old corner, and should hear from
anyone where I am lying, come and look upon my grave. Think that I
might have been as honest and as happy as you! And let me think, when
I know time is coming on, that some one like my former self may stand
there, for a moment, and remember me with pity and forgiveness!
Walter, good-bye!'

His figure crept like a shadow down the bright, sun-lighted street,
so cheerful yet so solemn in the early summer morning; and slowly
passed away.

The relentless chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn
his back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his
Uncle, and the Captain, in a hackney-coach to a wharf, where they were
to take steam-boat for some Reach down the river, the name of which,
as the Captain gave it out, was a hopeless mystery to the ears of
landsmen. Arrived at this Reach (whither the ship had repaired by last
night's tide), they were boarded by various excited watermen, and
among others by a dirty Cyclops of the Captain's acquaintance, who,
with his one eye, had made the Captain out some mile and a half off,
and had been exchanging unintelligible roars with him ever since.
Becoming the lawful prize of this personage, who was frightfully
hoarse and constitutionally in want of shaving, they were all three
put aboard the Son and Heir. And the Son and Heir was in a pretty
state of confusion, with sails lying all bedraggled on the wet decks,
loose ropes tripping people up, men in red shirts running barefoot to
and fro, casks blockading every foot of space, and, in the thickest of
the fray, a black cook in a black caboose up to his eyes in vegetables
and blinded with smoke.

The Captain immediately drew Walter into a corner, and with a great
effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which
was so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it came out like a bung.

'Wal'r,' said the Captain, handing it over, and shaking him
heartily by the hand, 'a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an
hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon,
and it's a watch that'll do you credit.'

'Captain Cuttle! I couldn't think of it!' cried Walter, detaining
him, for he was running away. 'Pray take it back. I have one already.'

'Then, Wal'r,' said the Captain, suddenly diving into one of his
pockets and bringing up the two teaspoons and the sugar-tongs, with
which he had armed himself to meet such an objection, 'take this here
trifle of plate, instead.'

'No, no, I couldn't indeed!' cried Walter, 'a thousand thanks!
Don't throw them away, Captain Cuttle!' for the Captain was about to
jerk them overboard. 'They'll be of much more use to you than me. Give
me your stick. I have often thought I should like to have it. There!
Good-bye, Captain Cuttle! Take care of my Uncle! Uncle Sol, God bless
you!'

They were over the side in the confusion, before Walter caught
another glimpse of either; and when he ran up to the stern, and looked
after them, he saw his Uncle hanging down his head in the boat, and
Captain Cuttle rapping him on the back with the great silver watch (it
must have been very painful), and gesticulating hopefully with the
teaspoons and sugar-tongs. Catching sight of Walter, Captain Cuttle
dropped the property into the bottom of the boat with perfect
unconcern, being evidently oblivious of its existence, and pulling off
the glazed hat hailed him lustily. The glazed hat made quite a show in
the sun with its glistening, and the Captain continued to wave it
until he could be seen no longer. Then the confusion on board, which
had been rapidly increasing, reached its height; two or three other
boats went away with a cheer; the sails shone bright and full above,
as Walter watched them spread their surface to the favourable breeze;
the water flew in sparkles from the prow; and off upon her voyage went
the Son and Heir, as hopefully and trippingly as many another son and
heir, gone down, had started on his way before her.

Day after day, old Sol and Captain Cuttle kept her reckoning in the
little hack parlour and worked out her course, with the chart spread
before them on the round table. At night, when old Sol climbed
upstairs, so lonely, to the attic where it sometimes blew great guns,
he looked up at the stars and listened to the wind, and kept a longer
watch than would have fallen to his lot on board the ship. The last
bottle of the old Madeira, which had had its cruising days, and known
its dangers of the deep, lay silently beneath its dust and cobwebs, in
the meanwhile, undisturbed.

CHAPTER 20.

Mr Dombey goes upon a Journey

'Mr Dombey, Sir,' said Major Bagstock, 'Joee' B. is not in general
a man of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings,
Sir, and when they are awakened - Damme, Mr Dombey,? cried the Major
with sudden ferocity, 'this is weakness, and I won't submit to it]'

Major Bagstock delivered himself of these expressions on receiving
Mr Dombey as his guest at the head of his own staircase in Princess's
Place. Mr Dombey had come to breakfast with the Major, previous to
their setting forth on their trip; and the ill-starved Native had
already undergone a world of misery arising out of the muffins, while,
in connexion with the general question of boiled eggs, life was a
burden to him.

'It is not for an old soldier of the Bagstock breed,' observed the
Major, relapsing into a mild state, 'to deliver himself up, a prey to
his own emotions; but - damme, Sir,' cried the Major, in another spasm
of ferocity, 'I condole with you!'

The Major's purple visage deepened in its hue, and the Major's
lobster eyes stood out in bolder relief, as he shook Mr Dombey by the
hand, imparting to that peaceful action as defiant a character as if
it had been the prelude to his immediately boxing Mr Dombey for a
thousand pounds a side and the championship of England. With a
rotatory motion of his head, and a wheeze very like the cough of a
horse, the Major then conducted his visitor to the sitting-room, and
there welcomed him (having now composed his feelings) with the freedom
and frankness ofa travelling companion.

'Dombey,' said the Major, 'I'm glad to see you. I'm proud to see
you. There are not many men in Europe to whom J. Bagstock would say
that - for Josh is blunt. Sir: it's his nature - but Joey B. is proud
to see you, Dombey.'

'Major,' returned Mr Dombey, 'you are very obliging.'

'No, Sir,' said the Major, 'Devil a bit! That's not my character.
If that had been Joe's character, Joe might have been, by this time,
Lieutenant-General Sir Joseph Bagstock, K.C.B., and might have
received you in very different quarters. You don't know old Joe yet, I
find. But this occasion, being special, is a source of pride to me. By
the Lord, Sir,' said the Major resolutely, 'it's an honour to me!'

Mr Dombey, in his estimation of himself and his money, felt that
this was very true, and therefore did not dispute the point. But the
instinctive recognition of such a truth by the Major, and his plain
avowal of it, were very able. It was a confirmation to Mr Dombey, if
he had required any, of his not being mistaken in the Major. It was an
assurance to him that his power extended beyond his own immediate
sphere; and that the Major, as an officer and a gentleman, had a no
less becoming sense of it, than the beadle of the Royal Exchange.

And if it were ever consolatory to know this, or the like of this,
it was consolatory then, when the impotence of his will, the
instability of his hopes, the feebleness of wealth, had been so
direfully impressed upon him. What could it do, his boy had asked him.
Sometimes, thinking of the baby question, he could hardly forbear
inquiring, himself, what could it do indeed: what had it done?

But these were lonely thoughts, bred late at night in the sullen
despondency and gloom of his retirement, and pride easily found its
reassurance in many testimonies to the truth, as unimpeachable and
precious as the Major's. Mr Dombey, in his friendlessness, inclined to
the Major. It cannot be said that he warmed towards him, but he thawed
a little, The Major had had some part - and not too much - in the days
by the seaside. He was a man of the world, and knew some great people.
He talked much, and told stories; and Mr Dombey was disposed to regard
him as a choice spirit who shone in society, and who had not that
poisonous ingredient of poverty with which choice spirits in general
are too much adulterated. His station was undeniable. Altogether the
Major was a creditable companion, well accustomed to a life of
leisure, and to such places as that they were about to visit, and
having an air of gentlemanly ease about him that mixed well enough
with his own City character, and did not compete with it at all. If Mr
Dombey had any lingering idea that the Major, as a man accustomed, in
the way of his calling, to make light of the ruthless hand that had
lately crushed his hopes, might unconsciously impart some useful
philosophy to him, and scare away his weak regrets, he hid it from
himself, and left it lying at the bottom of his pride, unexamined.

'Where is my scoundrel?' said the Major, looking wrathfully round
the room.

The Native, who had no particular name, but answered to any
vituperative epithet, presented himself instantly at the door and
ventured to come no nearer.

'You villain!' said the choleric Major, 'where's the breakfast?'

The dark servant disappeared in search of it, and was quickly heard
reascending the stairs in such a tremulous state, that the plates and
dishes on the tray he carried, trembling sympathetically as he came,
rattled again, all the way up.

'Dombey,' said the Major, glancing at the Native as he arranged the
table, and encouraging him with an awful shake of his fist when he
upset a spoon, 'here is a devilled grill, a savoury pie, a dish of
kidneys, and so forth. Pray sit down. Old Joe can give you nothing but
camp fare, you see.

'Very excellent fare, Major,' replied his guest; and not in mere
politeness either; for the Major always took the best possible care of
himself, and indeed ate rather more of rich meats than was good for
him, insomuch that his Imperial complexion was mainly referred by the
faculty to that circumstance.

'You have been looking over the way, Sir,' observed the Major.
'Have you seen our friend?'

'You mean Miss Tox,' retorted Mr Dombey. 'No.'

'Charming woman, Sir,' said the Major, with a fat laugh rising in
his short throat, and nearly suffocating him.

'Miss Tox is a very good sort of person, I believe,' replied Mr
Dombey.

The haughty coldness of the reply seemed to afford Major Bagstock
infinite delight. He swelled and swelled, exceedingly: and even laid
down his knife and fork for a moment, to rub his hands.

'Old Joe, Sir,' said the Major, 'was a bit ofa favourite in that
quarter once. But Joe has had his day. J. Bagstock is extinguished -
outrivalled - floored, Sir.'

'I should have supposed,' Mr Dombey replied, 'that the lady's day
for favourites was over: but perhaps you are jesting, Major.'

'Perhaps you are jesting, Dombey?' was the Major's rejoinder.

There never was a more unlikely possiblity. It was so clearly
expressed in Mr Dombey's face, that the Major apologised.

'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'I see you are in earnest. I tell you
what, Dombey.' The Major paused in his eating, and looked mysteriously
indignant. 'That's a de-vilish ambitious woman, Sir.'

Mr Dombey said 'Indeed?' with frigid indifference: mingled perhaps
with some contemptuous incredulity as to Miss Tox having the
presumption to harbour such a superior quality.

'That woman, Sir,' said the Major, 'is, in her way, a Lucifer. Joey
B. has had his day, Sir, but he keeps his eyes. He sees, does Joe. His
Royal Highness the late Duke of York observed of Joey, at a levee,
that he saw.'

The Major accompanied this with such a look, and, between eating,
drinking, hot tea, devilled grill, muffins, and meaning, was
altogether so swollen and inflamed about the head, that even Mr Dombey
showed some anxiety for him.

'That ridiculous old spectacle, Sir,' pursued the Major, 'aspires.
She aspires sky-high, Sir. Matrimonially, Dombey.'

'I am sorry for her,' said Mr Dombey.

'Don't say that, Dombey,' returned the Major in a warning voice.

'Why should I not, Major?' said Mr Dombey.

The Major gave no answer but the horse's cough, and went on eating
vigorously.

'She has taken an interest in your household,' said the Major,
stopping short again, 'and has been a frequent visitor at your house
for some time now.'

'Yes,' replied Mr Dombey with great stateliness, 'Miss Tox was
originally received there, at the time of Mrs Dombey's death, as a
friend of my sister's; and being a well-behaved person, and showing a
liking for the poor infant, she was permitted - may I say encouraged -
to repeat her visits with my sister, and gradually to occupy a kind of
footing of familiarity in the family. I have,' said Mr Dombey, in the
tone of a man who was making a great and valuable concession, 'I have
a respect for Miss Tox. She his been so obliging as to render many
little services in my house: trifling and insignificant services
perhaps, Major, but not to be disparaged on that account: and I hope I
have had the good fortune to be enabled to acknowledge them by such
attention and notice as it has been in my power to bestow. I hold
myself indebted to Miss Tox, Major,' added Mr Dombey, with a slight
wave of his hand, 'for the pleasure of your acquaintance.'

'Dombey,' said the Major, warmly: 'no! No, Sir! Joseph Bagstock can
never permit that assertion to pass uncontradicted. Your knowledge of
old Joe, Sir, such as he is, and old Joe's knowledge of you, Sir, had
its origin in a noble fellow, Sir - in a great creature, Sir. Dombey!'
said the Major, with a struggle which it was not very difficult to
parade, his whole life being a struggle against all kinds of
apoplectic symptoms, 'we knew each other through your boy.'

Mr Dombey seemed touched, as it is not improbable the Major
designed he should be, by this allusion. He looked down and sighed:
and the Major, rousing himself fiercely, again said, in reference to
the state of mind into which he felt himself in danger of falling,
that this was weakness, and nothing should induce him to submit to it.

'Our friend had a remote connexion with that event,' said the
Major, 'and all the credit that belongs to her, J. B. is willing to
give her, Sir. Notwithstanding which, Ma'am,' he added, raising his
eyes from his plate, and casting them across Princess's Place, to
where Miss Tox was at that moment visible at her window watering her
flowers, 'you're a scheming jade, Ma'am, and your ambition is a piece
of monstrous impudence. If it only made yourself ridiculous, Ma'am,'
said the Major, rolling his head at the unconscious Miss Tox, while
his starting eyes appeared to make a leap towards her, 'you might do
that to your heart's content, Ma'am, without any objection, I assure
you, on the part of Bagstock.' Here the Major laughed frightfully up
in the tips of his ears and in the veins of his head. 'But when,
Ma'am,' said the Major, 'you compromise other people, and generous,
unsuspicious people too, as a repayment for their condescension, you
stir the blood of old Joe in his body.'

'Major,' said Mr Dombey, reddening, 'I hope you do not hint at
anything so absurd on the part of Miss Tox as - '

'Dombey,' returned the Major, 'I hint at nothing. But Joey B. has
lived in the world, Sir: lived in the world with his eyes open, Sir,
and his ears cocked: and Joe tells you, Dombey, that there's a
devilish artful and ambitious woman over the way.'

Mr Dombey involuntarily glanced over the way; and an angry glance
he sent in that direction, too.

'That's all on such a subject that shall pass the lips of Joseph
Bagstock,' said the Major firmly. 'Joe is not a tale-bearer, but there
are times when he must speak, when he will speak! - confound your
arts, Ma'am,' cried the Major, again apostrophising his fair
neighbour, with great ire, - 'when the provocation is too strong to
admit of his remaining silent.'

The emotion of this outbreak threw the Major into a paroxysm of
horse's coughs, which held him for a long time. On recovering he
added:

'And now, Dombey, as you have invited Joe - old Joe, who has no
other merit, Sir, but that he is tough and hearty - to be your guest
and guide at Leamington, command him in any way you please, and he is
wholly yours. I don't know, Sir,' said the Major, wagging his double
chin with a jocose air, 'what it is you people see in Joe to make you
hold him in such great request, all of you; but this I know, Sir, that
if he wasn't pretty tough, and obstinate in his refusals, you'd kill
him among you with your invitations and so forth, in double-quick
time.'

Mr Dombey, in a few words, expressed his sense of the preference he
received over those other distinguished members of society who were
clamouring for the possession of Major Bagstock. But the Major cut him
short by giving him to understand that he followed his own
inclinations, and that they had risen up in a body and said with one
accord, 'J. B., Dombey is the man for you to choose as a friend.'

The Major being by this time in a state of repletion, with essence
of savoury pie oozing out at the corners of his eyes, and devilled
grill and kidneys tightening his cravat: and the time moreover
approaching for the departure of the railway train to Birmingham, by
which they were to leave town: the Native got him into his great-coat
with immense difficulty, and buttoned him up until his face looked
staring and gasping, over the top of that garment, as if he were in a
barrel. The Native then handed him separately, and with a decent
interval between each supply, his washleather gloves, his thick stick,
and his hat; which latter article the Major wore with a rakish air on
one side of his head, by way of toning down his remarkable visage. The
Native had previously packed, in all possible and impossible parts of
Mr Dombey's chariot, which was in waiting, an unusual quantity of
carpet-bags and small portmanteaus, no less apoplectic in appearance
than the Major himself: and having filled his own pockets with Seltzer
water, East India sherry, sandwiches, shawls, telescopes, maps, and
newspapers, any or all of which light baggage the Major might require
at any instant of the journey, he announced that everything was ready.
To complete the equipment of this unfortunate foreigner (currently
believed to be a prince in his own country), when he took his seat in
the rumble by the side of Mr Towlinson, a pile of the Major's cloaks
and great-coats was hurled upon him by the landlord, who aimed at him
from the pavement with those great missiles like a Titan, and so
covered him up, that he proceeded, in a living tomb, to the railroad
station.

But before the carriage moved away, and while the Native was in the
act of sepulture, Miss Tox appearing at her window, waved a lilywhite
handkerchief. Mr Dombey received this parting salutation very coldly -
very coldly even for him - and honouring her with the slightest
possible inclination of his head, leaned back in the carriage with a
very discontented look. His marked behaviour seemed to afford the
Major (who was all politeness in his recognition of Miss Tox)
unbounded satisfaction; and he sat for a long time afterwards,
leering, and choking, like an over-fed Mephistopheles.

During the bustle of preparation at the railway, Mr Dombey and the
Major walked up and down the platform side by side; the former
taciturn and gloomy, and the latter entertaining him, or entertaining
himself, with a variety of anecdotes and reminiscences, in most of
which Joe Bagstock was the principal performer. Neither of the two
observed that in the course of these walks, they attracted the
attention of a working man who was standing near the engine, and who
touched his hat every time they passed; for Mr Dombey habitually
looked over the vulgar herd, not at them; and the Major was looking,
at the time, into the core of one of his stories. At length, however,
this man stepped before them as they turned round, and pulling his hat
off, and keeping it off, ducked his head to Mr Dombey.

'Beg your pardon, Sir,' said the man, 'but I hope you're a doin'
pretty well, Sir.'

He was dressed in a canvas suit abundantly besmeared with coal-dust
and oil, and had cinders in his whiskers, and a smell of half-slaked
ashes all over him. He was not a bad-looking fellow, nor even what
could be fairly called a dirty-looking fellow, in spite of this; and,
in short, he was Mr Toodle, professionally clothed.

'I shall have the honour of stokin' of you down, Sir,' said Mr
Toodle. 'Beg your pardon, Sir. - I hope you find yourself a coming
round?'

Mr Dombey looked at him, in return for his tone of interest, as if
a man like that would make his very eyesight dirty.

''Scuse the liberty, Sir,' said Toodle, seeing he was not clearly
remembered, 'but my wife Polly, as was called Richards in your family
- '

A change in Mr Dombey's face, which seemed to express recollection
of him, and so it did, but it expressed in a much stronger degree an
angry sense of humiliation, stopped Mr Toodle short.

'Your wife wants money, I suppose,' said Mr Dombey, putting his
hand in his pocket, and speaking (but that he always did) haughtily.

'No thank'ee, Sir,' returned Toodle, 'I can't say she does. I
don't.'

Mr Dombey was stopped short now in his turn: and awkwardly: with
his hand in his pocket.

'No, Sir,' said Toodle, turning his oilskin cap round and round;
'we're a doin' pretty well, Sir; we haven't no cause to complain in
the worldly way, Sir. We've had four more since then, Sir, but we rubs
on.'

Mr Dombey would have rubbed on to his own carriage, though in so
doing he had rubbed the stoker underneath the wheels; but his
attention was arrested by something in connexion with the cap still
going slowly round and round in the man's hand.

'We lost one babby,' observed Toodle, 'there's no denyin'.'

'Lately,' added Mr Dombey, looking at the cap.

'No, Sir, up'ard of three years ago, but all the rest is hearty.
And in the matter o readin', Sir,' said Toodle, ducking again, as if
to remind Mr Dombey of what had passed between them on that subject
long ago, 'them boys o' mine, they learned me, among 'em, arter all.
They've made a wery tolerable scholar of me, Sir, them boys.'

'Come, Major!' said Mr Dombey.

'Beg your pardon, Sir,' resumed Toodle, taking a step before them
and deferentially stopping them again, still cap in hand: 'I wouldn't
have troubled you with such a pint except as a way of gettin' in the
name of my son Biler - christened Robin - him as you was so good as to
make a Charitable Grinder on.'

'Well, man,' said Mr Dombey in his severest manner. 'What about
him?'

'Why, Sir,' returned Toodle, shaking his head with a face of great
anxiety and distress, 'I'm forced to say, Sir, that he's gone wrong.

'He has gone wrong, has he?' said Mr Dombey, with a hard kind of
satisfaction.

'He has fell into bad company, you see, genelmen,' pursued the
father, looking wistfully at both, and evidently taking the Major into
the conversation with the hope of having his sympathy. 'He has got
into bad ways. God send he may come to again, genelmen, but he's on
the wrong track now! You could hardly be off hearing of it somehow,
Sir,' said Toodle, again addressing Mr Dombey individually; 'and it's
better I should out and say my boy's gone rather wrong. Polly's
dreadful down about it, genelmen,' said Toodle with the same dejected
look, and another appeal to the Major.

'A son of this man's whom I caused to be educated, Major,' said Mr
Dombey, giving him his arm. 'The usual return!'

'Take advice from plain old Joe, and never educate that sort of
people, Sir,' returned the Major. 'Damme, Sir, it never does! It
always fails!'

The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son,
the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and
taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of
schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have
been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered respect, when
Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The usual return!' led the Major away.
And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey's carriage, elevated
in mid-air, and having to stop and swear that he would flay the Native
alive, and break every bone in his skin, and visit other physical
torments upon him, every time he couldn't get his foot on the step,
and fell back on that dark exile, had barely time before they started
to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that it always failed: and
that if he were to educate 'his own vagabond,' he would certainly be
hanged.

Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his
bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and
looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the
failure of that noble educational system administered by the Grinders'
Company. He had seen upon the man's rough cap a piece of new crape,
and he had assured himself, from his manner and his answers, that he
wore it for his son.

So] from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great
house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before
them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy,
and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had
wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking
from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed
and brightened when she carne in!

To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going on
before there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared to
enter, even by a common show like that, into the trial and
disappointrnent of a proud gentleman's secret heart! To think that
this lost child, who was to have divided with him his riches, and his
projects, and his power, and allied with whom he was to have shut out
all the world as with a double door of gold, should have let in such a
herd to insult him with their knowledge of his defeated hopes, and
their boasts of claiming community of feeling with himself, so far
removed: if not of having crept into the place wherein he would have
lorded it, alone!

He found no pleasure or relief in the journey. Tortured by these
thoughts he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape,
and hurried headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a
wilderness of blighted plans and gnawing jealousies. The very speed at
which the train was whirled along, mocked the swift course of the
young life that had been borne away so steadily and so inexorably to
its foredoomed end. The power that forced itself upon its iron way -
its own - defiant of all paths and roads, piercing through the heart
of every obstacle, and dragging living creatures of all classes, ages,
and degrees behind it, was a type of the triumphant monster, Death.

Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, from the town,
burrowmg among the dwellings of men and making the streets hum,
flashing out into the meadows for a moment, mining in through the damp
earth, booming on in darkness and heavy air, bursting out again into
the sunny day so bright and wide; away, with a shriek, and a roar, and
a rattle, through the fields, through the woods, through the corn,
through the hay, through the chalk, through the mould, through the
clay, through the rock, among objects close at hand and almost in the
grasp, ever flying from the traveller, and a deceitful distance ever
moving slowly within him: like as in the track of the remorseless
monster, Death!

Through the hollow, on the height, by the heath, by the orchard, by
the park, by the garden, over the canal, across the river, where the
sheep are feeding, where the mill is going, where the barge is
floating, where the dead are lying, where the factory is smoking,
where the stream is running, where the village clusters, where the
great cathedral rises, where the bleak moor lies, and the wild breeze
smooths or ruffles it at its inconstant will; away, with a shriek, and
a roar, and a rattle, and no trace to leave behind but dust and
vapour: like as in the track of the remorseless monster, Death!

Breasting the wind and light, the shower and sunshine, away, and
still away, it rolls and roars, fierce and rapid, smooth and certain,
and great works and massive bridges crossing up above, fall like a
beam of shadow an inch broad, upon the eye, and then are lost. Away,
and still away, onward and onward ever: glimpses of cottage-homes, of
houses, mansions, rich estates, of husbandry and handicraft, of
people, of old roads and paths that look deserted, small, and
insignificant as they are left behind: and so they do, and what else
is there but such glimpses, in the track of the indomitable monster,
Death!

Away, with a shriek, and a roar, and a rattle, plunging down into
the earth again, and working on in such a storm of energy and
perseverance, that amidst the darkness and whirlwind the motion seems
reversed, and to tend furiously backward, until a ray of light upon
the Wet wall shows its surface flying past like a fierce stream, Away
once more into the day, and through the day, with a shrill yell of
exultation, roaring, rattling, tearing on, spurning everything with
its dark breath, sometimes pausing for a minute where a crowd of faces
are, that in a minute more are not; sometimes lapping water greedily,
and before the spout at which it drinks' has ceased to drip upon the
ground, shrieking, roaring, rattling through the purple distance!

Louder and louder yet, it shrieks and cries as it comes tearing on
resistless to the goal: and now its way, still like the way of Death,
is strewn with ashes thickly. Everything around is blackened. There
are dark pools of water, muddy lanes, and miserable habitations far
below. There are jagged walls and falling houses close at hand, and
through the battered roofs and broken windows, wretched rooms are
seen, where 'want and fever hide themselves in many wretched shapes,
while smoke and crowded gables, and distorted chimneys, and deformity
of brick and mortar penning up deformity of mind and body, choke the
murky distance. As Mr Dombey looks out of his carriage window, it is
never in his thoughts that the monster who has brought him there has
let the light of day in on these things: not made or caused them. It
was the journey's fitting end, and might have been the end of
everything; it was so ruinous and dreary.'

So, pursuing the one course of thought, he had the one relentless
monster still before him. All things looked black, and cold, and
deadly upon him, and he on them. He found a likeness to his misfortune
everywhere. There was a remorseless triumph going on about him, and it
galled and stung him in his pride and jealousy, whatever form it took:
though most of all when it divided with him the love and memory of his
lost boy.

There was a face - he had looked upon it, on the previous night,
and it on him with eyes that read his soul, though they were dim with
tears, and hidden soon behind two quivering hands - that often had
attended him in fancy, on this ride. He had seen it, with the
expression of last night, timidly pleading to him. It was not
reproachful, but there was something of doubt, almost of hopeful
incredulity in it, which, as he once more saw that fade away into a
desolate certainty of his dislike, was like reproach. It was a trouble
to him to think of this face of Florence.

Because he felt any new compunction towards it? No. Because the
feeling it awakened in him - of which he had had some old
foreshadowing in older times - was full-formed now, and spoke out
plainly, moving him too much, and threatening to grow too strong for
his composure. Because the face was abroad, in the expression of
defeat and persecution that seemed to encircle him like the air.
Because it barbed the arrow of that cruel and remorseless enemy on
which his thoughts so ran, and put into its grasp a double-handed
sword. Because he knew full well, in his own breast, as he stood
there, tinging the scene of transition before him with the morbid
colours of his own mind, and making it a ruin and a picture of decay,
instead of hopeful change, and promise of better things, that life had
quite as much to do with his complainings as death. One child was
gone, and one child left. Why was the object of his hope removed
instead of her?

The sweet, calm, gentle presence in his fancy, moved him to no
reflection but that. She had been unwelcome to him from the first; she
was an aggravation of his bitterness now. If his son had been his only
child, and the same blow had fallen on him, it would have been heavy
to bear; but infinitely lighter than now, when it might have fallen on
her (whom he could have lost, or he believed it, without a pang), and
had not. Her loving and innocent face rising before him, had no
softening or winning influence. He rejected the angel, and took up
with the tormenting spirit crouching in his bosom. Her patience,
goodness, youth, devotion, love, were as so many atoms in the ashes
upon which he set his heel. He saw her image in the blight and
blackness all around him, not irradiating but deepening the gloom.
More than once upon this journey, and now again as he stood pondering
at this journey's end, tracing figures in the dust with his stick, the
thought came into his mind, what was there he could interpose between
himself and it?

The Major, who had been blowing and panting all the way down, like
another engine, and whose eye had often wandered from his newspaper to
leer at the prospect, as if there were a procession of discomfited
Miss Toxes pouring out in the smoke of the train, and flying away over
the fields to hide themselves in any place of refuge, aroused his
friends by informing him that the post-horses were harnessed and the
carriage ready.

'Dombey,' said the Major, rapping him on the arm with his cane,
'don't be thoughtful. It's a bad habit, Old Joe, Sir, wouldn't be as
tough as you see him, if he had ever encouraged it. You are too great
a man, Dombey, to be thoughtful. In your position, Sir, you're far
above that kind of thing.'

The Major even in his friendly remonstrrnces, thus consulting the
dignity and honour of Mr Dombey, and showing a lively sense of their
importance, Mr Dombey felt more than ever disposed to defer to a
gentleman possessing so much good sense and such a well-regulated
mind; acoordingly he made an effort to listen to the Major's stories,
as they trotted along the turnpike road; and the Major, finding both
the pace and the road a great deal better adapted to his
conversational powers than the mode of travelling they had just
relinquished, came out of his entertainment,

But still the Major, blunt and tough as he was, and as he so very
often said he was, administered some palatable catering to his
companion's appetite. He related, or rather suffered it to escape him,
accidentally, and as one might say, grudgingly and against his will,
how there was great curiosity and excitement at the club, in regard of
his friend Dombey. How he was suffocated with questions, Sir. How old
Joe Bagstock was a greater man than ever, there, on the strength of
Dombey. How they said, 'Bagstock, your friend Dombey now, what is the
view he takes of such and such a question? Though, by the Rood, Sir,'
said the Major, with a broad stare, 'how they discovered that J. B.
ever came to know you, is a mystery!'

In this flow of spirits and conversation, only interrupted by his
usual plethoric symptoms, and by intervals of lunch, and from time to
time by some violent assault upon the Native, who wore a pair of
ear-rings in his dark-brown ears, and on whom his European clothes sat
with an outlandish impossibility of adjustment - being, of their own
accord, and without any reference to the tailor's art, long where they
ought to be short, short where they ought to be long, tight where they
ought to be loose, and loose where they ought to be tight - and to
which he imparted a new grace, whenever the Major attacked him, by
shrinking into them like a shrivelled nut, or a cold monkey - in this
flow of spirits and conversation, the Major continued all day: so that
when evening came on, and found them trotting through the green and
leafy road near Leamington, the Major's voice, what with talking and
eating and chuckling and choking, appeared to be in the box under the
rumble, or in some neighbouring hay-stack. Nor did the Major improve
it at the Royal Hotel, where rooms and dinner had been ordered, and
where he so oppressed his organs of speech by eating and drinking,
that when he retired to bed he had no voice at all, except to cough
with, and could only make himself intelligible to the dark servant by
gasping at him.

He not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but
conducted himself, at breakfast like a giant refreshing. At this meal
they arranged their daily habits. The Major was to take the
responsibility of ordering evrything to eat and drink; and they were
to have a late breakfast together every morning, and a late dinner
together every day. Mr Dombey would prefer remaining in his own room,
or walking in the country by himself, on that first day of their
sojourn at Leamington; but next morning he would be happy to accompany
the Major to the Pump-room, and about the town. So they parted until
dinner-time. Mr Dombey retired to nurse his wholesome thoughts in his
own way. The Major, attended by the Native carrying a camp-stool, a
great-coat, and an umbrella, swaggered up and down through all the
public places: looking into subscription books to find out who was
there, looking up old ladies by whom he was much admired, reporting J.
B. tougher than ever, and puffing his rich friend Dombey wherever he
went. There never was a man who stood by a friend more staunchly than
the Major, when in puffing him, he puffed himself.

It was surprising how much new conversation the Major had to let
off at dinner-time, and what occasion he gave Mr Dombey to admire his
social qualities. At breakfast next morning, he knew the contents of
the latest newspapers received; and mentioned several subjects in
connexion with them, on which his opinion had recently been sought by
persons of such power and might, that they were only to be obscurely
hinted at. Mr Dombey, who had been so long shut up within himself, and
who had rarely, at any time, overstepped the enchanted circle within
which the operations of Dombey and Son were conducted, began to think
this an improvement on his solitary life; and in place of excusing
himself for another day, as he had thought of doing when alone, walked
out with the Major arm-in-arm.

CHAPTER 21.

New Faces

The MAJOR, more blue-faced and staring - more over-ripe, as it
were, than ever - and giving vent, every now and then, to one of the
horse's coughs, not so much of necessity as in a spontaneous explosion
of importance, walked arm-in-arm with Mr Dombey up the sunny side of
the way, with his cheeks swelling over his tight stock, his legs
majestically wide apart, and his great head wagging from side to side,
as if he were remonstrating within himself for being such a
captivating object. They had not walked many yards, before the Major
encountered somebody he knew, nor many yards farther before the Major
encountered somebody else he knew, but he merely shook his fingers at
them as he passed, and led Mr Dombey on: pointing out the localities
as they went, and enlivening the walk with any current scandal
suggested by them.

In this manner the Major and Mr Dombey were walking arm-in-arm,
much to their own satisfaction, when they beheld advancing towards
them, a wheeled chair, in which a lady was seated, indolently steering
her carriage by a kind of rudder in front, while it was propelled by
some unseen power in the rear. Although the lady was not young, she
was very blooming in the face - quite rosy- and her dress and attitude
were perfectly juvenile. Walking by the side of the chair, and
carrying her gossamer parasol with a proud and weary air, as if so
great an effort must be soon abandoned and the parasol dropped,
sauntered a much younger lady, very handsome, very haughty, very
wilful, who tossed her head and drooped her eyelids, as though, if
there were anything in all the world worth looking into, save a
mirror, it certainly was not the earth or sky.

'Why, what the devil have we here, Sir!' cried the Major, stopping
as this little cavalcade drew near.

'My dearest Edith!' drawled the lady in the chair, 'Major
Bagstock!'

The Major no sooner heard the voice, than he relinquished Mr
Dombey's arm, darted forward, took the hand of the lady in the chair
and pressed it to his lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded
both his gloves upon his heart, and bowed low to the other lady. And
now, the chair having stopped, the motive power became visible in the
shape of a flushed page pushing behind, who seemed to have in part
outgrown and in part out-pushed his strength, for when he stood
upright he was tall, and wan, and thin, and his plight appeared the
more forlorn from his having injured the shape of his hat, by butting
at the carriage with his head to urge it forward, as is sometimes done
by elephants in Oriental countries.

'Joe Bagstock,' said the Major to both ladies, 'is a proud and
happy man for the rest of his life.'

'You false creature! said the old lady in the chair, insipidly.
'Where do you come from? I can't bear you.'

'Then suffer old Joe to present a friend, Ma'am,' said the Major,
promptly, 'as a reason for being tolerated. Mr Dombey, Mrs Skewton.'
The lady in the chair was gracious. 'Mr Dombey, Mrs Granger.' The lady
with the parasol was faintly conscious of Mr Dombey's taking off his
hat, and bowing low. 'I am delighted, Sir,' said the Major, 'to have
this opportunity.'

The Major seemed in earnest, for he looked at all the three, and
leered in his ugliest manner.

'Mrs Skewton, Dombey,' said the Major, 'makes havoc in the heart of
old Josh.'

Mr Dombey signified that he didn't wonder at it.

'You perfidious goblin,' said the lady in the chair, 'have done!
How long have you been here, bad man?'

'One day,' replied the Major.

'And can you be a day, or even a minute,' returned the lady,
slightly settling her false curls and false eyebrows with her fan, and
showing her false teeth, set off by her false complexion, 'in the
garden of what's-its-name

'Eden, I suppose, Mama,' interrupted the younger lady, scornfully.

'My dear Edith,' said the other, 'I cannot help it. I never can
remember those frightful names - without having your whole Soul and
Being inspired by the sight of Nature; by the perfume,' said Mrs
Skewton, rustling a handkerchief that was faint and sickly with
essences, 'of her artless breath, you creature!'

The discrepancy between Mrs Skewton's fresh enthusiasm of words,
and forlornly faded manner, was hardly less observable than that
between her age, which was about seventy, and her dress, which would
have been youthful for twenty-seven. Her attitude in the wheeled chair
(which she never varied) was one in which she had been taken in a
barouche, some fifty years before, by a then fashionable artist who
had appended to his published sketch the name of Cleopatra: in
consequence of a discovery made by the critics of the time, that it
bore an exact resemblance to that Princess as she reclined on board
her galley. Mrs Skewton was a beauty then, and bucks threw
wine-glasses over their heads by dozens in her honour. The beauty and
the barouche had both passed away, but she still preserved the
attitude, and for this reason expressly, maintained the wheeled chair
and the butting page: there being nothing whatever, except the
attitude, to prevent her from walking.

'Mr Dombey is devoted to Nature, I trust?' said Mrs Skewton,
settling her diamond brooch. And by the way, she chiefly lived upon
the reputation of some diamonds, and her family connexions.

'My friend Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'may be devoted to
her in secret, but a man who is paramount in the greatest city in the
universe -

'No one can be a stranger,' said Mrs Skewton, 'to Mr Dombey's
immense influence.'

As Mr Dombey acknowledged the compliment with a bend of his head,
the younger lady glancing at him, met his eyes.

'You reside here, Madam?' said Mr Dombey, addressing her.

'No, we have been to a great many places. To Harrogate and
Scarborough, and into Devonshire. We have been visiting, and resting
here and there. Mama likes change.'

'Edith of course does not,' said Mrs Skewton, with a ghastly
archness.

'I have not found that there is any change in such places,' was the
answer, delivered with supreme indifference.

'They libel me. There is only one change, Mr Dombey,' observed Mrs
Skewton, with a mincing sigh, 'for which I really care, and that I
fear I shall never be permitted to enjoy. People cannot spare one. But
seclusion and contemplation are my what-his-name - '

'If you mean Paradise, Mama, you had better say so, to render
yourself intelligible,' said the younger lady.

'My dearest Edith,' returned Mrs Skewton, 'you know that I am
wholly dependent upon you for those odious names. I assure you, Mr
Dombey, Nature intended me for an Arcadian. I am thrown away in
society. Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for, has been to
retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows - and
china.'

This curious association of objects, suggesting a remembrance of
the celebrated bull who got by mistake into a crockery shop, was
received with perfect gravity by Mr Dombey, who intimated his opinion
that Nature was, no doubt, a very respectable institution.

'What I want,' drawled Mrs Skewton, pinching her shrivelled throat,
'is heart.' It was frightfully true in one sense, if not in that in
which she used the phrase. 'What I want, is frankness, confidence,
less conventionality, and freer play of soul. We are so dreadfully
artificial.'

We were, indeed.

'In short,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I want Nature everywhere. It would
be so extremely charming.'

'Nature is inviting us away now, Mama, if you are ready,' said the
younger lady, curling her handsome lip. At this hint, the wan page,
who had been surveying the party over the top of the chair, vanished
behind it, as if the ground had swallowed him up.

'Stop a moment, Withers!' said Mrs Skewton, as the chair began to
move; calling to the page with all the languid dignity with which she
had called in days of yore to a coachman with a wig, cauliflower
nosegay, and silk stockings. 'Where are you staying, abomination?' The
Major was staying at the Royal Hotel, with his friend Dombey.

'You may come and see us any evening when you are good,' lisped Mrs
Skewton. 'If Mr Dombey will honour us, we shall be happy. Withers, go
on!'

The Major again pressed to his blue lips the tips of the fingers
that were disposed on the ledge of the wheeled chair with careful
carelessness, after the Cleopatra model: and Mr Dombey bowed. The
elder lady honoured them both with a very gracious smile and a girlish
wave of her hand; the younger lady with the very slightest inclination
of her head that common courtesy allowed.

The last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the mother, with that
patched colour on it which the sun made infinitely more haggard and
dismal than any want of colour could have been, and of the proud
beauty of the daughter with her graceful figure and erect deportment,
engendered such an involuntary disposition on the part of both the
Major and Mr Dombey to look after them, that they both turned at the
same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow, was
toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of
Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the
inch as before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in
advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the
same supreme disregard of everything and everybody.

'I tell you what, Sir,' said the Major, as they resumed their walk
again. 'If Joe Bagstock were a younger man, there's not a woman in the
world whom he'd prefer for Mrs Bagstock to that woman. By George,
Sir!' said the Major, 'she's superb!'

'Do you mean the daughter?' inquired Mr Dombey.

'Is Joey B. a turnip, Dombey,' said the Major, 'that he should mean
the mother?'

'You were complimentary to the mother,' returned Mr Dombey.

'An ancient flame, Sir,' chuckled Major Bagstock. 'Devilish
ancient. I humour her.'

'She impresses me as being perfectly genteel,' said Mr Dombey.

'Genteel, Sir,' said the Major, stopping short, and staring in his
companion's face. 'The Honourable Mrs Skewton, Sir, is sister to the
late Lord Feenix, and aunt to the present Lord. The family are not
wealthy - they're poor, indeed - and she lives upon a small jointure;
but if you come to blood, Sir!' The Major gave a flourish with his
stick and walked on again, in despair of being able to say what you
came to, if you came to that.

'You addressed the daughter, I observed,' said Mr Dombey, after a
short pause, 'as Mrs Granger.'

'Edith Skewton, Sir,' returned the Major, stopping short again, and
punching a mark in the ground with his cane, to represent her,
'married (at eighteen) Granger of Ours;' whom the Major indicated by
another punch. 'Granger, Sir,' said the Major, tapping the last ideal
portrait, and rolling his head emphatically, 'was Colonel of Ours; a
de-vilish handsome fellow, Sir, of forty-one. He died, Sir, in the
second year of his marriage.' The Major ran the representative of the
deceased Granger through and through the body with his walking-stick,
and went on again, carrying his stick over his shoulder.

'How long is this ago?' asked Mr Dombey, making another halt.

'Edith Granger, Sir,' replied the Major, shutting one eye, putting
his head on one side, passing his cane into his left hand, and
smoothing his shirt-frill with his right, 'is, at this present time,
not quite thirty. And damme, Sir,' said the Major, shouldering his
stick once more, and walking on again, 'she's a peerless woman!'

'Was there any family?' asked Mr Dombey presently.

'Yes, Sir,' said the Major. 'There was a boy.'

Mr Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a shade came over his face.

'Who was drowned, Sir,' pursued the Major. 'When a child of four or
five years old.'

'Indeed?' said Mr Dombey, raising his head.

'By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse had no business to
have put him,' said the Major. 'That's his history. Edith Granger is
Edith Granger still; but if tough old Joey B., Sir, were a little
younger and a little richer, the name of that immortal paragon should
be Bagstock.'

The Major heaved his shoulders, and his cheeks, and laughed more
like an over-fed Mephistopheles than ever, as he said the words.

'Provided the lady made no objection, I suppose?' said Mr Dombey
coldly.

'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, 'the Bagstock breed are not
accustomed to that sort of obstacle. Though it's true enough that
Edith might have married twenty times, but for being proud, Sir,
proud.'

Mr Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no worse of her for that.

'It's a great quality after all,' said the Major. 'By the Lord,
it's a high quality! Dombey! You are proud yourself, and your friend,
Old Joe, respects you for it, Sir.'

With this tribute to the character of his ally, which seemed to be
wrung from him by the force of circumstances and the irresistible
tendency of their conversation, the Major closed the subject, and
glided into a general exposition of the extent to which he had been
beloved and doted on by splendid women and brilliant creatures.

On the next day but one, Mr Dombey and the Major encountered the
Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day
after, they met them again very near the place where they had met them
first. After meeting them thus, three or four times in all, it became
a point of mere civility to old acquaintances that the Major should go
there one evening. Mr Dombey had not originally intended to pay
visits, but on the Major announcing this intention, he said he would
have the pleasure of accompanying him. So the Major told the Native to
go round before dinner, and say, with his and Mr Dombey's compliments,
that they would have the honour of visiting the ladies that same
evening, if the ladies were alone. In answer to which message, the
Native brought back a very small note with a very large quantity of
scent about it, indited by the Honourable Mrs Skewton to Major
Bagstock, and briefly saying, 'You are a shocking bear and I have a
great mind not to forgive you, but if you are very good indeed,' which
was underlined, 'you may come. Compliments (in which Edith unites) to
Mr Dombey.'

The Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter, Mrs Granger, resided,
while at Leamington, in lodgings that were fashionable enough and dear
enough, but rather limited in point of space and conveniences; so that
the Honourable Mrs Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window
and her head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid
was quartered in a closet within the drawing-room, so extremely small,
that, to avoid developing the whole of its accommodations, she was
obliged to writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful serpent.
Withers, the wan page, slept out of the house immediately under the
tiles at a neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was
the stone of that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a shed belonging
to the same dairy, where new-laid eggs were produced by the poultry
connected with the establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-cart,
persuaded, to all appearance, that it grew there, and was a species of
tree.

Mr Dombey and the Major found Mrs Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra,
among the cushions of a sofa: very airily dressed; and certainly not
resembling Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On
their way upstairs they had heard the sound of a harp, but it had
ceased on their being announced, and Edith now stood beside it
handsomer and haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable characteristic
of this lady's beauty that it appeared to vaunt and assert itself
without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was
beautiful: it was impossible that it could be otherwise: but she
seemed with her own pride to defy her very self.

Whether she held cheap attractions that could only call forth
admiration that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to
render them more precious to admirers by this usage of them, those to
whom they were precious seldom paused to consider.

'I hope, Mrs Granger,' said Mr Dombey, advancing a step towards
her, 'we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?'

'You! oh no!'

'Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra.

'I left off as I began - of my own fancy.'

The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an
indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility, for it was
pointed with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with
which she drew her hand across the strings, and came from that part of
the room.

'Do you know, Mr Dombey,' said her languishing mother, playing with
a hand-screen, 'that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually
almost differ - '

'Not quite, sometimes, Mama?' said Edith.

'Oh never quite, my darling! Fie, fie, it would break my heart,'
returned her mother, making a faint attempt to pat her with the
screen, which Edith made no movement to meet, ' - about these old
conventionalities of manner that are observed in little things? Why
are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those yearnings, and
gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our
souls, and which are so very charming, why are we not more natural?'

Mr Dombey said it was very true, very true.

'We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs Skewton.

Mr Dombey thought it possible.

'Devil a bit, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'We couldn't afford it.
Unless the world was peopled with J.B.'s - tough and blunt old Joes,
Ma'am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir - we couldn't afford it.
It wouldn't do.'

'You naughty Infidel,' said Mrs Skewton, 'be mute.'

'Cleopatra commands,' returned the Major, kissing his hand, 'and
Antony Bagstock obeys.'

'The man has no sensitiveness,' said Mrs Skewton, cruelly holding
up the hand-screen so as to shut the Major out. 'No sympathy. And what
do we live for but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming!
Without that gleam of sunshine on our cold cold earth,' said Mrs
Skewton, arranging her lace tucker, and complacently observing the
effect of her bare lean arm, looking upward from the wrist, 'how could
we possibly bear it? In short, obdurate man!' glancing at the Major,
round the screen, 'I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so
excessively charming, that I won't allow you to disturb it, do you
hear?'

The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the
world to be all heart, and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of
all the world; which obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery was
insupportable to her, and that if he had the boldness to address her
in that strain any more, she would positively send him home.

Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr Dombey
again addressed himself to Edith.

'There is not much company here, it would seem?' said Mr Dombey, in
his own portentous gentlemanly way.

'I believe not. We see none.'

'Why really,' observed Mrs Skewton fom her couch, 'there are no
people here just now with whom we care to associate.'

'They have not enough heart,' said Edith, with a smile. The very
twilight of a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness
blended.

'My dearest Edith rallies me, you see!' said her mother, shaking
her head: which shook a little of itself sometimes, as if the palsy
Bed now and then in opposition to the diamonds. 'Wicked one!'

'You have been here before, if I am not mistaken?' said Mr Dombey.
Still to Edith.

'Oh, several times. I think we have been everywhere.'

'A beautiful country!'

'I suppose it is. Everybody says so.'

'Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,' interposed her mother
from her couch.

The daughter slightly turned her graceful head, and raising her
eyebrows by a hair's-breadth, as if her cousin Feenix were of all the
mortal world the least to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards
Mr Dombey.

'I hope, for the credit of my good taste, that I am tired of the
neighbourhood,' she said.

'You have almost reason to be, Madam,' he replied, glancing at a
variety of landscape drawings, of which he had already recognised
several as representing neighbouring points of view, and which were
strewn abundantly about the room, 'if these beautiful productions are
from your hand.'

She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful beauty, quite
amazing.

'Have they that interest?' said Mr Dombey. 'Are they yours?'

'Yes.'

'And you play, I already know.'

'Yes.'

'And sing?'

'Yes.'

She answered all these questions with a strange reluctance; and
with that remarkable air of opposition to herself, already noticed as
belonging to her beauty. Yet she was not embarrassed, but wholly
self-possessed. Neither did she seem to wish to avoid the
conversation, for she addressed her face, and - so far as she could -
her manner also, to him; and continued to do so, when he was silent.

'You have many resources against weariness at least,' said Mr
Dombey.

'Whatever their efficiency may be,' she returned, 'you know them
all now. I have no more.

'May I hope to prove them all?' said Mr Dombey, with solemn
gallantry, laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards
the harp.

'Oh certainly] If you desire it!'

She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother's couch, and
directing a stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its
duration, but inclusive (if anyone had seen it) of a multitude of
expressions, among which that of the twilight smile, without the smile
itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room.

The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a
little table up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet
with her. Mr Dombey, not knowing the game, sat down to watch them for
his edification until Edith should return.

'We are going to have some music, Mr Dombey, I hope?' said
Cleopatra.

'Mrs Granger has been kind enough to promise so,' said Mr Dombey.

'Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?'

'No, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'Couldn't do it.'

'You're a barbarous being,' replied the lady, 'and my hand's
destroyed. You are fond of music, Mr Dombey?'

'Eminently so,' was Mr Dombey's answer.

'Yes. It's very nice,' said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. 'So
much heart in it - undeveloped recollections of a previous state of
existence' - and all that - which is so truly charming. Do you know,'
simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into
her game with his heels uppermost, 'that if anything could tempt me to
put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it's
all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries,
really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play.'

The Major played; and Mr Dombey, looking on for his instruction,
would soon have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no
attention to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith
would come back.

She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr Dombey rose and
stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no
knowledge of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it,
and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of
his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less
inexorable.

Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a
bird's, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room
from end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.

When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr
Dombey's thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before,
went with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there.

Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very
handsome, and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is
deep and rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his
dead son]

Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir
him, rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams,
although the night has turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and
threaten to discharge themselves in hail!

CHAPTER 22.

A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager

Mr Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual,
reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing
them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business
purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for
distribution through the several departments of the House. The post
had come in heavy that morning, and Mr Carker the Manager had a good
deal to do.

The general action of a man so engaged - pausing to look over a
bundle of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions,
taking up another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows
and pursed-out lips - dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns -
would easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards.
The face of Mr Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a
fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his play, warily: who made
himself master of all the strong and weak points of the game: who
registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly
what was on them, what they missed, and what they made: who was crafty
to find out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his
own hand.

The letters were in various languages, but Mr Carker the Manager
read them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and
Son that he could read, there would have been a card wanting in the
pack. He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter
with another and one business with another as he went on, adding new
matter to the heaps - much as a man would know the cards at sight, and
work out their combinations in his mind after they were turned.
Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary,
Mr Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down
slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone.

And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the
cat tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker
the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that
shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked
dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers
deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich
sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with
long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to
any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the
falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or
glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth,
soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of
habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at his work, as if
he were waiting at a mouse's hole.

At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he
reserved for a particular audience. Having locked the more
confidential correspondence in a drawer, Mr Carker the Manager rang
his bell.

'Why do you answer it?' was his reception of his brother.

'The messenger is out, and I am the next,' was the submissive
reply.

'You are the next?' muttered the Manager. 'Yes! Creditable to me!
There!'

Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned disdainfully
away, in his elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held
in his hand.

'I am sorry to trouble you, James,' said the brother, gathering
them up, 'but - '

'Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?'

Mr Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his
brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it.

'Well?' he repeated sharply.

'I am uneasy about Harriet.'

'Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name.'

'She is not well, and has changed very much of late.'

'She changed very much, a great many years ago,' replied the
Manager; 'and that is all I have to say.

'I think if you would hear me -

'Why should I hear you, Brother John?' returned the Manager, laying
a sarcastic emphasis on those two words, and throwing up his head, but
not lifting his eyes. 'I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many
years ago between her two brothers. She may repent it, but she must
abide by it.'

'Don't mistake me. I do not say she does repent it. It would be
black ingratitude in me to hint at such a thing,' returned the other.
'Though believe me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you.'

'As I?' exclaimed the Manager. 'As I?'

'As sorry for her choice - for what you call her choice - as you
are angry at it,' said the Junior.

'Angry?' repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth.

'Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning.
There is no offence in my intention.'

'There is offence in everything you do,' replied his brother,
glancing at him with a sudden scowl, which in a moment gave place to a
wider smile than the last. 'Carry those papers away, if you please. I
am busy.

His politeness was so much more cutting than his wrath, that the
Junior went to the door. But stopping at it, and looking round, he
said:

'When Harriet tried in vain to plead for me with you, on your first
just indignation, and my first disgrace; and when she left you, James,
to follow my broken fortunes, and devote herself, in her mistaken
affection, to a ruined brother, because without her he had no one, and
was lost; she was young and pretty. I think if you could see her now -
if you would go and see her - she would move your admiration and
compassion.'

The Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, as who should
say, in answer to some careless small-talk, 'Dear me! Is that the
case?' but said never a word.

'We thought in those days: you and I both: that she would marry
young, and lead a happy and light-hearted life,' pursued the other.
'Oh if you knew how cheerfully she cast those hopes away; how
cheerfully she has gone forward on the path she took, and never once
looked back; you never could say again that her name was strange in
your ears. Never!'

Again the Manager inclined his head and showed his teeth, and
seemed to say, 'Remarkable indeed! You quite surprise me!' And again
he uttered never a word.

'May I go on?' said John Carker, mildly.

'On your way?' replied his smiling brother. 'If you will have the
goodness.

John Carker, with a sigh, was passing slowly out at the door, when
his brother's voice detained him for a moment on the threshold.

'If she has gone, and goes, her own way cheerfully,' he said,
throwing the still unfolded letter on his desk, and putting his hands
firmly in his pockets, 'you may tell her that I go as cheerfully on
mine. If she has never once looked back, you may tell her that I have,
sometimes, to recall her taking part with you, and that my resolution
is no easier to wear away;' he smiled very sweetly here; 'than
marble.'

'I tell her nothing of you. We never speak about you. Once a year,
on your birthday, Harriet says always, "Let us remember James by name,
and wish him happy," but we say no more'

'Tell it then, if you please,' returned the other, 'to yourself.
You can't repeat it too often, as a lesson to you to avoid the subject
in speaking to me. I know no Harriet Carker. There is no such person.
You may have a sister; make much of her. I have none.'

Mr Carker the Manager took up the letter again, and waved it with a
smile of mock courtesy towards the door. Unfolding it as his brother
withdrew, and looking darkly aiter him as he left the room, he once
more turned round in his elbow-chair, and applied himself to a
diligent perusal of its contents.

It was in the writing of his great chief, Mr Dombey, and dated from
Leamington. Though he was a quick reader of all other letters, Mr
Carker read this slowly; weighing the words as he went, and bringing
every tooth in his head to bear upon them. When he had read it through
once, he turned it over again, and picked out these passages. 'I find
myself benefited by the change, and am not yet inclined to name any
time for my return.' 'I wish, Carker, you would arrange to come down
once and see me here, and let me know how things are going on, in
person.' 'I omitted to speak to you about young Gay. If not gone per
Son and Heir, or if Son and Heir still lying in the Docks, appoint
some other young man and keep him in the City for the present. I am
not decided.' 'Now that's unfortunate!' said Mr Carker the Manager,
expanding his mouth, as if it were made of India-rubber: 'for he's far
away.'

Still that passage, which was in a postscript, attracted his
attention and his teeth, once more.

'I think,' he said, 'my good friend Captain Cuttle mentioned
something about being towed along in the wake of that day. What a pity
he's so far away!'

He refolded the letter, and was sitting trifling with it, standing
it long-wise and broad-wise on his table, and turning it over and over
on all sides - doing pretty much the same thing, perhaps, by its
contents - when Mr Perch the messenger knocked softly at the door, and
coming in on tiptoe, bending his body at every step as if it were the
delight of his life to bow, laid some papers on the table.

'Would you please to be engaged, Sir?' asked Mr Perch, rubbing his
hands, and deferentially putting his head on one side, like a man who
felt he had no business to hold it up in such a presence, and would
keep it as much out of the way as possible.

'Who wants me?'

'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, in a soft voice, 'really nobody, Sir, to
speak of at present. Mr Gills the Ship's Instrument-maker, Sir, has
looked in, about a little matter of payment, he says: but I mentioned
to him, Sir, that you was engaged several deep; several deep.'

Mr Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further
orders.

'Anybody else?'

'Well, Sir,' said Mr Perch, 'I wouldn't of my own self take the
liberty of mentioning, Sir, that there was anybody else; but that same
young lad that was here yesterday, Sir, and last week, has been
hanging about the place; and it looks, Sir,' added Mr Perch, stopping
to shut the door, 'dreadful unbusiness-like to see him whistling to
the sparrows down the court, and making of 'em answer him.'

'You said he wanted something to do, didn't you, Perch?' asked Mr
Carker, leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer.

'Why, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing behind his hand again, 'his
expression certainly were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and
that he considered something might be done for him about the Docks,
being used to fishing with a rod and line: but - ' Mr Perch shook his
head very dubiously indeed.

'What does he say when he comes?' asked Mr Carker.

'Indeed, Sir,' said Mr Perch, coughing another cough behind his
hand, which was always his resource as an expression of humility when
nothing else occurred to him, 'his observation generally air that he
would humbly wish to see one of the gentlemen, and that he wants to
earn a living. But you see, Sir,' added Perch, dropping his voice to a
whisper, and turning, in the inviolable nature of his confidence, to
give the door a thrust with his hand and knee, as if that would shut
it any more when it was shut already, 'it's hardly to be bore, Sir,
that a common lad like that should come a prowling here, and saying
that his mother nursed our House's young gentleman, and that he hopes
our House will give him a chance on that account. I am sure, Sir,'
observed Mr Perch, 'that although Mrs Perch was at that time nursing
as thriving a little girl, Sir, as we've ever took the liberty of
adding to our family, I wouldn't have made so free as drop a hint of
her being capable of imparting nourishment, not if it was never so!'

Mr Carker grinned at him like a shark, but in an absent, thoughtful
manner.

'Whether,' submitted Mr Perch, after a short silence, and another
cough, 'it mightn't be best for me to tell him, that if he was seen
here any more he would be given into custody; and to keep to it! With
respect to bodily fear,' said Mr Perch, 'I'm so timid, myself, by
nature, Sir, and my nerves is so unstrung by Mrs Perch's state, that I
could take my affidavit easy.'

'Let me see this fellow, Perch,' said Mr Carker. 'Bring him in!'

'Yes, Sir. Begging your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Perch, hesitating at
the door, 'he's rough, Sir, in appearance.'

'Never mind. If he's there, bring him in. I'll see Mr Gills
directly. Ask him to wait.'

Mr Perch bowed; and shutting the door, as precisely and carefully
as if he were not coming back for a week, went on his quest among the
sparrows in the court. While he was gone, Mr Carker assumed his
favourite attitude before the fire-place, and stood looking at the
door; presenting, with his under lip tucked into the smile that showed
his whole row of upper teeth, a singularly crouching apace.

The messenger was not long in returning, followed by a pair of
heavy boots that came bumping along the passage like boxes. With the
unceremonious words 'Come along with you!' - a very unusual form of
introduction from his lips - Mr Perch then ushered into the presence a
strong-built lad of fifteen, with a round red face, a round sleek
head, round black eyes, round limbs, and round body, who, to carry out
the general rotundity of his appearance, had a round hat in his hand,
without a particle of brim to it.

Obedient to a nod from Mr Carker, Perch had no sooner confronted
the visitor with that gentleman than he withdrew. The moment they were
face to face alone, Mr Carker, without a word of preparation, took him
by the throat, and shook him until his head seemed loose upon his
shoulders.

The boy, who in the midst of his astonishment could not help
staring wildly at the gentleman with so many white teeth who was
choking him, and at the office walls, as though determined, if he were
choked, that his last look should be at the mysteries for his
intrusion into which he was paying such a severe penalty, at last
contrived to utter -

'Come, Sir! You let me alone, will you!'

'Let you alone!' said Mr Carker. 'What! I have got you, have I?'
There was no doubt of that, and tightly too. 'You dog,' said Mr
Carker, through his set jaws, 'I'll strangle you!'

Biler whimpered, would he though? oh no he wouldn't - and what was
he doing of - and why didn't he strangle some- body of his own size
and not him: but Biler was quelled by the extraordinary nature of his
reception, and, as his head became stationary, and he looked the
gentleman in the face, or rather in the teeth, and saw him snarling at
him, he so far forgot his manhood as to cry.

'I haven't done nothing to you, Sir,' said Biler, otherwise Rob,
otherwise Grinder, and always Toodle.

'You young scoundrel!' replied Mr Carker, slowly releasing him, and
moving back a step into his favourite position. 'What do you mean by
daring to come here?'

'I didn't mean no harm, Sir,' whimpered Rob, putting one hand to
his throat, and the knuckles of the other to his eyes. 'I'll never
come again, Sir. I only wanted work.'

'Work, young Cain that you are!' repeated Mr Carker, eyeing him
narrowly. 'Ain't you the idlest vagabond in London?'

The impeachment, while it much affected Mr Toodle Junior, attached
to his character so justly, that he could not say a word in denial. He
stood looking at the gentleman, therefore, with a frightened,
self-convicted, and remorseful air. As to his looking at him, it may
be observed that he was fascinated by Mr Carker, and never took his
round eyes off him for an instant.

'Ain't you a thief?' said Mr Carker, with his hands behind him in
his pockets.

'No, sir,' pleaded Rob.

'You are!' said Mr Carker.

'I ain't indeed, Sir,' whimpered Rob. 'I never did such a thing as
thieve, Sir, if you'll believe me. I know I've been a going wrong,
Sir, ever since I took to bird-catching' and walking-matching. I'm
sure a cove might think,' said Mr Toodle Junior, with a burst of
penitence, 'that singing birds was innocent company, but nobody knows
what harm is in them little creeturs and what they brings you down
to.'

They seemed to have brought him down to a velveteen jacket and
trousers very much the worse for wear, a particularly small red
waistcoat like a gorget, an interval of blue check, and the hat before
mentioned.

'I ain't been home twenty times since them birds got their will of
me,' said Rob, 'and that's ten months. How can I go home when
everybody's miserable to see me! I wonder,' said Biler, blubbering
outright, and smearing his eyes with his coat-cuff, 'that I haven't
been and drownded myself over and over again.'

All of which, including his expression of surprise at not having
achieved this last scarce performance, the boy said, just as if the
teeth of Mr Carker drew it out ofhim, and he had no power of
concealing anything with that battery of attraction in full play.

'You're a nice young gentleman!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head
at him. 'There's hemp-seed sown for you, my fine fellow!'

'I'm sure, Sir,' returned the wretched Biler, blubbering again, and
again having recourse to his coat-cuff: 'I shouldn't care, sometimes,
if it was growed too. My misfortunes all began in wagging, Sir; but
what could I do, exceptin' wag?'

'Excepting what?' said Mr Carker.

'Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.'

'Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?' said Mr
Carker.

'Yes, Sir, that's wagging, Sir,' returned the quondam Grinder, much
affected. 'I was chivied through the streets, Sir, when I went there,
and pounded when I got there. So I wagged, and hid myself, and that
began it.'

'And you mean to tell me,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the throat
again, holding him out at arm's-length, and surveying him in silence
for some moments, 'that you want a place, do you?'

'I should be thankful to be tried, Sir,' returned Toodle Junior,
faintly.

Mr Carker the Manager pushed him backward into a corner - the boy
submitting quietly, hardly venturing to breathe, and never once
removing his eyes from his face - and rang the bell.

'Tell Mr Gills to come here.'

Mr Perch was too deferential to express surprise or recognition of
the figure in the corner: and Uncle Sol appeared immediately.

'Mr Gills!' said Carker, with a smile, 'sit down. How do you do?
You continue to enjoy your health, I hope?'

'Thank you, Sir,' returned Uncle Sol, taking out his pocket-book,
and handing over some notes as he spoke. 'Nothing ails me in body but
old age. Twenty-five, Sir.'

'You are as punctual and exact, Mr Gills,' replied the smiling
Manager, taking a paper from one of his many drawers, and making an
endorsement on it, while Uncle Sol looked over him, 'as one of your
own chronometers. Quite right.'

'The Son and Heir has not been spoken, I find by the list, Sir,'
said Uncle Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in his
voice.

'The Son and Heir has not been spoken,' returned Carker. 'There
seems to have been tempestuous weather, Mr Gills, and she has probably
been driven out of her course.'

'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' said old Sol.

'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' assented Mr Carker in that
voiceless manner of his: which made the observant young Toodle
trernble again. 'Mr Gills,' he added aloud, throwing himself back in
his chair, 'you must miss your nephew very much?'

Uncle Sol, standing by him, shook his head and heaved a deep sigh.

'Mr Gills,' said Carker, with his soft hand playing round his
mouth, and looking up into the Instrument-maker's face, 'it would be
company to you to have a young fellow in your shop just now, and it
would be obliging me if you would give one house-room for the present.
No, to be sure,' he added quickly, in anticipation of what the old man
was going to say, 'there's not much business doing there, I know; but
you can make him clean the place out, polish up the instruments;
drudge, Mr Gills. That's the lad!'

Sol Gills pulled down his spectacles from his forehead to his eyes,
and looked at Toodle Junior standing upright in the corner: his head
presenting the appearance (which it always did) of having been newly
drawn out of a bucket of cold water; his small waistcoat rising and
falling quickly in the play of his emotions; and his eyes intently
fixed on Mr Carker, without the least reference to his proposed
master.

'Will you give him house-room, Mr Gills?' said the Manager.

Old Sol, without being quite enthusiastic on the subject, replied
that he was glad of any opportunity, however slight, to oblige Mr
Carker, whose wish on such a point was a command: and that the wooden
Midshipman would consider himself happy to receive in his berth any
visitor of Mr Carker's selecting.

Mr Carker bared himself to the tops and bottoms of his gums: making
the watchful Toodle Junior tremble more and more: and acknowledged the
Instrument-maker's politeness in his most affable manner.

'I'll dispose of him so, then, Mr Gills,' he answered, rising, and
shaking the old man by the hand, 'until I make up my mind what to do
with him, and what he deserves. As I consider myself responsible for
him, Mr Gills,' here he smiled a wide smile at Rob, who shook before
it: 'I shall be glad if you'll look sharply after him, and report his
behaviour to me. I'll ask a question or two of his parents as I ride
home this afternoon - respectable people - to confirm some particulars
in his own account of himself; and that done, Mr Gills, I'll send him
round to you to-morrow morning. Goodbye!'

His smile at parting was so full of teeth, that it confused old
Sol, and made him vaguely uncomfortable. He went home, thinking of
raging seas, foundering ships, drowning men, an ancient bottle of
Madeira never brought to light, and other dismal matters.

'Now, boy!' said Mr Carker, putting his hand on young Toodle's
shoulder, and bringing him out into the middle of the room. 'You have
heard me?'

Rob said, 'Yes, Sir.'

'Perhaps you understand,' pursued his patron, 'that if you ever
deceive or play tricks with me, you had better have drowned yourself,
indeed, once for all, before you came here?'

There was nothing in any branch of mental acquisition that Rob
seemed to understand better than that.

'If you have lied to me,' said Mr Carker, 'in anything, never come
in my way again. If not, you may let me find you waiting for me
somewhere near your mother's house this afternoon. I shall leave this
at five o'clock, and ride there on horseback. Now, give me the
address.'

Rob repeated it slowly, as Mr Carker wrote it down. Rob even spelt
it over a second time, letter by letter, as if he thought that the
omission of a dot or scratch would lead to his destruction. Mr Carker
then handed him out of the room; and Rob, keeping his round eyes fixed
upon his patron to the last, vanished for the time being.

Mr Carker the Manager did a great deal of business in the course of
the day, and stowed his teeth upon a great many people. In the office,
in the court, in the street, and on 'Change, they glistened and
bristled to a terrible extent. Five o'clock arriving, and with it Mr
Carker's bay horse, they got on horseback, and went gleaming up
Cheapside.

As no one can easily ride fast, even if inclined to do so, through
the press and throng of the City at that hour, and as Mr Carker was
not inclined, he went leisurely along, picking his way among the carts
and carriages, avoiding whenever he could the wetter and more dirty
places in the over-watered road, and taking infinite pains to keep
himself and his steed clean. Glancing at the passersby while he was
thus ambling on his way, he suddenly encountered the round eyes of the
sleek-headed Rob intently fixed upon his face as if they had never
been taken off, while the boy himself, with a pocket-handkerchief
twisted up like a speckled eel and girded round his waist, made a very
conspicuous demonstration of being prepared to attend upon him, at
whatever pace he might think proper to go.

This attention, however flattering, being one of an unusual kind,
and attracting some notice from the other passengers, Mr Carker took
advantage of a clearer thoroughfare and a cleaner road, and broke into
a trot. Rob immediately did the same. Mr Carker presently tried a
canter; Rob Was still in attendance. Then a short gallop; it Was all
one to the boy. Whenever Mr Carker turned his eyes to that side of the
road, he still saw Toodle Junior holding his course, apparently
without distress, and working himself along by the elbows after the
most approved manner of professional gentlemen who get over the ground
for wagers.

Ridiculous as this attendance was, it was a sign of an influence
established over the boy, and therefore Mr Carker, affecting not to
notice it, rode away into the neighbourhood of Mr Toodle's house. On
his slackening his pace here, Rob appeared before him to point out the
turnings; and when he called to a man at a neighbouring gateway to
hold his horse, pending his visit to the buildings that had succeeded
Staggs's Gardens, Rob dutifully held the stirrup, while the Manager
dismounted.

'Now, Sir,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the shoulder, 'come
along!'

The prodigal son was evidently nervous of visiting the parental
abode; but Mr Carker pushing him on before, he had nothing for it but
to open the right door, and suffer himself to be walked into the midst
of his brothers and sisters, mustered in overwhelming force round the
family tea-table. At sight of the prodigal in the grasp of a stranger,
these tender relations united in a general howl, which smote upon the
prodigal's breast so sharply when he saw his mother stand up among
them, pale and trembling, with the baby in her arms, that he lent his
own voice to the chorus.

Nothing doubting now that the stranger, if not Mr Ketch' in person,
was one of that company, the whole of the young family wailed the
louder, while its more infantine members, unable to control the
transports of emotion appertaining to their time of life, threw
themselves on their backs like young birds when terrified by a hawk,
and kicked violently. At length, poor Polly making herself audible,
said, with quivering lips, 'Oh Rob, my poor boy, what have you done at
last!'

'Nothing, mother,' cried Rob, in a piteous voice, 'ask the
gentleman!'

'Don't be alarmed,' said Mr Carker, 'I want to do him good.'

At this announcement, Polly, who had not cried yet, began to do so.
The elder Toodles, who appeared to have been meditating a rescue,
unclenched their fists. The younger Toodles clustered round their
mother's gown, and peeped from under their own chubby arms at their
desperado brother and his unknown friend. Everybody blessed the
gentleman with the beautiful teeth, who wanted to do good.

'This fellow,' said Mr Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake,
'is your son, eh, Ma'am?'

'Yes, Sir,' sobbed Polly, with a curtsey; 'yes, Sir.'

'A bad son, I am afraid?' said Mr Carker.

'Never a bad son to me, Sir,' returned Polly.

'To whom then?' demanded Mr Carker.

'He has been a little wild, Sir,' returned Polly, checking the
baby, who was making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to
launch himself on Biler, through the ambient air, 'and has gone with
wrong companions: but I hope he has seen the misery of that, Sir, and
will do well again.'

Mr Carker looked at Polly, and the clean room, and the clean
children, and the simple Toodle face, combined of father and mother,
that was reflected and repeated everywhere about him - and seemed to
have achieved the real purpose of his visit.

'Your husband, I take it, is not at home?' he said.

'No, Sir,' replied Polly. 'He's down the line at present.'

The prodigal Rob seemed very much relieved to hear it: though still
in the absorption of all his faculties in his patron, he hardly took
his eyes from Mr Carker's face, unless for a moment at a time to steal
a sorrowful glance at his mother.

'Then,' said Mr Carker, 'I'll tell you how I have stumbled on this
boy of yours, and who I am, and what I am going to do for him.'

This Mr Carker did, in his own way; saying that he at first
intended to have accumulated nameless terrors on his presumptuous
head, for coming to the whereabout of Dombey and Son. That he had
relented, in consideration of his youth, his professed contrition, and
his friends. That he was afraid he took a rash step in doing anything
for the boy, and one that might expose him to the censure of the
prudent; but that he did it of himself and for himself, and risked the
consequences single-handed; and that his mother's past connexion with
Mr Dombey's family had nothing to do with it, and that Mr Dombey had
nothing to do with it, but that he, Mr Carker, was the be-all and the
end-all of this business. Taking great credit to himself for his
goodness, and receiving no less from all the family then present, Mr
Carker signified, indirectly but still pretty plainly, that Rob's
implicit fidelity, attachment, and devotion, were for evermore his
due, and the least homage he could receive. And with this great truth
Rob himself was so impressed, that, standing gazing on his patron with
tears rolling down his cheeks, he nodded his shiny head until it
seemed almost as loose as it had done under the same patron's hands
that morning.

Polly, who had passed Heaven knows how many sleepless nights on
account of this her dissipated firstborn, and had not seen him for
weeks and weeks, could have almost kneeled to Mr Carker the Manager,
as to a Good Spirit - in spite of his teeth. But Mr Carker rising to
depart, she only thanked him with her mother's prayers and blessings;
thanks so rich when paid out of the Heart's mint, especially for any
service Mr Carker had rendered, that he might have given back a large
amount of change, and yet been overpaid.

As that gentleman made his way among the crowding children to the
door, Rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the
same repentant hug.

'I'll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!' said Rob.

'Oh do, my dear boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your
own!' cried Polly, kissing him. 'But you're coming back to speak to
me, when you have seen the gentleman away?'

'I don't know, mother.' Rob hesitated, and looked down. 'Father -
when's he coming home?'

'Not till two o'clock to-morrow morning.'

'I'll come back, mother dear!' cried Rob. And passing through the
shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise,
he followed Mr Carker out.

'What!' said Mr Carker, who had heard this. 'You have a bad father,
have you?'

'No, Sir!' returned Rob, amazed. 'There ain't a better nor a kinder
father going, than mine is.'

'Why don't you want to see him then?' inquired his patron.

'There's such a difference between a father and a mother, Sir,'
said Rob, after faltering for a moment. 'He couldn't hardly believe
yet that I was doing to do better - though I know he'd try to but a
mother - she always believes what's,' good, Sir; at least I know my
mother does, God bless her!'

Mr Carker's mouth expanded, but he said no more until he was
mounted on his horse, and had dismissed the man who held it, when,
looking down from the saddle steadily into the attentive and watchful
face of the boy, he said:

'You'll come to me tomorrow morning, and you shall be shown where
that old gentleman lives; that old gentleman who was with me this
morning; where you are going, as you heard me say.'

'Yes, Sir,' returned Rob.

'I have a great interest in that old gentleman, and in serving him,
you serve me, boy, do you understand? Well,' he added, interrupting
him, for he saw his round face brighten when he was told that: 'I see
you do. I want to know all about that old gentleman, and how he goes
on from day to day - for I am anxious to be of service to him - and
especially who comes there to see him. Do you understand?'

Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said 'Yes, Sir,' again.

'I should like to know that he has friends who are attentive to
him, and that they don't desert him - for he lives very much alone
now, poor fellow; but that they are fond of him, and of his nephew who
has gone abroad. There is a very young lady who may perhaps come to
see him. I want particularly to know all about her.'

'I'll take care, Sir,' said the boy.

'And take care,' returned his patron, bending forward to advance
his grinning face closer to the boy's, and pat him on the shoulder
with the handle of his whip: 'take care you talk about affairs of mine
to nobody but me.'

'To nobody in the world, Sir,' replied Rob, shaking his head.

'Neither there,' said Mr CarHer, pointing to the place they had
just left, 'nor anywhere else. I'll try how true and grateful you can
be. I'll prove you!' Making this, by his display of teeth and by the
action of his head, as much a threat as a promise, he turned from
Rob's eyes, which were nailed upon him as if he had won the boy by a
charm, body and soul, and rode away. But again becoming conscious,
after trotting a short distance, that his devoted henchman, girt as
before, was yielding him the same attendance, to the great amusement
of sundry spectators, he reined up, and ordered him off. To ensure his
obedience, he turned in the saddle and watched him as he retired. It
was curious to see that even then Rob could not keep his eyes wholly
averted from his patron's face, but, constantly turning and turning
again to look after him' involved himself in a tempest of buffetings
and jostlings from the other passengers in the street: of which, in
the pursuit of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless.

Mr Carker the Manager rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of
one who had performed all the business of the day in a satisfactory
manner, and got it comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as
man could be, Mr Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a
soft tune as he went He seemed to purr, he was so glad.

And in some sort, Mr Carker, in his fancy, basked upon a hearth
too. Coiled up snugly at certain feet, he was ready for a spring, Or
for a tear, or for a scratch, or for a velvet touch, as the humour
took him and occasion served. Was there any bird in a cage, that came
in for a share ofhis regards?

'A very young lady!' thought Mr Carker the Manager, through his
song. 'Ay! when I saw her last, she was a little child. With dark eyes
and hair, I recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I daresay
she's pretty.'

More affable and pleasant yet, and humming his song until his many
teeth vibrated to it, Mr Carker picked his way along, and turned at
last into the shady street where Mr Dombey's house stood. He had been
so busy, winding webs round good faces, and obscuring them with
meshes, that he hardly thought of being at this point of his ride,
until, glancing down the cold perspective of tall houses, he reined in
his horse quickly within a few yards of the door. But to explain why
Mr Carker reined in his horse quickly, and what he looked at in no
small surprise, a few digressive words are necessary.

Mr Toots, emancipated from the Blimber thraldom and coming into the
possession of a certain portion of his wordly wealth, 'which,' as he
had been wont, during his last half-year's probation, to communicate
to Mr Feeder every evening as a new discovery, 'the executors couldn't
keep him out of' had applied himself with great diligence, to the
science of Life. Fired with a noble emulation to pursue a brilliant
and distinguished career, Mr Toots had furnished a choice set of
apartments; had established among them a sporting bower, embellished
with the portraits of winning horses, in which he took no particle of
interest; and a divan, which made him poorly. In this delicious abode,
Mr Toots devoted himself to the cultivation of those gentle arts which
refine and humanise existence, his chief instructor in which was an
interesting character called the Game Chicken, who was always to be
heard of at the bar of the Black Badger, wore a shaggy white
great-coat in the warmest weather, and knocked Mr Toots about the head
three times a week, for the small consideration of ten and six per
visit.

The Game Chicken, who was quite the Apollo of Mr Toots's Pantheon,
had introduced to him a marker who taught billiards, a Life Guard who
taught fencing, a jobmaster who taught riding, a Cornish gentleman who
was up to anything in the athletic line, and two or three other
friends connected no less intimately with the fine arts. Under whose
auspices Mr Toots could hardly fail to improve apace, and under whose
tuition he went to work.

But however it came about, it came to pass, even while these
gentlemen had the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr Toots felt, he
didn't know how, unsettled and uneasy. There were husks in his corn,
that even Game Chickens couldn't peck up; gloomy giants in his
leisure, that even Game Chickens couldn't knock down. Nothing seemed
to do Mr Toots so much good as incessantly leaving cards at Mr
Dombey's door. No taxgatherer in the British Dominions - that
wide-spread territory on which the sun never sets, and where the
tax-gatherer never goes to bed - was more regular and persevering in
his calls than Mr Toots.

Mr Toots never went upstairs; and always performed the same
ceremonies, richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door.

'Oh! Good morning!' would be Mr Toots's first remark to the
servant. 'For Mr Dombey,' would be Mr Toots's next remark, as he
handed in a card. 'For Miss Dombey,' would be his next, as he handed
in another.

Mr Toots would then turn round as if to go away; but the man knew
him by this time, and knew he wouldn't.

'Oh, I beg your pardon,' Mr Toots would say, as if a thought had
suddenly descended on him. 'Is the young woman at home?'

The man would rather think she was;, but wouldn't quite know. Then
he would ring a bell that rang upstairs, and would look up the
staircase, and would say, yes, she was at home, and was coming down.
Then Miss Nipper would appear, and the man would retire.

'Oh! How de do?' Mr Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush.

Susan would thank him, and say she was very well.

'How's Diogenes going on?' would be Mr Toots's second
interrogation.

Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every
day. Mr Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the
opening of a bottle of some effervescent beverage.

'Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,' Susan would add.

Oh, it's of no consequence, thank'ee,' was the invariable reply of
Mr Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast.

Now it is certain that Mr Toots had a filmy something in his mind,
which led him to conclude that if he could aspire successfully in the
fulness of time, to the hand of Florence, he would be fortunate and
blest. It is certain that Mr Toots, by some remote and roundabout
road, had got to that point, and that there he made a stand. His heart
was wounded; he was touched; he was in love. He had made a desperate
attempt, one night, and had sat up all night for the purpose, to write
an acrostic on Florence, which affected him to tears in the
conception. But he never proceeded in the execution further than the
words 'For when I gaze,' - the flow of imagination in which he had
previously written down the initial letters of the other seven lines,
deserting him at that point.

Beyond devising that very artful and politic measure of leaving a
card for Mr Dombey daily, the brain of Mr Toots had not worked much in
reference to the subject that held his feelings prisoner. But deep
consideration at length assured Mr Toots that an important step to
gain, was, the conciliation of Miss Susan Nipper, preparatory to
giving her some inkling of his state of mind.

A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the
means to employ in that early chapter of the history, for winning her
to his interests. Not being able quite to make up his mind about it,
he consulted the Chicken - without taking that gentleman into his
confidence; merely informing him that a friend in Yorkshire had
written to him (Mr Toots) for his opinion on such a question. The
Chicken replying that his opinion always was, 'Go in and win,' and
further, 'When your man's before you and your work cut out, go in and
do it,' Mr Toots considered this a figurative way of supporting his
own view of the case, and heroically resolved to kiss Miss Nipper next
day.

Upon the next day, therefore, Mr Toots, putting into requisition
some of the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co. had ever turned out,
went off to Mr Dotnbey's upon this design. But his heart failed him so
much as he approached the scene of action, that, although he arrived
on the ground at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was six before he
knocked at the door.

Everything happened as usual, down to the point where Susan said
her young mistress was well, and Mr Toots said it was ofno
consequence. To her amazement, Mr Toots, instead of going off, like a
rocket, after that observation, lingered and chuckled.

'Perhaps you'd like to walk upstairs, Sir!' said Susan.

'Well, I think I will come in!' said Mr Toots.

But instead of walking upstairs, the bold Toots made an awkward
plunge at Susan when the door was shut, and embracing that fair
creature, kissed her on the cheek

'Go along with you!~ cried Susan, 'or Ill tear your eyes out.'

'Just another!' said Mr Toots.

'Go along with you!' exclaimed Susan, giving him a push 'Innocents
like you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!'

Susan was not in any serious strait, for she could hardly speak for
laughing; but Diogenes, on the staircase, hearing a rustling against
the wall, and a shuffling of feet, and seeing through the banisters
that there was some contention going on, and foreign invasion in the
house, formed a different opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in
the twinkling of an eye had Mr Toots by the leg.

Susan screamed, laughed, opened the street-door, and ran
downstairs; the bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street,
with Diogenes holding on to one leg of his pantaioons, as if Burgess
and Co. were his cooks, and had provided that dainty morsel for his
holiday entertainment; Diogenes shaken off, rolled over and over in
the dust, got up' again, whirled round the giddy Toots and snapped at
him: and all this turmoil Mr Carker, reigning up his horse and sitting
a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue from the stately
house of Mr Dombey.

Mr Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots, when Diogenes
was called in, and the door shut: and while that gentleman, taking
refuge in a doorway near at hand, bound up the torn leg of his
pantaloons with a costly silk handkerchief that had formed part of his
expensive outfit for the advent

'I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Carker, riding up, with his most
propitiatory smile. 'I hope you are not hurt?'

'Oh no, thank you,' replied Mr Toots, raising his flushed face,
'it's of no consequence' Mr Toots would have signified, if he could,
that he liked it very much.

'If the dog's teeth have entered the leg, Sir - ' began Carker,
with a display of his own'

'No, thank you,' said Mr Toots, 'it's all quite right. It's very
comfortable, thank you.'

'I have the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey,' observed Carker.

'Have you though?' rejoined the blushing Took

'And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,'
said Mr Carker, taking off his hat, 'for such a misadventure, and to
wonder how it can possibly have happened.'

Mr Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky
chance of making frends with a friend of Mr Dombey, that he pulls out
his card-case which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands
his name and address to Mr Carker: who responds to that courtesy by
giving him his own, and with that they part.

As Mr Carker picks his way so softly past the house, looking up at
the windows, and trying to make out the pensive face behind the
curtain looking at the children opposite, the rough head of Diogenes
came clambering up close by it, and the dog, regardless of all
soothing, barks and growls, and makes at him from that height, as ifhe
would spring down and tear him limb from limb.

Well spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with
your head up, your eyes flashing, and your vexed mouth worrying
itself, for want of him! Another, as he picks his way along! You have
a good scent, Di, - cats, boy, cats!

CHAPTER 23.

Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious

Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded
day, and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon
her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare
her youth and beauty into stone.

No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a
thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy, than was
her father's mansion in its grim reality, as it stood lowering on the
street: always by night, when lights were shining from neighbouring
windows, a blot upon its scanty brightness; always by day, a frown
upon its never-smiling face.

There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of
this above, as in magic legend are usually found on duty over the
wronged innocence imprisoned; but besides a glowering visage, with its
thin lips parted wickedly, that surveyed all comers from above the
archway of the door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron,
curling and twisting like a petrifaction of an arbour over threshold,
budding in spikes and corkscrew points, and bearing, one on either
side, two ominous extinguishers, that seemed to say, 'Who enter here,
leave light behind!' There were no talismanic characters engraven on
the portal, but the house was now so neglected in appearance, that
boys chalked the railings and the pavement - particularly round the
corner where the side wall was - and drew ghosts on the stable door;
and being sometimes driven off by Mr Towlinson, made portraits of him,
in return, with his ears growing out horizontally from under his hat.
Noise ceased to be, within the shadow of the roof. The brass band that
came into the street once a week, in the morning, never brayed a note
in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor little
piping organ of weak intellect, with an imbecile party of automaton
dancers, waltzing in and out at folding-doors, fell off from it with
one accord, and shunned it as a hopeless place.

The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set
enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking
freshness unimpaired. The passive desolation of disuse was everywhere
silently manifest about it. Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily,
lost their old folds and shapes, and hung like cumbrous palls.
Hecatombs of furniture, still piled and covered up, shrunk like
imprisoned and forgotten men, and changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim
as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became
perplexed and faint, like the memory of those years' trifling
incidents. Boards, starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked and shook.
Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and as
the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete
themselves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus trees
grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated, nobody knew whence
nor how; spiders, moths, and grubs were heard of every day. An
exploratory blackbeetle now and then was found immovable upon the
stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering how he got there. Rats began
to squeak and scuffle in the night time, through dark galleries they
mined behind the panelling.

The dreary magnificence of the state rooms, seen imperfectly by the
doubtful light admitted through closed shutters, would have answered
well enough for an enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of
gilded lions, stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers; the
marble lineaments of busts on pedestals, fearfully revealing
themselves through veils; the clocks that never told the time, or, if
wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and struck unearthly numbers,
which are not upon the dial; the accidental tinklings among the
pendant lustres, more startling than alarm-bells; the softened sounds
and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and a phantom
crowd of others, shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape. But,
besides, there was the great staircase, where the lord of the place so
rarely set his foot, and by which his little child had gone up to
Heaven. There were other staircases and passages where no one went for
weeks together; there were two closed rooms associated with dead
members of the family, and with whispered recollections of them; and
to all the house but Florence, there was a gentle figure moving
through the solitude and gloom, that gave to every lifeless thing a
touch of present human interest and wonder,

For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded
day, and still she lived alone, and the cold walls looked down upon
her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to stare
her youth and beauty into stone

The grass began to grow upon the roof, and in the crevices of the
basement paving. A scaly crumbling vegetation sprouted round the
window-sills. Fragments of mortar lost their hold upon the insides of
the unused chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees with the
smoky trunks were blighted high up, and the withered branches
domineered above the leaves, Through the whole building white had
turned yellow, yellow nearly black; and since the time when the poor
lady died, it had slowly become a dark gap in the long monotonous
street.

But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the
story. Her books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only
real companions, Susan Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the
former, in her attendance on the studies of her young mistress, began
to grow quite learned herself, while the latter, softened possibly by
the same influences, would lay his head upon the window-ledge, and
placidly open and shut his eyes upon the street, all through a summer
morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look with great
significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking his way
along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable
recollection of his supposed enemy in the neighbourhood, rushing to
the door, whence, after a deafening disturbance, he would come jogging
back with a ridiculous complacency that belonged to him, and lay his
jaw upon the window-ledge again, with the air of a dog who had done a
public service.

So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of
her innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could
go down to her father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her
loving heart humbly to approach him, without fear of repulse. She
could look upon the objects that had surrounded him in his sorrow, and
could nestle near his chair, and not dread the glance that she so well
remembered. She could render him such little tokens of her duty and
service' as putting everything in order for him with her own hands,
binding little nosegays for table, changing them as one by one they
withered and he did not come back, preparing something for him every'
day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat.
To-day, it was a little painted stand for his watch; tomorrow she
would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute some other trifle of
her making not so likely to attract his eye. Waking in the night,
perhaps, she would tremble at the thought of his coming home and
angrily rejecting it, and would hurry down with slippered feet and
quickly beating heart, and bring it away. At another time, she would
only lay her face upon his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear.

Still no one knew of this. Unless the household found it out when
she was not there - and they all held Mr Dombey's rooms in awe - it
was as deep a secret in her breast as what had gone before it.
Florence stole into those rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and
at times when meals were served downstairs. And although they were in
every nook the better and the brighter for her care, she entered and
passed out as quietly as any sunbeam, opting that she left her light
behind.

Shadowy company attended Florence up and down the echoing house,
and sat with her in the dismantled rooms. As if her life were an
enchanted vision, there arose out of her solitude ministering
thoughts, that made it fanciful and unreal. She imagined so often what
her life would have been if her father could have loved her and she
had been a favourite child, that sometimes, for the moment, she almost
believed it was so, and, borne on by the current of that pensive
fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched her brother in his
grave together; how they had freely shared his heart between them; how
they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they often spoke
about him yet; and her kind father, looking at her gently, told her of
their common hope and trust in God. At other times she pictured to
herself her mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling on her
neck, and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her
soul! And oh the desolation of the solitary house again, with evening
coming on, and no one there!

But there was one thought, scarcely shaped out to herself, yet
fervent and strong within her, that upheld Florence when she strove
and filled her true young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of
purpose. Into her mind, as 'into all others contending with the great
affliction of our mortal nature, there had stolen solemn wonderings
and hopes, arising in the dim world beyond the present life, and
murmuring, like faint music, of recognition in the far-off land
between her brother and her mother: of some present consciousness in
both of her: some love and commiseration for her: and some knowledge
of her as she went her way upon the earth. It was a soothing
consolation to Florence to give shelter to these thoughts, until one
day - it was soon after she had last seen her father in his own room,
late at night - the fancy came upon her, that, in weeping for his
alienated heart, she might stir the spirits of the dead against him'
Wild, weak, childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble
at the half-formed thought, it was the impulse of her loving nature;
and from that hour Florence strove against the cruel wound in her
breast, and tried to think of him whose hand had made it, only with
hope.

Her father did not know - she held to it from that time - how much
she loved him. She was very young, and had no mother, and had never
learned, by some fault or misfortune, how to express to him that she
loved him. She would be patient, and would try to gain that art in
time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only child.

This became the purpose of her life. The morning sun shone down
upon the faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within
the bosom of its solitary mistress, Through all the duties of the day,
it animated her; for Florence hoped that the more she knew, and the
more accomplished she became, the more glad he would be when he came
to know and like her. Sometimes she wondered, with a swelling heart
and rising tear, whether she was proficient enough in anything to
surprise him when they should become companions. Sometimes she tried
to think if there were any kind of knowledge that would bespeak his
interest more readily than another. Always: at her books, her music,
and her work: in her morning walks, and in her nightly prayers: she
had her engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to learn
the road to a hard parent's heart!

There were many careless loungers through the street, as the summer
evening deepened into night, who glanced across the road at the sombre
house, and saw the youthful figure at the window, such a contrast to
it, looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have
slept the worse if they had known on what design she mused so steady.
The reputation of the mansion as a haunted house, would not have been
the gayer with some humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its
external gloom in passing and repassing on their daily avocations, and
so named it, if they could have read its story in the darkening face.
But Florence held her sacred purpose, unsuspected and unaided: and
studied only how to bring her father to the understanding that she
loved him, and made no appeal against him in any wandering thought.

Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded
day, and still she lived alone, and the monotonous walls looked down
upon her with a stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like intent to stare
her youth and beauty into stone.

Susan Nipper stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as
she folded and sealed a note she had been writing: and showed in her
looks an approving knowledge of its contents.

'Better late than never, dear Miss Floy,' said Susan, 'and I do
say, that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.'

'It is very good of Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, Susan,' returned
Florence, with a mild correction of that young lady's familiar mention
of the family in question, 'to repeat their invitation so kindly.'

Miss Nipper, who was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on the
face of the earth, and who carried her partisanship into all matters
great or small, and perpetually waged war with it against society,
screwed up her lips and shook her head, as a protest against any
recognition of disinterestedness in the Skettleses, and a plea in bar
that they would have valuable consideration for their kindness, in the
company of Florence.

'They know what they're about, if ever people did,' murmured Miss
Nipper, drawing in her breath 'oh! trust them Skettleses for that!'

'I am not very anxious to go to Fulham, Susan, I confess,' said
Florence thoughtfully: 'but it will be right to go. I think it will be
better.'

'Much better,' interposed Susan, with another emphatic shake of her
head.

'And so,' said Florence, 'though I would prefer to have gone when
there was no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it
seems there are some young people staying in the house, I have
thankfully said yes.'

'For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!' returned Susan, 'Ah!

This last ejaculation, with which Miss Nipper frequently wound up a
sentence, at about that epoch of time, was supposed below the level of
the hall to have a general reference to Mr Dombey, and to be
expressive of a yearning in Miss Nipper to favour that gentleman with
a piece of her mind. But she never explained it; and it had, in
consequence, the charm of mystery, in addition to the advantage of the
sharpest expression.

'How long it is before we have any news of Walter, Susan!' observed
Florence, after a moment's silence.

'Long indeed, Miss Floy!' replied her maid. 'And Perch said, when
he came just now to see for letters - but what signifies what he
says!' exclaimed Susan, reddening and breaking off. 'Much he knows
about it!'

Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face.

'If I hadn't,' said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some
latent anxiety and alarm, and looking full at her young mistress,
while endeavouring to work herself into a state of resentment with the
unoffending Mr Perch's image, 'if I hadn't more manliness than that
insipidest of his sex, I'd never take pride in my hair again, but turn
it up behind my ears, and wear coarse caps, without a bit of border,
until death released me from my insignificance. I may not be a Amazon,
Miss Floy, and wouldn't so demean myself by such disfigurement, but
anyways I'm not a giver up, I hope'

'Give up! What?' cried Florence, with a face of terror.

'Why, nothing, Miss,' said Susan. 'Good gracious, nothing! It's
only that wet curl-paper of a man, Perch, that anyone might almost
make away with, with a touch, and really it would be a blessed event
for all parties if someone would take pity on him, and would have the
goodness!'

'Does he give up the ship, Susan?' inquired Florence, very pale.

'No, Miss,' returned Susan, 'I should like to see' him make so bold
as do it to my face! No, Miss, but he goes 'on about some bothering
ginger that Mr Walter was to send to Mrs Perch, and shakes his dismal
head, and says he hopes it may be coming; anyhow, he says, it can't
come now in time for the intended occasion, but may do for next, which
really,' said Miss Nipper, with aggravated scorn, 'puts me out of
patience with the man, for though I can bear a great deal, I am not a
camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a moment's consideration, 'if
I know myself, a dromedary neither.'

'What else does he say, Susan?' inquired Florence, earnestly.
'Won't you tell me?'

'As if I wouldn't tell you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!'
said Susan. 'Why, nothing Miss, he says that there begins to be a
general talk about the ship, and that they have never had a ship on
that voyage half so long unheard of, and that the Captain's wife was
at the office yesterday, and seemed a little put out about it, but
anyone could say that, we knew nearly that before.'

'I must visit Walter's uncle,' said Florence, hurriedly, 'before I
leave home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there,
directly, Susan.

Miss Nipper having nothing to urge against the proposal, but being
perfectly acquiescent, they were soon equipped, and in the streets,
and on their way towards the little Midshipman.

The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain
Cuttle's, on the day when Brogley the broker came into possession, and
when there seemed to him to be an execution in the very steeples, was
pretty much the same as that in which Florence now took her way to
Uncle Sol's; with this difference, that Florence suffered the added
pain of thinking that she had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion of
involving Walter in peril, and all to whom he was dear, herself
included, in an agony of suspense. For the rest, uncertainty and
danger seemed written upon everything. The weathercocks on spires and
housetops were mysterious with hints of stormy wind, and pointed, like
so many ghostly fingers, out to dangerous seas, where fragments of
great wrecks were drifting, perhaps, and helpless men were rocked upon
them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters. When Florence
came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together,
she dreaded to hear them speaking of the ship, an'd saying it was
lost. Pictures and prints of vessels fighting with the rolling waves
filled her with alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently,
moved too fast for her apprehensions, and made her fear there was a
tempest blowing at that moment on the ocean.

Susan Nipper may or may not have been affected similarly, but
having her attention much engaged in struggles with boys, whenever
there was any press of people - for, between that grade of human kind
and herself, there was some natural animosity that invariably broke
out, whenever they came together - it would seem that she had not much
leisure on the road for intellectual operations,

Arriving in good time abreast of the wooden Midshipman on the
opposite side of the way, and waiting for an opportunity to cross the
street, they were a little surprised at first to see, at the
Instrument-maker's door, a round-headed lad, with his chubby face
addressed towards the sky, who, as they looked at him, suddenly thrust
into his capacious mouth two fingers of each hand, and with the
assistance of that machinery whistled, with astonishing shrillness, to
some pigeons at a considerable elevation in the air.

'Mrs Richards's eldest, Miss!' said Susan, 'and the worrit of Mrs
Richards's life!'

As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of
her son and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a
favourable moment presenting itself, they both hastened across,
without any further contemplation of Mrs Richards's bane' That
sporting character, unconscious of their approach, again whistled with
his utmost might, and then yelled in a rapture of excitement, 'Strays!
Whip! Strays!' which identification had such an effect upon the
conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of going direct to some town
in the North of England, as appeared to have been their original
intention, they began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs Richards's
first born pierced them with another whistle, and again yelled, in a
voice that rose above the turmoil of the street, 'Strays! Who~oop!
Strays!'

From this transport, he was abruptly recalled to terrestrial
objects, by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop,

'Is this the way you show your penitence, when Mrs Richards has
been fretting for you months and months?' said Susan, following the
poke. 'Where's Mr Gills?'

Rob, who smoothed his first rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when
he saw Florence following, put his knuckles to his hair, in honour of
the latter, and said to the former, that Mr Gills was out'

Fetch him home,' said Miss Nipper, with authority, 'and say that my
young lady's here.'

'I don't know where he's gone,' said Rob.

'Is that your penitence?' cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.

'Why how can I go and fetch him when I don't know where to go?'
whimpered the baited Rob. 'How can you be so unreasonable?'

'Did Mr Gills say when he should be home?' asked Florence.

'Yes, Miss,' replied Rob, with another application of his knuckles
to his hair. 'He said he should be home early in the afternoon; in
about a couple of hours from now, Miss.'

'Is he very anxious about his nephew?' inquired Susan.

'Yes, Miss,' returned Rob, preferring to address himself to
Florence and slighting Nipper; 'I should say he was, very much so. He
ain't indoors, Miss, not a quarter of an hour together. He can't
settle in one place five minutes. He goes about, like a - just like a
stray,' said Rob, stooping to get a glimpse of the pigeons through the
window, and checking himself, with his fingers half-way to his mouth,
on the verge of another whistle.

'Do you know a friend of Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?' inquired
Florence, after a moment's reflection.

'Him with a hook, Miss?' rejoined Rob, with an illustrative twist
of his left hand. Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.'

'Has he not been here since?' asked Susan.

'No, Miss,' returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.

'Perhaps Walter's Uncle has gone there, Susan,' observed Florence,
turning to her.

'To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?' interposed Rob; 'no, he's not gone
there, Miss. Because he left particular word that if Captain Cuttle
called, I should tell him how surprised he was, not to have seen him
yesterday, and should make him stop till he came back'

'Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?' asked Florence.

Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning to a greasy parchment
book on the shop desk, read the address aloud.

Florence again turned to her maid and took counsel with her in a
low voice, while Rob the round-eyed, mindful of his patron's secret
charge, looked on and listened. Florence proposed that they kould go
to Captain Cuttle's house; hear from his own lips, what he thought of
the absence of any tidings ofthe Son and Heir; and bring him, if they
could, to comfort Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the
score of distance; but a hackney-coach being mentioned by her
mistress, withdrew that opposition, and gave in her assent. There were
some minutes of discussion between them before they came to this
conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close attention to both
speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he were
appointed arbitrator of the argument.

In time, Rob was despatched for a coach, the visitors keeping shop
meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it, leaving word for
Uncle Sol that they would be sure to call again, on their way back.
Rob having stared after the coach until it was as invisible as the
pigeons had now become, sat down behind the desk with a most assiduous
demeanour; and in order that he might forget nothing of what had
transpired, made notes of it on various small scraps of paper, with a
vast expenditure of ink. There was no danger of these documents
betraying anything, if accidentally lost; for long before a word was
dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he had had no part
whatever in its production.

While he was yet busy with these labours, the hackney-coach, after
encountering unheard-of difficulties from swivel-bridges, soft roads,
impassable canals, caravans of casks, settlements of scarlet-beans and
little wash-houses, and many such obstacles abounding in that country,
stopped at the corner of Brig Place. Alighting here, Florence and
Susan Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of
Captain Cuttle.

It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs MacStinger's great
cleaning days. On these occasions, Mrs MacStinger was knocked up by
the policeman at a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely
such before twelve o'clock next night. The chief object of this
institution appeared to be, that Mrs MacStinger should move all the
furniture into the back garden at early dawn, walk about the house in
pattens all day, and move the furniture back again after dark. These
ceremonies greatly fluttered those doves the young MacStingers, who
were not only unable at such times to find any resting-place for the
soles of their feet, but generally came in for a good deal of pecking
from the maternal bird during the progress of the solemnities.

At the moment when Florence and Susan Nipper presented themselves
at Mrs MacStinger's door, that worthy but redoubtable female was in
the act of conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three
months, along the passage, for forcible deposition in a sitting
posture on the street pavement: Alexander being black in the face with
holding his breath after punishment, and a cool paving-stone being
usually found to act as a powerful restorative in such cases.

The feelings of Mrs MacStinger, as a woman and a mother, were
outraged by the look of pity for Alexander which she observed on
Florence's face. Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those finest
emotions of our nature, in preference to weakly gratifying her
curiosity, shook and buffeted Alexander both before and during the
application of the paving-stone, and took no further notice of the
strangers.

'I beg your pardon, Ma'am,' said Florence, when the child had found
his breath again, and was using it. 'Is this Captain Cuttle's house?'

'No,' said Mrs MacStinger.

'Not Number Nine?' asked Florence, hesitating.

'Who said it wasn't Number Nine?' said Mrs MacStinger.

Susan Nipper instantly struck in, and begged to inquire what Mrs
MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.

Mrs MacStinger in retort, looked at her all over. 'What do you want
with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?' said Mrs MacStinger.

'Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,' returned
Miss Nipper.

'Hush, Susan! If you please!' said Florence. 'Perhaps you can have
the goodness to tell us where Captain Cutlle lives, Ma'am as he don't
live here.'

'Who says he don't live here?' retorted the implacable MacStinger.
'I said it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and it ain't his house -and
forbid it, that it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle don't
know how to keep a house - and don't deserve to have a house - it's my
house - and when I let the upper floor to Cap'en Cuttle, oh I do a
thankless thing, and cast pearls before swine!'

Mrs MacStinger pitched her voice for the upper windows in offering
these remarks, and cracked off each clause sharply by itself as if
from a rifle possessing an infinity of barrels. After the last shot,
the Captain's voice was heard to say, in feeble remonstrance from his
own room, 'Steady below!'

'Since you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!' said Mrs MacStinger,
with an angry motion of her hand. On Florence making bold to enter,
without any more parley, and on Susan following, Mrs MacStinger
recommenced her pedestrian exercise in pattens, and Alexander
MacStinger (still on the paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying
to attend to the conversation, began to wail again, entertaining
himself during that dismal performance, which was quite mechanical,
with a general survey of the prospect, terminating in the
hackney-coach.

The Captain in his own apartment was sitting with his hands in his
pockets and his legs drawn up under his chair, on a very small
desolate island, lying about midway in an ocean of soap and water. The
Captain's windows had been cleaned, the walls had been cleaned, the
stove had been cleaned, and everything the stove excepted, was wet,
and shining with soft soap and sand: the smell of which dry-saltery
impregnated the air. In the midst of the dreary scene, the Captain,
cast away upon his island, looked round on the waste of waters with a
rueful countenance, and seemed waiting for some friendly bark to come
that way, and take him off.

But when the Captain, directing his forlorn visage towards the
door, saw Florence appear with her maid, no words can describe his
astonishment. Mrs MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other
sounds but imperfectly distinguishable, he had looked for no rarer
visitor than the potboy or the milkman; wherefore, when Florence
appeared, and coming to the confines of the island, put her hand in
his, the Captain stood up, aghast, as if he supposed her, for the
moment, to be some young member of the Flying Dutchman's family.'

Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's
first care was to place her on dry land, which he happily
accomplished, with one motion of his arm. Issuing forth, then, upon
the main, Captain Cuttle took Miss Nipper round the waist, and bore
her to the island also. Captain Cuttle, then, with great respect and
admiration, raised the hand of Florence to his lips, and standing off
a little(for the island was not large enough for three), beamed on her
from the soap and water like a new description of Triton.

'You are amazed to see us, I am sure,'said Florence, with a smile.

The inexpressibly gratified Captain kissed his hook in reply, and
growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included in the
words, 'Stand by! Stand by!'

'But I couldn't rest,' said Florence, 'without coming to ask you
what you think about dear Walter - who is my brother now- and whether
there is anything to fear, and whether you will not go and console his
poor Uncle every day, until we have some intelligence of him?'

At these words Captain Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture,
clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard glazed hat was not,
and looked discomfited.

'Have you any fears for Walter's safety?' inquired Florence, from
whose face the Captain (so enraptured he was with it) could not take
his eyes: while she, in her turn, looked earnestly at him, to be
assured of the sincerity of his reply.

'No, Heart's-delight,' said Captain Cuttle, 'I am not afeard. Wal'r
is a lad as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll
bring as much success to that 'ere brig as a lad is capable on.
Wal'r,' said the Captain, his eyes glistening with the praise of his
young friend, and his hook raised to announce a beautiful quotation,
'is what you may call a out'ard and visible sign of an in'ard and
spirited grasp, and when found make a note of.'

Florence, who did not quite understand this, though the Captain
evidentllty thought it full of meaning, and highly satisfactory,
mildly looked to him for something more.

'I am not afeard, my Heart's-delight,' resumed the Captain,
'There's been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no
denyin', and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be
t'other side the world. But the ship's a good ship, and the lad's a
good lad; and it ain't easy, thank the Lord,' the Captain made a
little bow, 'to break up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs or
buzzums. Here we have 'em both ways, which is bringing it up with a
round turn, and so I ain't a bit afeard as yet.'

'As yet?' repeated Florence.

'Not a bit,' returned the Captain, kissing his iron hand; 'and
afore I begin to be, my Hearts-delight, Wal'r will have wrote home
from the island, or from some port or another, and made all taut and
shipsahape'And with regard to old Sol Gills, here the Captain became
solemn, 'who I'll stand by, and not desert until death do us part, and
when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow - overhaul the
Catechism,' said the Captain parenthetically, 'and there you'll find
them expressions - if it would console Sol Gills to have the opinion
of a seafaring man as has got a mind equal to any undertaking that he
puts it alongside of, and as was all but smashed in his'prenticeship,
and of which the name is Bunsby, that 'ere man shall give him such an
opinion in his own parlour as'll stun him. Ah!' said Captain Cuttle,
vauntingly, 'as much as if he'd gone and knocked his head again a
door!'

'Let us take this ~gentleman to see him, and let us hear what he
says,' cried Florence. 'Will you go with us now? We have a coach
here.'

Again the Captain clapped his hand to his head, on which the hard
glazed hat was not, and looked discomfited. But at this instant a most
remarkable phenomenon occurred. The door opening, without any note of
preparation, and apparently of itself, the hard glazed hat in question
skimmed into the room like a bird, and alighted heavily at the
Captain's feet. The door then shut as violently as it had opened, and
nothIng ensued in explanation of the prodigy.

Captain Cuttle picked up his hat, and having turned it over with a
look of interest and welcome, began to polish it on his sleeve' While
doing so, the Captain eyed his visitors intently, and said in a low
voice

'You see I should have bore down on Sol Gills yesterday, and this
morning, but she - she took it away and kep it. That's the long and
short ofthe subject.'

'Who did, for goodness sake?' asked Susan Nipper.

'The lady of the house, my dear,'returned the Captain, in a gruff
whisper, and making signals of secrecy.'We had some words about the
swabbing of these here planks, and she - In short,' said the Captain,
eyeing the door, and relieving himself with a long breath, 'she
stopped my liberty.'

'Oh! I wish she had me to deal with!' said Susan, reddening with
the energy of the wish. 'I'd stop her!'

'Would you, do you, my dear?' rejoined the Captain, shaking his
head doubtfully, but regarding the desperate courage of the fair
aspirant with obvious admiration. 'I don't know. It's difficult
navigation. She's very hard to carry on with, my dear. You never can
tell how she'll head, you see. She's full one minute, and round upon
you next. And when she in a tartar,' said the Captain, with the
perspiration breaking out upon his forehead. There was nothing but a
whistle emphatic enough for the conclusion of the sentence, so the
Captain whistled tremulously. After which he again shook his head, and
recurring to his admiration of Miss Nipper's devoted bravery, timidly
repeated, 'Would you, do you think, my dear?'

Susan only replied with a bridling smile, but that was so very full
of defiance, that there is no knowing how long Captain Cuttle might
have stood entranced in its contemplation, if Florence in her anxiety
had not again proposed their immediately resorting to the oracular
Bunsby. Thus reminded of his duty, Captain Cuttle Put on the glazed
hat firmly, took up another knobby stick, with which he had supplied
the place of that one given to Walter, and offering his arm to
Florence, prepared to cut his way through the enemy.

It turned out, however, that Mrs MacStinger had already changed her
course, and that she headed, as the Captain had remarked she often
did, in quite a new direction. For when they got downstairs, they
found that exemplary woman beating the mats on the doorsteps, with
Alexander, still upon the paving-stone, dimly looming through a fog of
dust; and so absorbed was Mrs MacStinger in her household occupation,
that when Captain Cuttle and his visitors passed, she beat the harder,
and neither by word nor gesture showed any consciousness of their
vicinity. The Captain was so well pleased with this easy escape -
although the effect of the door-mats on him was like a copious
administration of snuff, and made him sneeze until the tears ran down
his face - that he could hardly believe his good fortune; but more
than once, between the door and the hackney-coach, looked over his
shoulder, with an obvious apprehension of Mrs MacStinger's giving
chase yet.

However, they got to the corner of Brig Place without any
molestation from that terrible fire-ship; and the Captain mounting the
coach-box - for his gallantry would not allow him to ride inside with
the ladies, though besought to do so - piloted the driver on his
course for Captain Bunsby's vessel, which was called the Cautious
Clara, and was lying hard by Ratcliffe.

Arrived at the wharf off which this great commander's ship was
jammed in among some five hundred companions, whose tangled rigging
looked like monstrous cobwebs half swept down, Captain Cuttle appeared
at the coach-window, and invited Florence and Miss Nipper to accompany
him on board; observing that Bunsby was to the last degree
soft-hearted in respect of ladies, and that nothing would so much tend
to bring his expansive intellect into a state of harmony as their
presentation to the Cautious Clara.

Florence readily consented; and the Captain, taking her little hand
in his prodigious palm, led her, with a mixed expression of patronage,
paternity, pride, and ceremony, that was pleasant to see, over several
very dirty decks, until, coming to the Clara, they found that cautious
craft (which lay outside the tier) with her gangway removed, and
half-a-dozen feet of river interposed between herself and her nearest
neighbour. It appeared, from Captain Cuttle's explanation, that the
great Bunsby, like himself, was cruelly treated by his landlady, and
that when her usage of him for the time being was so hard that he
could bear it no longer, he set this gulf between them as a last
resource.

'Clara a-hoy!' cried the Captain, putting a hand to each side of
his mouth.

'A-hoy!' cried a boy, like the Captain's echo, tumbling up from
below.

'Bunsby aboard?' cried the Captain, hailing the boy in a stentorian
voice, as if he were half-a-mile off instead of two yards.

'Ay, ay!' cried the boy, in the same tone.

The boy then shoved out a plank to Captain Cuttle, who adjusted it
carefully, and led Florence across: returning presently for Miss
Nipper. So they stood upon the deck of the Cautious Clara, in whose
standing rigging, divers fluttering articles of dress were curing, in
company with a few tongues and some mackerel.

Immediately there appeared, coming slowly up above the bulk-head of
the cabin, another bulk-head 'human, and very large - with one
stationary eye in the mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the
principle of some lighthouses. This head was decorated with shaggy
hair, like oakum,' which had no governing inclination towards the
north, east, west, or south, but inclined to all four quarters of the
compass, and to every point upon it. The head was followed by a
perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neckerchief, and by
a dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers,
whereof the waistband was so very broad and high, that it became a
succedaneum for a waistcoat: being ornamented near the wearer's
breastbone with some massive wooden buttons, like backgammon men. As
the lower portions of these pantaloons became revealed, Bunsby stood
confessed; his hands in their pockets, which were of vast size; and
his gaze directed, not to Captain Cuttle or the ladies, but the
mast-head.

The profound appearance of this philosopher, who was bulky and
strong, and on whose extremely red face an expression of taciturnity
sat enthroned, not inconsistent with his character, in which that
quality was proudly conspicuous, almost daunted Captain Cuttle, though
on familiar terms with him. Whispering to Florence that Bunsby had
never in his life expressed surprise, and was considered not to know
what it meant, the Captain watched him as he eyed his mast-head, and
afterwards swept the horizon; and when the revolving eye seemed to be
coming round in his direction, said:

'Bunsby, my lad, how fares it?'

A deep, gruff, husky utterance, which seemed to have no connexion
with Bunsby, and certainly had not the least effect upon his face,
replied, 'Ay, ay, shipmet, how goes it?' At the same time Bunsby's
right hand and arm, emerging from a pocket, shook the Captain's, and
went back again.

'Bunsby,' said the Captain, striking home at once, 'here you are; a
man of mind, and a man as can give an opinion. Here's a young lady as
wants to take that opinion, in regard of my friend Wal'r; likewise my
t'other friend, Sol Gills, which is a character for you to come within
hail of, being a man of science, which is the mother of inwention, and
knows no law. Bunsby, will you wear, to oblige me, and come along with
us?'

The great commander, who seemed by expression of his visage to be
always on the look-out for something in the extremest distance' and to
have no ocular knowledge of any anng' within ten miles, made no reply
whatever.

'Here is a man,' said the Captain, addressing himself to his fair
auditors, and indicating the commander with his outstretched hook,
'that has fell down, more than any man alive; that has had more
accidents happen to his own self than the Seamen's Hospital to all
hands; that took as many spars and bars and bolts about the outside of
his head when he was young, as you'd want a order for on Chatham-yard
to build a pleasure yacht with; and yet that his opinions in that way,
it's my belief, for there ain't nothing like 'em afloat or ashore.'

The stolid commander appeared by a very slight vibration in his
elbows, to express some satisfitction in this encomium; but if his
face had been as distant as his gaze was, it could hardIy have
enlightened the beholders less in reference to anything that was
passing in his thoughts.

'Shipmate,' said Bunsby, all of a sudden, and stooping down to look
out under some interposing spar, 'what'll the ladies drink?'

Captain Cuttle, whose delicacy was shocked by such an inquiry in
connection with Florence, drew the sage aside, and seeming to explain
in his ear, accompanied him below; where, that he might not take
offence, the Captain drank a dram himself' which Florence and Susan,
glancing down the open skylight, saw the sage, with difficulty finding
room for himself between his berth and a very little brass fireplace,
serve out for self and friend. They soon reappeared on deck, and
Captain Cuttle, triumphing in the success of his enterprise, conducted
Florence back to the coach, while Bunsby followed, escorting Miss
Nipper, whom he hugged upon the way (much to that young lady's
indignation) with his pilot-coated arm, like a blue bear.

The Captain put his oracle inside, and gloried so much in having
secured him, and having got that mind into a hackney-coach, that he
could not refrain from often peeping in at Florence through the little
window behind the driver, and testifiing his delight in smiles, and
also in taps upon his forehead, to hint to her that the brain of
Bunsby was hard at it' In the meantime, Bunsby, still hugging Miss
Nipper (for his friend, the Captain, had not exaggerated the softness
of his heart), uniformily preserved his gravity of deportment, and
showed no other consciousness of her or anything.

Uncle Sol, who had come home, received them at the door, and
ushered them immediately into the little back parlour: strangely
altered by the absence of Walter. On the table, and about the room,
were the charts and maps on which the heavy-hearted Instrument-maker
had again and again tracked the missing vessel across the sea, and on
which, with a pair of compasses that he still had in his hand, he had
been measuring, a minute before, how far she must have driven, to have
driven here or there: and trying to demonstrate that a long time must
elapse before hope was exhausted.

'Whether she can have run,' said Uncle Sol, looking wistfully over
the chart; 'but no, that's almost impossible or whether she can have
been forced by stress of weather, - but that's not reasonably likely.
Or whether there is any hope she so far changed her course as - but
even I can hardly hope that!' With such broken suggestions, poor old
Uncle Sol roamed over the great sheet before him, and could not find a
speck of hopeful probability in it large enough to set one small point
of the compasses upon.

Florence saw immediately - it would have been difficult to help
seeing - that there was a singular, indescribable change in the old
man, and that while his manner was far more restless and unsettled
than usual, there was yet a curious, contradictory decision in it,
that perplexed her very much. She fancied once that he spoke wildly,
and at random; for on her saying she regretted not to have seen him
when she had been there before that morning, he at first replied that
he had been to see her, and directly afterwards seemed to wish to
recall that answer.

'You have been to see me?' said Florence. 'To-day?'

'Yes, my dear young lady,' returned Uncle Sol, looking at her and
away from her in a confused manner. 'I wished to see you with my own
eyes, and to hear you with my own ears, once more before - ' There he
stopped.

'Before when? Before what?' said Florence, putting her hand upon
his arm.

'Did I say "before?"' replied old Sol. 'If I did, I must have meant
before we should have news of my dear boy.'

'You are not well,' said Florence, tenderly. 'You have been so very
anxious I am sure you are not well.'

'I am as well,' returned the old man, shutting up his right hand,
and holding it out to show her: 'as well and firm as any man at my
time of life can hope to be. See! It's steady. Is its master not as
capable of resolution and fortitude as many a younger man? I think so.
We shall see.'

There was that in his manner more than in his words, though they
remained with her too, which impressed Florence so much, that she
would have confided her uneasiness to Captain Cuttle at that moment,
if the Captain had not seized that moment for expounding the state of
circumstance, on which the opinion of the sagacious Bunsby was
requested, and entreating that profound authority to deliver the same.

Bunsby, whose eye continued to be addressed to somewhere about the
half-way house between London and Gravesend, two or three times put
out his rough right arm, as seeking to wind it for inspiration round
the fair form of Miss Nipper; but that young female having withdrawn
herself, in displeasure, to the opposite side of the table, the soft
heart of the Commander of the Cautious Clara met with no response to
its impulses. After sundry failures in this wise, the Commander,
addressing himself to nobody, thus spake; or rather the voice within
him said of its own accord, and quite independent of himself, as if he
were possessed by a gruff spirit:

'My name's Jack Bunsby!'

'He was christened John,' cried the delighted Captain Cuttle. 'Hear
him!'

'And what I says,' pursued the voice, after some deliberation, 'I
stands to.

The Captain, with Florence on his arm, nodded at the auditory, and
seemed to say, 'Now he's coming out. This is what I meant when I
brought him.'

'Whereby,' proceeded the voice, 'why not? If so, what odds? Can any
man say otherwise? No. Awast then!'

When it had pursued its train of argument to this point, the voice
stopped, and rested. It then proceeded very slowly, thus:

'Do I believe that this here Son and Heir's gone down, my lads?
Mayhap. Do I say so? Which? If a skipper stands out by Sen' George's
Channel, making for the Downs, what's right ahead of him? The
Goodwins. He isn't foroed to run upon the Goodwins, but he may. The
bearings of this observation lays in the application on it. That ain't
no part of my duty. Awast then, keep a bright look-out for'ard, and
good luck to you!'

The voice here went out of the back parlour and into the street,
taking the Commander of the Cautious Clara with it, and accompanying
him on board again with all convenient expedition, where he
immediately turned in, and refreshed his mind with a nap.

The students of the sage's precepts, left to their own application
of his wisdom - upon a principle which was the main leg of the Bunsby
tripod, as it is perchance of some other oracular stools - looked upon
one another in a little uncertainty; while Rob the Grinder, who had
taken the innocent freedom of peering in, and listening, through the
skylight in the roof, came softly down from the leads, in a state of
very dense confusion. Captain Cuttle, however, whose admiration of
Bunsby was, if possible, enhanced by the splendid manner in which he
had justified his reputation and come through this solemn reference,
proceeded to explain that Bunsby meant nothing but confidence; that
Bunsby had no misgivings; and that such an opinion as that man had
given, coming from such a mind as his, was Hope's own anchor, with
good roads to cast it in. Florence endeavoured to believe that the
Captain was right; but the Nipper, with her arms tight folded, shook
her head in resolute denial, and had no more trust m Bunsby than in Mr
Perch himself.

The philosopher seemed to have left Uncle Sol pretty much where he
had found him, for he still went roaming about the watery world,
compasses in hand, and discovering no rest for them. It was in
pursuance of a whisper in his ear from Florence, while the old man was
absorbed in this pursuit, that Captain Cuttle laid his heavy hand upon
his shoulder.

'What cheer, Sol Gills?' cried the Captain, heartily.

'But so-so, Ned,' returned the Instrument-maker. 'I have been
remembering, all this afternoon, that on the very day when my boy
entered Dombey's House, and came home late to dinner, sitting just
there where you stand, we talked of storm and shipwreck, and I could
hardly turn him from the subject'

But meeting the eyes of Florence, which were fixed with earnest
scrutiny upon his face, the old man stopped and smiled.

'Stand by, old friend!' cried the Captain. 'Look alive! I tell you
what, Sol Gills; arter I've convoyed Heart's-delight safe home,' here
the Captain kissed his hook to Florence, 'I'll come back and take you
in tow for the rest of this blessed day. You'll come and eat your
dinner along with me, Sol, somewheres or another.'

'Not to-day, Ned!' said the old man quickly, and appearing to be
unaccountably startled by the proposition. 'Not to-day. I couldn't do
it!'

'Why not?' returned the Captain, gazing at him in astonishment.

'I - I have so much to do. I - I mean to think of, and arrange. I
couldn't do it, Ned, indeed. I must go out again, and be alone, and
turn my mind to many things to-day.'

The Captain looked at the Instrument-maker, and looked at Florence,
and again at the Instrument-maker. 'To-morrow, then,' he suggested, at
last.

'Yes, yes. To-morrow,' said the old man. 'Think of me to-morrow.
Say to-morrow.'

'I shall come here early, mind, Sol Gills,' stipulated the Captain.

'Yes, yes. The first thing tomorrow morning,' said old Sol; 'and
now good-bye, Ned Cuttle, and God bless you!'

Squeezing both the Captain's hands, with uncommon fervour, as he
said it, the old man turned to Florence, folded hers in his own, and
put them to his lips; then hurried her out to the coach with very
singular precipitation. Altogether, he made such an effect on Captain
Cuttle that the Captain lingered behind, and instructed Rob to be
particularly gentle and attentive to his master until the morning:
which injunction he strengthened with the payment of one shilling
down, and the promise of another sixpence before noon next day. This
kind office performed, Captain Cuttle, who considered himself the
natural and lawful body-guard of Florence, mounted the box with a
mighty sense of his trust, and escorted her home. At parting, he
assured her that he would stand by Sol Gills, close and true; and once
again inquired of Susan Nipper, unable to forget her gallant words in
reference to Mrs MacStinger, 'Would you, do you think my dear,
though?'

When the desolate house had closed upon the two, the Captain's
thoughts reverted to the old Instrument-maker, and he felt
uncomfortable. Therefore, instead of going home, he walked up and down
the street several times, and, eking out his leisure until evening,
dined late at a certain angular little tavern in the City, with a
public parlour like a wedge, to which glazed hats much resorted. The
Captain's principal intention was to pass Sol Gills's, after dark, and
look in through the window: which he did, The parlour door stood open,
and he could see his old friend writing busily and steadily at the
table within, while the little Midshipman, already sheltered from the
night dews, watched him from the counter; under which Rob the Grinder
made his own bed, preparatory to shutting the shop. Reassured by the
tranquillity that reigned within the precincts of the wooden mariner,
the Captain headed for Brig Place, resolving to weigh anchor betimes
in the morning.

CHAPTER 24.

The Study of a Loving Heart

Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty
villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most
desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happened to be
going past, but had its little inconveniences at other times, among
which may be enumerated the occasional appearance of the river in the
drawing-room, and the contemporaneous disappearance of the lawn and
shrubbery.

Sir Barnet Skettles expressed his personal consequence chiefly
through an antique gold snuffbox, and a ponderous silk
pocket-kerchief, which he had an imposing manner of drawing out of his
pocket like a banner and using with both hands at once. Sir Barnet's
object in life was constantly to extend the range of his acquaintance.
Like a heavy body dropped into water - not to disparage so worthy a
gentleman by the comparison - it was in the nature of things that Sir
Barnet must spread an ever widening circle about him, until there was
no room left. Or, like a sound in air, the vibration of which,
according to the speculation of an ingenious modern philosopher, may
go on travelling for ever through the interminable fields of space,
nothing but coming to the end of his moral tether could stop Sir
Barnet Skettles in his voyage of discovery through the social system.

Sir Barnet was proud of making people acquainted with people. He
liked the thing for its own sake, and it advanced his favourite object
too. For example, if Sir Barnet had the good fortune to get hold of a
law recruit, or a country gentleman, and ensnared him to his
hospitable villa, Sir Barnet would say to him, on the morning after
his arrival, 'Now, my dear Sir, is there anybody you would like to
know? Who is there you would wish to meet? Do you take any interest in
writing people, or in painting or sculpturing people, or in acting
people, or in anything of that sort?' Possibly the patient answered
yes, and mentioned somebody, of whom Sir Barnet had no more personal
knowledge than of Ptolemy the Great. Sir Barnet replied, that nothing
on earth was easier, as he knew him very well: immediately called on
the aforesaid somebody, left his card, wrote a short note, - 'My dear
Sir - penalty of your eminent position - friend at my house naturally
desirous - Lady Skettles and myself participate - trust that genius
being superior to ceremonies, you will do us the distinguished favour
of giving us the pleasure,' etc, etc. - and so killed a brace of birds
with one stone, dead as door-nails.

With the snuff-box and banner in full force, Sir Barnet Skettles
propounded his usual inquiry to Florence on the first morning of her
visit. When Florence thanked him, and said there was no one in
particular whom she desired to see, it was natural she should think
with a pang, of poor lost Walter. When Sir Barnet Skettles, urging his
kind offer, said, 'My dear Miss Dombey, are you sure you can remember
no one whom your good Papa - to whom I beg you present the best
compliments of myself and Lady Skettles when you write - might wish
you to know?' it was natural, perhaps, that her poor head should droop
a little, and that her voice should tremble as it softly answered in
the negative.

Skettles Junior, much stiffened as to his cravat, and sobered down
as to his spirits' was at home for the holidays, and appeared to feel
himself aggrieved by the solicitude of his excellent mother that he
should be attentive to Florence. Another and a deeper injury under
which the soul of young Barnet chafed, was the company of Dr and Mrs
Blimber, who had been invited on a visit to the paternal roof-tree,
and of whom the young gentleman often said he would have preferred
their passing the vacation at Jericho.

'Is there anybody you can suggest now, Doctor Blimber?' said Sir
Barnet Skettles, turning to that gentleman.

'You are very kind, Sir Barnet,' returned Doctor Blimber. 'Really I
am not aware that there is, in particular. I like to know my
fellow-men in general, Sir Barnet. What does Terence say? Anyone who
is the parent of a son is interesting to me.

'Has Mrs Blimber any wish to see any remarkable person?' asked Sir
Barnet, courteously.

Mrs Blimber replied, with a sweet smile and a shake of her sky-blue
cap, that if Sir Barnet could have made her known to Cicero, she would
have troubled him; but such an introduction not being feasible, and
she already enjoying the friendship of himself and his amiable lady,
and possessing with the Doctor her husband their joint confidence in
regard to their dear son - here young Barnet was observed to curl his
nose - she asked no more.

Sir Barnet was fain, under these circumstances, to content himself
for the time with the company assembled. Florence was glad of that;
for she had a study to pursue among them, and it lay too near her
heart, and was too precious and momentous, to yield to any other
interest.

There were some children staying in the house. Children who were as
frank and happy with fathers and with mothers as those rosy faces
opposite home. Children who had no restraint upon their love. and
freely showed it. Florence sought to learn their secret; sought to
find out what it was she had missed; what simple art they knew, and
she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father that
she loved him, and to win his love again.

Many a day did Florence thoughtfully observe these children. On
many a bright morning did she leave her bed when the glorious sun
rose, and walking up and down upon the river's bank' before anyone in
the house was stirring, look up at the windows of their rooms, and
think of them, asleep, so gently tended and affectionately thought of.
Florence would feel more lonely then, than in the great house all
alone; and would think sometimes that she was better there than here,
and that there was greater peace in hiding herself than in mingling
with others of her age, and finding how unlike them all she was. But
attentive to her study, though it touched her to the quick at every
little leaf she turned in the hard book, Florence remained among them,
and tried with patient hope, to gain the knowledge that she wearied
for.

Ah! how to gain it! how to know the charm in its beginning! There
were daughters here, who rose up in the morning, and lay down to rest
at night, possessed of fathers' hearts already. They had no repulse to
overcome, no coldness to dread, no frown to smooth away. As the
morning advanced, and the windows opened one by one, and the dew began
to dry upon the flowers and and youthful feet began to move upon the
lawn, Florence, glancing round at the bright faces, thought what was
there she could learn from these children? It was too late to learn
from them; each could approach her father fearlessly, and put up her
lips to meet the ready kiss, and wind her arm about the neck that bent
down to caress her. She could not begin by being so bold. Oh! could it
be that there was less and less hope as she studied more and more!

She remembered well, that even the old woman who had robbed her
when a little child - whose image and whose house, and all she had
said and done, were stamped upon her recollection, with the enduring
sharpness of a fearful impression made at that early period of life -
had spoken fondly of her daughter, and how terribly even she had cried
out in the pain of hopeless separation from her child But her own
mother, she would think again, when she recalled this, had loved her
well. Then, sometimes, when her thoughts reverted swiftly to the void
between herself and her father, Florence would tremble, and the tears
would start upon her face, as she pictured to herself her mother
living on, and coming also to dislike her, because of her wanting the
unknown grace that should conciliate that father naturally, and had
never done so from her cradle She knew that this imagination did wrong
to her mother's memory, and had no truth in it, or base to rest upon;
and yet she tried so hard to justify him, and to find the whole blame
in herself, that she could not resist its passing, like a wild cloud,
through the distance of her mind.

There came among the other visitors, soon after Florence, one
beautiful girl, three or four years younger than she, who was an
orphan child, and who was accompanied by her aunt, a grey-haired lady,
who spoke much to Florence, and who greatly liked (but that they all
did) to hear her sing of an evening, and would always sit near her at
that time, with motherly interest. They had only been two days in the
house, when Florence, being in an arbour in the garden one warm
morning, musingly observant of a youthful group upon the turf, through
some intervening boughs, - and wreathing flowers for the head of one
little creature among them who was the pet and plaything of the rest,
heard this same lady and her niece, in pacing up and down a sheltered
nook close by, speak of herself.

'Is Florence an orphan like me, aunt?' said the child.

'No, my love. She has no mother, but her father is living.'

'Is she in mourning for her poor Mama, now?' inquired the child
quickly.

'No; for her only brother.'

'Has she no other brother?'

'None.'

'No sister?'

'None,'

'I am very, very sorry!' said the little girL

As they stopped soon afterwards to watch some boats, and had been
silent in the meantime, Florence, who had risen when she heard her
name, and had gathered up her flowers to go and meet them, that they
might know of her being within hearing, resumed her seat and work,
expecting to hear no more; but the conversation recommenced next
moment.

'Florence is a favourite with everyone here, and deserves to be, I
am sure,' said the child, earnestly. 'Where is her Papa?'

The aunt replied, after a moment's pause, that she did not know.
Her tone of voice arrested Florence, who had started from her seat
again; and held her fastened to the spot, with her work hastily caught
up to her bosom, and her two hands saving it from being scattered on
the ground.

'He is in England, I hope, aunt?' said the child.

'I believe so. Yes; I know he is, indeed.'

'Has he ever been here?'

'I believe not. No.'

'Is he coming here to see her?'

'I believe not.

'Is he lame, or blind, or ill, aunt?' asked the child.

The flowers that Florence held to her breast began to fall when she
heard those words, so wonderingly spoke She held them closer; and her
face hung down upon them'

'Kate,' said the lady, after another moment of silence, 'I will
tell you the whole truth about Florence as I have heard it, and
believe it to be. Tell no one else, my dear, because it may be little
known here, and your doing so would give her pain.'

'I never will!' exclaimed the child.

'I know you never will,' returned the lady. 'I can trust you as
myself. I fear then, Kate, that Florence's father cares little for
her, very seldom sees her, never was kind to her in her life, and now
quite shuns her and avoids her. She would love him dearly if he would
suffer her, but he will not - though for no fault of hers; and she is
greatly to be loved and pitied by all gentle hearts.'

More of the flowers that Florence held fell scattering on the
ground; those that remained were wet, but not with dew; and her face
dropped upon her laden hands.

'Poor Florence! Dear, good Florence!' cried the child.

'Do you know why I have told you this, Kate?' said the lady.

'That I may be very kind to her, and take great care to try to
please her. Is that the reason, aunt?'

'Partly,' said the lady, 'but not all. Though we see her so
cheerful; with a pleasant smile for everyone; ready to oblige us all,
and bearing her part in every amusement here: she can hardly be quite
happy, do you think she can, Kate?'

'I am afraid not,' said the little girl.

'And you can understand,' pursued the lady, 'why her observation of
children who have parents who are fond of them, and proud of them -
like many here, just now - should make her sorrowful in secret?'

'Yes, dear aunt,' said the child, 'I understand that very well.
Poor Florence!'

More flowers strayed upon the ground, and those she yet held to her
breast trembled as if a wintry wind were rustling them.

'My Kate,' said the lady, whose voice was serious, but very calm
and sweet, and had so impressed Florence from the first moment of her
hearing it, 'of all the youthful people here, you are her natural and
harmless friend; you have not the innocent means, that happier
children have - '

'There are none happier, aunt!' exclaimed the child, who seemed to
cling about her.

'As other children have, dear Kate, of reminding her of her
misfortune. Therefore I would have you, when you try to be her little
friend, try all the more for that, and feel that the bereavement you
sustained - thank Heaven! before you knew its weight- gives you claim
and hold upon poor Florence.'

'But I am not without a parent's love, aunt, and I never have
been,' said the child, 'with you.'

'However that may be, my dear,' returned the lady, 'your misfortune
is a lighter one than Florence's; for not an orphan in the wide world
can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living
parent's love.'

The flowers were scattered on the ground like dust; the empty hands
were spread upon the face; and orphaned Florence, shrinking down upon
the ground, wept long and bitterly.

But true of heart and resolute in her good purpose, Florence held
to it as her dying mother held by her upon the day that gave Paul
life. He did not know how much she loved him. However long the time in
coming, and however slow the interval, she must try to bring that
knowledge to her father's heart one day or other. Meantime she must be
careful in no thoughtless word, or look, or burst of feeling awakened
by any chance circumstance, to complain against him, or to give
occasion for these whispers to his prejudice.

Even in the response she made the orphan child, to whom she was
attracted strongly, and whom she had such occasion to remember,
Florence was mindful of him' If she singled her out too plainly
(Florence thought) from among the rest, she would confirm - in one
mind certainly: perhaps in more - the belief that he was cruel and
unnatural. Her own delight was no set-off to this, 'What she had
overheard was a reason, not for soothing herself, but for saving him;
and Florence did it, in pursuance of the study of her heart.

She did so always. If a book were read aloud, and there were
anything in the story that pointed at an unkind father, she was in
pain for their application of it to him; not for herself. So with any
trifle of an interlude that was acted, or picture that was shown, or
game that was played, among them. The occasions for such tenderness
towards him were so many, that her mind misgave her often, it would
indeed be better to go back to the old house, and live again within
the shadow of its dull walls, undisturbed. How few who saw sweet
Florence, in her spring of womanhood, the modest little queen of those
small revels, imagined what a load of sacred care lay heavy in her
breast! How few of those who stiffened in her father's freezing
atmosphere, suspected what a heap of fiery coals was piled upon his
head!

Florence pursued her study patiently, and, failing to acquire the
secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company
who were assembled in the house, often walked out alone, in the early
morning, among the children of the poor. But still she found them all
too far advanced to learn from. They had won their household places
long ago, and did not stand without, as she did, with a bar across the
door.

There was one man whom she several times observed at work very
early, and often with a girl of about her own age seated near him' He
was a very poor man, who seemed to have no regular employment, but now
went roaming about the banks of the river when the tide was low,
looking out for bits and scraps in the mud; and now worked at the
unpromising little patch of garden-ground before his cottage; and now
tinkered up a miserable old boat that belonged to him; or did some job
of that kind for a neighbour, as chance occurred. Whatever the man's
labour, the girl was never employed; but sat, when she was with him,
in a listless, moping state, and idle.

Florence had often wished to speak to this man; yet she had never
taken courage to do so, as he made no movement towards her. But one
morning when she happened to come upon him suddenly, from a by-path
among some pollard willows which terminated in the little shelving
piece of stony ground that lay between his dwelling and the water,
where he was bending over a fire he had made to caulk the old boat
which was lying bottom upwards, close by, he raised his head at the
sound of her footstep, and gave her Good morning.

'Good morning,' said Florence, approaching nearer, 'you are at work
early.'

'I'd be glad to be often at work earlier, Miss, if I had work to
do.'

'Is it so hard to get?' asked Florence.

'I find it so,' replied the man.

Florence glanced to where the girl was sitting, drawn together,
with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, and said:

'Is that your daughter?'

He raised his head quickly, and looking towards the girl with a
brightened face, nodded to her, and said 'Yes,' Florence looked
towards her too, and gave her a kind salutation; the girl muttered
something in return, ungraciously and sullenly.

'Is she in want of employment also?' said Florence.

The man shook his head. 'No, Miss,' he said. 'I work for both,'

'Are there only you two, then?' inquired Florence.

'Only us two,' said the man. 'Her mother his been dead these ten
year. Martha!' lifted up his head again, and whistled to her) 'won't
you say a word to the pretty young lady?'

The girl made an impatient gesture with her cowering shoulders, and
turned her head another way. Ugly, misshapen, peevish,
ill-conditioned, ragged, dirty - but beloved! Oh yes! Florence had
seen her father's look towards her, and she knew whose look it had no
likeness to.

'I'm afraid she's worse this morning, my poor girl!' said the man,
suspending his work, and contemplating his ill-favoured child, with a
compassion that was the more tender for being rougher.

'She is ill, then!' said Florence,

The man drew a deep sigh 'I don't believe my Martha's had five
short days' good health,' he answered, looking at her still, 'in as
many long years'

'Ay! and more than that, John,' said a neighbour, who had come down
to help him with the boat.

'More than that, you say, do you?' cried the other, pushing back
his battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. 'Very
like. It seems a long, long time.'

'And the more the time,' pursued the neighbour, 'the more you've
favoured and humoured her, John, till she's got to be a burden to
herself, and everybody else'

'Not to me,' said her father, falling to his work. 'Not to me.'

Florence could feel - who better? - how truly he spoke. She drew a
little closer to him, and would have been glad to touch his rugged
hand, and thank him for his goodness to the miserable object that he
looked upon with eyes so different from any other man's.

'Who would favour my poor girl - to call it favouring - if I
didn't?' said the father.

'Ay, ay,' cried the neighbour. 'In reason, John. But you! You rob
yourself to give to her. You bind yourself hand and foot on her
account. You make your life miserable along of her. And what does she
care! You don't believe she knows it?'

The father lifted up his head again, and whistled to her. Martha
made the same impatient gesture with her crouching shoulders, in
reply; and he was glad and happy.

'Only for that, Miss,' said the neighbour, with a smile, in which
there was more of secret sympathy than he expressed; 'only to get
that, he never lets her out of his sight!'

'Because the day'll come, and has been coming a long while,'
observed the other, bending low over his work, 'when to get half as
much from that unfort'nate child of mine - to get the trembling of a
finger, or the waving of a hair - would be to raise the dead.'

Florence softly put some money near his hand on the old boat, and
left him.

And now Florence began to think, if she were to fall ill, if she
were to fade like her dear brother, would he then know that she had
loved him; would she then grow dear to him; would he come to her
bedside, when she was weak and dim of sight, and take her into his
embrace, and cancel all the past? Would he so forgive her, in that
changed condition, for not having been able to lay open her childish
heart to him, as to make it easy to relate with what emotions she had
gone out of his room that night; what she had meant to say if she had
had the courage; and how she had endeavoured, afterwards, to learn the
way she never knew in infancy?

Yes, she thought if she were dying, he would relent. She thought,
that if she lay, serene and not unwilling to depart, upon the bed that
was curtained round with recollections of their darling boy, he would
be touched home, and would say, 'Dear Florence, live for me, and we
will love each other as we might have done, and be as happy as we
might have been these many years!' She thought that if she heard such
words from him, and had her arms clasped round him' she could answer
with a smile, 'It is too late for anything but this; I never could be
happier, dear father!' and so leave him, with a blessing on her lips.

The golden water she remembered on the wall, appeared to Florence,
in the light of such reflections, only as a current flowing on to
rest, and to a region where the dear ones, gone before, were waiting,
hand in hand; and often when she looked upon the darker river rippling
at her feet, she thought with awful wonder, but not terror, of that
river which her brother had so often said was bearing him away.

The father and his sick daughter were yet fresh in Florence's mind,
and, indeed, that incident was not a week old, when Sir Barnet and his
lady going out walking in the lanes one afternoon, proposed to her to
bear them company. Florence readily consenting, Lady Skettles ordered
out young Barnet as a matter of course. For nothing delighted Lady
Skettles so much, as beholding her eldest son with Florence on his
arm.

Barnet, to say the truth, appeared to entertain an opposite
sentiment on the subject, and on such occasions frequently expressed
himself audibly, though indefinitely, in reference to 'a parcel of
girls.' As it was not easy to ruffle her sweet temper, however,
Florence generally reconciled the young gentleman to his fate after a
few minutes, and they strolled on amicably: Lady Skettles and Sir
Barnet following, in a state of perfect complacency and high
gratification.

This was the order of procedure on the afternoon in question; and
Florence had almost succeeded in overruling the present objections of
Skettles Junior to his destiny, when a gentleman on horseback came
riding by, looked at them earnestly as he passed, drew in his rein,
wheeled round, and came riding back again, hat in hand.

The gentleman had looked particularly at Florence; and when the
little party stopped, on his riding back, he bowed to her, before
saluting Sir Barnet and his lady. Florence had no remembrance of
having ever seen him, but she started involuntarily when he came near
her, and drew back.

'My horse is perfectly quiet, I assure you,' said the gentleman.

It was not that, but something in the gentleman himself - Florence
could not have said what - that made her recoil as if she had been
stung.

'I have the honour to address Miss Dombey, I believe?' said the
gentleman, with a most persuasive smile. On Florence inclining her
head, he added, 'My name is Carker. I can hardly hope to be remembered
by Miss Dombey, except by name. Carker.'

Florence, sensible of a strange inclination to shiver, though the
day was hot, presented him to her host and hostess; by whom he was
very graciously received.

'I beg pardon,' said Mr Carker, 'a thousand times! But I am going
down tomorrow morning to Mr Dombey, at Leamington, and if Miss Dombey
can entrust me with any commission, need I say how very happy I shall
be?'

Sir Barnet immediately divining that Florence would desire to write
a letter to her father, proposed to return, and besought Mr Carker to
come home and dine in his riding gear. Mr Carker had the misfortune to
be engaged to dinner, but if Miss Dombey wished to write, nothing
would delight him more than to accompany them back, and to be her
faithful slave in waiting as long as she pleased. As he said this with
his widest smile, and bent down close to her to pat his horse's neck,
Florence meeting his eyes, saw, rather than heard him say, 'There is
no news of the ship!'

Confused, frightened, shrinking from him, and not even sure that he
had said those words, for he seemed to have shown them to her in some
extraordinary manner through his smile, instead of uttering them,
Florence faintly said that she was obliged to him, but she would not
write; she had nothing to say.

'Nothing to send, Miss Dombey?' said the man of teeth.

'Nothing,' said Florence, 'but my - but my dear love- if you
please.'

Disturbed as Florence was, she raised her eyes to his face with an
imploring and expressive look, that plainly besought him, if he knew -
which he as plainly did - that any message between her and her father
was an uncommon charge, but that one most of all, to spare her. Mr
Carker smiled and bowed low, and being charged by Sir Barnet with the
best compliments of himself and Lady Skettles, took his leave, and
rode away: leaving a favourable impression on that worthy couple.
Florence was seized with such a shudder as he went, that Sir Barnet,
adopting the popular superstition, supposed somebody was passing over
her grave. Mr Carker turning a corner, on the instant, looked back,
and bowed, and disappeared, as if he rode off to the churchyard
straight, to do it.

CHAPTER 25.

Strange News of Uncle Sol

Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn out so early on
the morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shop-window,
writing in the parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob
the Grinder making up his bed below it, but that the clocks struck six
as he raised himself on his elbow, and took a survey of his little
chamber. The Captain's eyes must have done severe duty, if he usually
opened them as wide on awaking as he did that morning; and were but
roughly rewarded for their vigilance, if he generally rubbed them half
as hard. But the occasion was no common one, for Rob the Grinder had
certainly never stood in the doorway of Captain Cuttle's room before,
and in it he stood then, panting at the Captain, with a flushed and
touzled air of Bed about him, that greatly heightened both his colour
and expression.

'Holloa!' roared the Captain. 'What's the matter?'

Before Rob could stammer a word in answer, Captain Cuttle turned
out, all in a heap, and covered the boy's mouth with his hand.

'Steady, my lad,' said the Captain, 'don't ye speak a word to me as
yet!'

The Captain, looking at his visitor in great consternation, gently
shouldered him into the next room, after laying this injunction upon
him; and disappearing for a few moments, forthwith returned in the
blue suit. Holding up his hand in token of the injunction not yet
being taken off, Captain Cuttle walked up to the cupboard, and poured
himself out a dram; a counterpart of which he handed to the messenger.
The Captain then stood himself up in a corner, against the wall, as if
to forestall the possibility of being knocked backwards by the
communication that was to be made to him; and having swallowed his
liquor, with his eyes fixed on the messenger, and his face as pale as
his face could be, requested him to 'heave ahead.'

'Do you mean, tell you, Captain?' asked Rob, who had been greatly
impressed by these precautions

'Ay!' said the Captain.

'Well, Sir,' said Rob, 'I ain't got much to tell. But look here!'

Rob produced a bundle of keys. The Captain surveyed them, remained
in his corner, and surveyed the messenger.

'And look here!' pursued Rob.

The boy produced a sealed packet, which Captain Cuttle stared at as
he had stared at the keys.

'When I woke this morning, Captain,' said Rob, 'which was about a
quarter after five, I found these on my pillow. The shop-door was
unbolted and unlocked, and Mr Gills gone.'

'Gone!' roared the Captain.

'Flowed, Sir,' returned Rob.

The Captain's voice was so tremendous, and he came out of his
corner with such way on him, that Rob retreated before him into
another corner: holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself
from being run down.

'"For Captain Cuttle," Sir,' cried Rob, 'is on the keys, and on the
packet too. Upon my word and honour, Captain Cuttle, I don't know
anything more about it. I wish I may die if I do! Here's a sitiwation
for a lad that's just got a sitiwation,' cried the unfortunate
Grinder, screwing his cuff into his face: 'his master bolted with his
place, and him blamed for it!'

These lamentations had reference to Captain Cuttle's gaze, or
rather glare, which was full of vague suspicions, threatenings, and
denunciations. Taking the proffered packet from his hand, the Captain
opened it and read as follows:-

'My dear Ned Cuttle. Enclosed is my will!' The Captain turned it
over, with a doubtful look - 'and Testament - Where's the Testament?'
said the Captain, instantly impeaching the ill-fated Grinder. 'What
have you done with that, my lad?'

'I never see it,' whimpered Rob. 'Don't keep on suspecting an
innocent lad, Captain. I never touched the Testament.'

Captain Cuttle shook his head, implying that somebody must be made
answerable for it; and gravely proceeded:

'Which don't break open for a year, or until you have decisive
intelligence of my dear Walter, who is dear to you, Ned, too, I am
sure.' The Captain paused and shook his head in some emotion; then, as
a re-establishment of his dignity in this trying position, looked with
exceeding sternness at the Grinder. 'If you should never hear of me,
or see me more, Ned, remember an old friend as he will remember you to
the last - kindly; and at least until the period I have mentioned has
expired, keep a home in the old place for Walter. There are no debts,
the loan from Dombey's House is paid off and all my keys I send with
this. Keep this quiet, and make no inquiry for me; it is useless. So
no more, dear Ned, from your true friend, Solomon Gills.' The Captain
took a long breath, and then read these words written below: '"The boy
Rob, well recommended, as I told you, from Dombey's House. If all else
should come to the hammer, take care, Ned, of the little Midshipman."'

To convey to posterity any idea of the manner in which the Captain,
after turning this letter over and over, and reading it a score of
times, sat down in his chair, and held a court-martial on the subject
in his own mind, would require the united genius of all the great men,
who, discarding their own untoward days, have determined to go down to
posterity, and have never got there. At first the Captain was too much
confounded and distressed to think of anything but the letter itself;
and even when his thoughts began to glance upon the various attendant
facts, they might, perhaps, as well have occupied themselves with
their former theme, for any light they reflected on them. In this
state of mind, Captain Cuttle having the Grinder before the court, and
no one else, found it a great relief to decide, generally, that he was
an object of suspicion: which the Captain so clearly expressed in his
visage, that Rob remonstrated.

'Oh, don't, Captain!' cried the Grinder. 'I wonder how you can!
what have I done to be looked at, like that?'

'My lad,' said Captain Cuttle, 'don't you sing out afore you're
hurt. And don't you commit yourself, whatever you do.'

'I haven't been and committed nothing, Captain!' answered Rob.

'Keep her free, then,' said the Captain, impressively, 'and ride
easy.

With a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon him' and the
necessity of thoroughly fathoming this mysterious affair as became a
man in his relations with the parties, Captain Cuttle resolved to go
down and examine the premises, and to keep the Grinder with him.
Considering that youth as under arrest at present, the Captain was in
some doubt whether it might not be expedient to handcuff him, or tie
his ankles together, or attach a weight to his legs; but not being
clear as to the legality of such formalities, the Captain decided
merely to hold him by the shoulder all the way, and knock him down if
he made any objection.

However, he made none, and consequently got to the
Instrument-maker's house without being placed under any more stringent
restraint. As the shutters were not yet taken down, the Captain's
first care was to have the shop opened; and when the daylight was
freely admitted, he proceeded, with its aid, to further investigation.

The Captain's first care was to establish himself in a chair in the
shop, as President of the solemn tribunal that was sitting within him;
and to require Rob to lie down in his bed under the counter, show
exactly where he discovered the keys and packet when he awoke, how he
found the door when he went to try it, how he started off to Brig
Place - cautiously preventing the latter imitation from being carried
farther than the threshold - and so on to the end of the chapter. When
all this had been done several times, the Captain shook his head and
seemed to think the matter had a bad look.

Next, the Captain, with some indistinct idea of finding a body,
instituted a strict search over the whole house; groping in the
cellars with a lighted candle, thrusting his hook behind doors,
bringing his head into violent contact with beams, and covering
himself with cobwebs. Mounting up to the old man's bed-room, they
found that he had not been in bed on the previous night, but had
merely lain down on the coverlet, as was evident from the impression
yet remaining there.

'And I think, Captain,' said Rob, looking round the room, 'that
when Mr Gills was going in and out so often, these last few days, he
was taking little things away, piecemeal, not to attract attention.'

'Ay!' said the Captain, mysteriously. 'Why so, my lad?'

'Why,' returned Rob, looking about, 'I don't see his shaving
tackle. Nor his brushes, Captain. Nor no shirts. Nor yet his shoes.'

As each of these articles was mentioned, Captain Cuttle took
particular notice of the corresponding department of the Grinder, lest
he should appear to have been in recent use, or should prove to be in
present possession thereof. But Rob had no occasion to shave, was not
brushed, and wore the clothes he had on for a long time past, beyond
all possibility of a mistake.

'And what should you say,' said the Captain - 'not committing
yourself - about his time of sheering off? Hey?'

'Why, I think, Captain,' returned Rob, 'that he must have gone
pretty soon after I began to snore.'

'What o'clock was that?' said the Captain, prepared to be very
particular about the exact time.

'How can I tell, Captain!' answered Rob. 'I only know that I'm a
heavy sleeper at first, and a light one towards morning; and if Mr
Gills had come through the shop near daybreak, though ever so much on
tiptoe, I'm pretty sure I should have heard him shut the door at all
events.

On mature consideration of this evidence, Captain Cuttle began to
think that the Instrument-maker must have vanished of his own accord;
to which logical conclusion he was assisted by the letter addressed to
himself, which, as being undeniably in the old man's handwriting,
would seem, with no great forcing, to bear the construction, that he
arranged of his own will to go, and so went. The Captain had next to
consider where and why? and as there was no way whatsoever that he saw
to the solution of the first difficulty, he confined his meditations
to the second.

Remembering the old man's curious manner, and the farewell he had
taken of him; unaccountably fervent at the time, but quite
intelligible now: a terrible apprehension strengthened on the Captain,
that, overpowered by his anxieties and regrets for Walter, he had been
driven to commit suicide. Unequal to the wear and tear of daily life,
as he had often professed himself to be, and shaken as he no doubt was
by the uncertainty and deferred hope he had undergone, it seemed no
violently strained misgiving, but only too probable. Free from debt,
and with no fear for his personal liberty, or the seizure of his
goods, what else but such a state of madness could have hurried him
away alone and secretly? As to his carrying some apparel with him, if
he had really done so - and they were not even sure of that - he might
have done so, the Captain argued, to prevent inquiry, to distract
attention from his probable fate, or to ease the very mind that was
now revolving all these possibilities. Such, reduced into plain
language, and condensed within a small compass, was the final result
and substance of Captain Cuttle's deliberations: which took a long
time to arrive at this pass, and were, like some more public
deliberations, very discursive and disorderly.

Dejected and despondent in the extreme, Captain Cuttle felt it just
to release Rob from the arrest in which he had placed him, and to
enlarge him, subject to a kind of honourable inspection which he still
resolved to exercise; and having hired a man, from Brogley the Broker,
to sit in the shop during their absence, the Captain, taking Rob with
him, issued forth upon a dismal quest after the mortal remains of
Solomon Gills.

Not a station-house, or bone-house, or work-house in the metropolis
escaped a visitation from the hard glazed hat. Along the wharves,
among the shipping on the bank-side, up the river, down the river,
here, there, everywhere, it went gleaming where men were thickest,
like the hero's helmet in an epic battle. For a whole week the Captain
read of all the found and missing people in all the newspapers and
handbills, and went forth on expeditions at all hours of the day to
identify Solomon Gills, in poor little ship-boys who had fallen
overboard, and in tall foreigners with dark beards who had taken
poison - 'to make sure,' Captain Cuttle said, 'that it wam't him.' It
is a sure thing that it never was, and that the good Captain had no
other satisfaction.

Captain Cuttle at last abandoned these attempts as hopeless, and
set himself to consider what was to be done next. After several new
perusals of his poor friend's letter, he considered that the
maintenance of' a home in the old place for Walter' was the primary
duty imposed upon him. Therefore, the Captain's decision was, that he
would keep house on the premises of Solomon Gills himself, and would
go into the instrument-business, and see what came of it.

But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at
Mrs MacStinger's, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of
his deserting them, the Captain took the desperate determination of
running away.

'Now, look ye here, my lad,' said the Captain to Rob, when he had
matured this notable scheme, 'to-morrow, I shan't be found in this
here roadstead till night - not till arter midnight p'rhaps. But you
keep watch till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and
open the door.'

'Very good, Captain,' said Rob.

'You'll continue to be rated on these here books,' pursued the
Captain condescendingly, 'and I don't say but what you may get
promotion, if you and me should pull together with a will. But the
moment you hear me knock to-morrow night, whatever time it is, turn-to
and show yourself smart with the door.'

'I'll be sure to do it, Captain,' replied Rob.

'Because you understand,' resumed the Captain, coming back again to
enforce this charge upon his mind, 'there may be, for anything I can
say, a chase; and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn't
show yourself smart with the door.'

Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful;
and the Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs
MacStinger's for the last time.

The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the
awful purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with
such a mortal dread of Mrs MacStinger, that the sound of that lady's
foot downstairs at any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him
into a fit of trembling. It fell out, too, that Mrs MacStinger was in
a charming temper - mild and placid as a house- lamb; and Captain
Cuttle's conscience suffered terrible twinges, when she came up to
inquire if she could cook him nothing for his dinner.

'A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap'en Cuttle,' said his
landlady: 'or a sheep's heart. Don't mind my trouble.'

'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain.

'Have a roast fowl,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'with a bit of weal
stuffing and some egg sauce. Come, Cap'en Cuttle! Give yourself a
little treat!'

'No thank'ee, Ma'am,' returned the Captain very humbly.

'I'm sure you're out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,' said Mrs
MacStinger. 'Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry
wine?'

'Well, Ma'am,' rejoined the Captain, 'if you'd be so good as take a
glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour,
Ma'am,' said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, 'to accept
a quarter's rent ahead?'

'And why so, Cap'en Cuttle?' retorted Mrs MacStinger - sharply, as
the Captain thought.

The Captain was frightened to dead 'If you would Ma'am,' he said
with submission, 'it would oblige me. I can't keep my money very well.
It pays itself out. I should take it kind if you'd comply.'

'Well, Cap'en Cuttle,' said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her
hands, 'you can do as you please. It's not for me, with my family, to
refuse, no more than it is to ask'

'And would you, Ma'am,' said the Captain, taking down the tin
canister in which he kept his cash' from the top shelf of the
cupboard, 'be so good as offer eighteen-pence a-piece to the little
family all round? If you could make it convenient, Ma'am, to pass the
word presently for them children to come for'ard, in a body, I should
be glad to see 'em'

These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain's
breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the
confiding trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander
MacStinger, who had been his favourite, was insupportable to the
Captain; the voice of Juliana MacStinger, who was the picture of her
mother, made a coward of him.

Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well,
and for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the
young MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage
also to the glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest,
and drumming on the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length
the Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs
with the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was going to
execution.

In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property
in a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all
probability for ever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a
man sufficiently bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his
lighter necessaries, the Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate
about his person, ready for flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig
Place was buried in slumber, and Mrs MacStinger was lulled in sweet
oblivion, with her infants around her, the guilty Captain, stealing
down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after
him, and took to his heels

Pursued by the image of Mrs MacStinger springing out of bed, and,
regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also
by a consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a
great pace, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig
Place and the Instrument-maker's door. It opened when he knocked - for
Rob was on the watch - and when it was bolted and locked behind him,
Captain Cuttle felt comparatively safe.

'Whew!' cried the Captain, looking round him. 'It's a breather!'

'Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?' cried the gaping Rob.

'No, no!' said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening
to a passing footstep in the street. 'But mind ye, my lad; if any
lady, except either of them two as you see t'other day, ever comes and
asks for Cap'en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name
known, nor never heard of here; observe them orders, will you?'

'I'll take care, Captain,' returned Rob.

'You might say - if you liked,' hesitated the Captain, 'that you'd
read in the paper that a Cap'en of that name was gone to Australia,
emigrating, along with a whole ship's complement of people as had all
swore never to come back no more.

Rob nodded his understanding of these instructions; and Captain
Cuttle promising to make a man of him, if he obeyed orders, dismissed
him, yawning, to his bed under the counter, and went aloft to the
chamber of Solomon Gills.

What the Captain suffered next day, whenever a bonnet passed, or
how often he darted out of the shop to elude imaginary MacStingers,
and sought safety in the attic, cannot be told. But to avoid the
fatigues attendant on this means of self-preservation, the Captain
curtained the glass door of communication between the shop and
parlour, on the inside; fitted a key to it from the bunch that had
been sent to him; and cut a small hole of espial in the wall. The
advantage of this fortification is obvious. On a bonnet appearing, the
Captain instantly slipped into his garrison, locked himself up, and
took a secret observation of the enemy. Finding it a false alarm, the
Captain instantly slipped out again. And the bonnets in the street
were so very numerous, and alarms were so inseparable from their
appearance, that the Captain was almost incessantly slipping in and
out all day long.

Captain Cuttle found time, however, in the midst of this fatiguing
service to inspect the stock; in connexion with which he had the
general idea (very laborious to Rob) that too much friction could not
be bestowed upon it, and that it could not be made too bright. He also
ticketed a few attractive-looking articles at a venture, at prices
ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds, and exposed them in the
window to the great astonishment of the public.

After effecting these improvements, Captain Cuttle, surrounded by
the instruments, began to feel scientific: and looked up at the stars
at night, through the skylight, when he was smoking his pipe in the
little back parlour before going to bed, as if he had established a
kind of property in them. As a tradesman in the City, too, he began to
have an interest in the Lord Mayor, and the Sheriffs, and in Public
Companies; and felt bound to read the quotations of the Funds every
day, though he was unable to make out, on any principle of navigation,
what the figures meant, and could have very well dispensed with the
fractions. Florence, the Captain waited on, with his strange news of
Uncle Sol, immediately after taking possession of the Midshipman; but
she was away from home. So the Captain sat himself down in his altered
station of life, with no company but Rob the Grinder; and losing count
of time, as men do when great changes come upon them, thought musingly
of Walter, and of Solomon Gills, and even of Mrs MacStinger herself,
as among the things that had been.

CHAPTER 26.

Shadows of the Past and Future

'Your most obedient, Sir,' said the Major. 'Damme, Sir, a friend of
my friend Dombey's is a friend of mine, and I'm glad to see you!'

'I am infinitely obliged, Carker,' explained Mr Dombey, 'to Major
Bagstock, for his company and conversation. 'Major Bagstock has
rendered me great service, Carker.'

Mr Carker the Manager, hat in hand, just arrived at Leamington, and
just introduced to the Major, showed the Major his whole double range
of teeth, and trusted he might take the liberty of thanking him with
all his heart for having effected so great an Improvement in Mr
Dombey's looks and spirits'

'By Gad, Sir,' said the Major, in reply, 'there are no thanks due
to me, for it's a give and take affair. A great creature like our
friend Dombey, Sir,' said the Major, lowering his voice, but not
lowering it so much as to render it inaudible to that gentleman,
'cannot help improving and exalting his friends. He strengthens and
invigorates a man, Sir, does Dombey, in his moral nature.'

Mr Carker snapped at the expression. In his moral nature. Exactly.
The very words he had been on the point of suggesting.

'But when my friend Dombey, Sir,' added the Major, 'talks to you of
Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and you right. He means
plain Joe, Sir - Joey B. - Josh. Bagstock - Joseph- rough and tough
Old J., Sir. At your service.'

Mr Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the Major,
and Mr Carker's admiration of his roughness, toughness, and plainness,
gleamed out of every tooth in Mr Carker's head.

'And now, Sir,' said the Major, 'you and Dombey have the devil's
own amount of business to talk over.'

'By no means, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.

'Dombey,' said the Major, defiantly, 'I know better; a man of your
mark - the Colossus of commerce - is not to be interrupted. Your
moments are precious. We shall meet at dinner-time. In the interval,
old Joseph will be scarce. The dinner-hour is a sharp seven, Mr
Carker.'

With that, the Major, greatly swollen as to his face, withdrew; but
immediately putting in his head at the door again, said:

'I beg your pardon. Dombey, have you any message to 'em?'

Mr Dombey in some embarrassment, and not without a glance at the
courteous keeper of his business confidence, entrusted the Major with
his compliments.

'By the Lord, Sir,' said the Major, 'you must make it something
warmer than that, or old Joe will be far from welcome.'

'Regards then, if you will, Major,' returned Mr Dombey.

'Damme, Sir,' said the Major, shaking his shoulders and his great
cheeks jocularly: 'make it something warmer than that.'

'What you please, then, Major,' observed Mr Dombey.

'Our friend is sly, Sir, sly, Sir, de-vilish sly,' said the Major,
staring round the door at Carker. 'So is Bagstock.' But stopping in
the midst of a chuckle, and drawing himself up to his full height, the
Major solemnly exclaimed, as he struck himself on the chest, 'Dombey!
I envy your feelings. God bless you!' and withdrew.

'You must have found the gentleman a great resource,' said Carker,
following him with his teeth.

'Very great indeed,' said Mr Dombey.

'He has friends here, no doubt,' pursued Carker. 'I perceive, from
what he has said, that you go into society here. Do you know,' smiling
horribly, 'I am so very glad that you go into society!'

Mr Dombey acknowledged this display of interest on the part of his
second in command, by twirling his watch-chain, and slightly moving
his head.

'You were formed for society,' said Carker. 'Of all the men I know,
you are the best adapted, by nature and by position, for society. Do
you know I have been frequently amazed that you should have held it at
arm's length so long!'

'I have had my reasons, Carker. I have been alone, and indifferent
to it. But you have great social qualifications yourself, and are the
more likely to have been surprised.'

'Oh! I!' returned the other, with ready self-disparagement. 'It's
quite another matter in the case of a man like me. I don't come into
comparison with you.'

Mr Dombey put his hand to his neckcloth, settled his chin in it,
coughed, and stood looking at his faithful friend and servant for a
few moments in silence.

'I shall have the pleasure, Carker,' said Mr Dombey at length:
making as if he swallowed something a little too large for his throat:
'to present you to my - to the Major's friends. Highly agreeable
people.'

'Ladies among them, I presume?' insinuated the smooth Manager.

'They are all - that is to say, they are both - ladies,' replied Mr
Dombey.

'Only two?' smiled Carker.

'They are only two. I have confined my visits to their residence,
and have made no other acquaintance here.'

'Sisters, perhaps?' quoth Carker.

'Mother and daughter,' replied Mr Dombey.

As Mr Dombey dropped his eyes, and adjusted his neckcloth again,
the smiling face of Mr Carker the Manager became in a moment, and
without any stage of transition, transformed into a most intent and
frowning face, scanning his closely, and with an ugly sneer. As Mr
Dombey raised his eyes, it changed back, no less quickly, to its old
expression, and showed him every gum of which it stood possessed.

'You are very kind,' said Carker, 'I shall be delighted to know
them. Speaking of daughters, I have seen Miss Dombey.'

There was a sudden rush of blood to Mr Dombey's face.

'I took the liberty of waiting on her,' said Carker, 'to inquire if
she could charge me with any little commission. I am not so fortunate
as to be the bearer of any but her - but her dear love.'

Wolf's face that it was then, with even the hot tongue revealing
itself through the stretched mouth, as the eyes encountered Mr
Dombey's!

'What business intelligence is there?' inquired the latter
gentleman, after a silence, during which Mr Carker had produced some
memoranda and other papers.

'There is very little,' returned Carker. 'Upon the whole we have
not had our usual good fortune of late, but that is of little moment
to you. At Lloyd's, they give up the Son and Heir for lost. Well, she
was insured, from her keel to her masthead.'

'Carker,' said Mr Dombey, taking a chair near him, 'I cannot say
that young man, Gay, ever impressed me favourably

'Nor me,' interposed the Manager.

'But I wish,' said Mr Dombey, without heeding the interruption, 'he
had never gone on board that ship. I wish he had never been sent out.

'It is a pity you didn't say so, in good time, is it not?' retorted
Carker, coolly. 'However, I think it's all for the best. I really,
think it's all for the best. Did I mention that there was something
like a little confidence between Miss Dombey and myself?'

'No,' said Mr Dombey, sternly.

'I have no doubt,' returned Mr Carker, after an impressive pause,
'that wherever Gay is, he is much better where he is, than at home
here. If I were, or could be, in your place, I should be satisfied of
that. I am quite satisfied of it myself. Miss Dombey is confiding and
young - perhaps hardly proud enough, for your daughter - if she have a
fault. Not that that is much though, I am sure. Will you check these
balances with me?'

Mr Dombey leaned back in his chair, instead of bending over the
papers that were laid before him, and looked the Manager steadily in
the face. The Manager, with his eyelids slightly raised, affected to
be glancing at his figures, and to await the leisure of his principal.
He showed that he affected this, as if from great delicacy, and with a
design to spare Mr Dombey's feelings; and the latter, as he looked at
him, was cognizant of his intended consideration, and felt that but
for it, this confidential Carker would have said a great deal more,
which he, Mr Dombey, was too proud to ask for. It was his way in
business, often. Little by little, Mr Dombey's gaze relaxed, and his
attention became diverted to the papers before him; but while busy
with the occupation they afforded him, he frequently stopped, and
looked at Mr Carker again. Whenever he did so, Mr Carker was
demonstrative, as before, in his delicacy, and impressed it on his
great chief more and more.

While they were thus engaged; and under the skilful culture of the
Manager, angry thoughts in reference to poor Florence brooded and bred
in Mr Dombey's breast, usurping the place of the cold dislike that
generally reigned there; Major Bagstock, much admired by the old
ladies of Leamington, and followed by the Native, carrying the usual
amount of light baggage, straddled along the shady side of the way, to
make a morning call on Mrs Skewton. It being midday when the Major
reached the bower of Cleopatra, he had the good fortune to find his
Princess on her usual sofa, languishing over a cup of coffee, with the
room so darkened and shaded for her more luxurious repose, that
Withers, who was in attendance on her, loomed like a phantom page.

'What insupportable creature is this, coming in?' said Mrs Skewton,
'I cannot hear it. Go away, whoever you are!'

'You have not the heart to banish J. B., Ma'am!' said the Major
halting midway, to remonstrate, with his cane over his shoulder.

'Oh it's you, is it? On second thoughts, you may enter,' observed
Cleopatra.

The Major entered accordingly, and advancing to the sofa pressed
her charming hand to his lips.

'Sit down,' said Cleopatra, listlessly waving her fan, 'a long way
off. Don't come too near me, for I am frightfully faint and sensitive
this morning, and you smell of the Sun. You are absolutely tropical.'

'By George, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'the time has been when Joseph
Bagstock has been grilled and blistered by the Sun; then time was,
when he was forced, Ma'am, into such full blow, by high hothouse heat
in the West Indies, that he was known as the Flower. A man never heard
of Bagstock, Ma'am, in those days; he heard of the Flower - the Flower
of Ours. The Flower may have faded, more or less, Ma'am,' observed the
Major, dropping into a much nearer chair than had been indicated by
his cruel Divinity, 'but it is a tough plant yet, and constant as the
evergreen.'

Here the Major, under cover of the dark room, shut up one eye,
rolled his head like a Harlequin, and, in his great self-satisfaction,
perhaps went nearer to the confines of apoplexy than he had ever gone
before.

'Where is Mrs Granger?' inquired Cleopatra of her page.

Withers believed she was in her own room.

'Very well,' said Mrs Skewton. 'Go away, and shut the door. I am
engaged.'

As Withers disappeared, Mrs Skewton turned her head languidly
towards the Major, without otherwise moving, and asked him how his
friend was.

'Dombey, Ma'am,' returned the Major, with a facetious gurgling in
his throat, 'is as well as a man in his condition can be. His
condition is a desperate one, Ma'am. He is touched, is Dombey!
Touched!' cried the Major. 'He is bayonetted through the body.'

Cleopatra cast a sharp look at the Major, that contrasted forcibly
with the affected drawl in which she presently said:

'Major Bagstock, although I know but little of the world, - nor can
I really regret my experience, for I fear it is a false place, full of
withering conventionalities: where Nature is but little regarded, and
where the music of the heart, and the gushing of the soul, and all
that sort of thing, which is so truly poetical, is seldom heard, - I
cannot misunderstand your meaning. There is an allusion to Edith - to
my extremely dear child,' said Mrs Skewton, tracing the outline of her
eyebrows with her forefinger, 'in your words, to which the tenderest
of chords vibrates excessively.'

'Bluntness, Ma'am,' returned the Major, 'has ever been the
characteristic of the Bagstock breed. You are right. Joe admits it.'

'And that allusion,' pursued Cleopatra, 'would involve one of the
most - if not positively the most - touching, and thrilling, and
sacred emotions of which our sadly-fallen nature is susceptible, I
conceive.'

The Major laid his hand upon his lips, and wafted a kiss to
Cleopatra, as if to identify the emotion in question.

'I feel that I am weak. I feel that I am wanting in that energy,
which should sustain a Mama: not to say a parent: on such a subject,'
said Mrs Skewton, trimming her lips with the laced edge of her
pocket-handkerchief; 'but I can hardly approach a topic so excessively
momentous to my dearest Edith without a feeling of faintness.
Nevertheless, bad man, as you have boldly remarked upon it, and as it
has occasioned me great anguish:' Mrs Skewton touched her left side
with her fan: 'I will not shrink from my duty.'

The Major, under cover of the dimness, swelled, and swelled, and
rolled his purple face about, and winked his lobster eye, until he
fell into a fit of wheezing, which obliged him to rise and take a turn
or two about the room, before his fair friend could proceed.

'Mr Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, when she at length resumed, 'was
obliging enough, now many weeks ago, to do us the honour of visiting
us here; in company, my dear Major, with yourself. I acknowledge - let
me be open - that it is my failing to be the creature of impulse, and
to wear my heart as it were, outside. I know my failing full well. My
enemy cannot know it better. But I am not penitent; I would rather not
be frozen by the heartless world, and am content to bear this
imputation justly.'

Mrs Skewton arranged her tucker, pinched her wiry throat to give it
a soft surface, and went on, with great complacency.

'It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to
receive Mr Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were
naturally disposed to be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied
that I observed an amount of Heart in Mr Dombey, that was excessively
refreshing.'

'There is devilish little heart in Dombey now, Ma'am,' said the
Major.

'Wretched man!' cried Mrs Skewton, looking at him languidly, 'pray
be silent.'

'J. B. is dumb, Ma'am,' said the Major.

'Mr Dombey,' pursued Cleopatra, smoothing the rosy hue upon her
cheeks, 'accordingly repeated his visit; and possibly finding some
attraction in the simplicity and primitiveness of our tastes - for
there is always a charm in nature - it is so very sweet - became one
of our little circle every evening. Little did I think of the awful
responsibility into which I plunged when I encouraged Mr Dombey - to -

'To beat up these quarters, Ma'am,' suggested Major Bagstock.

'Coarse person! 'said Mrs Skewton, 'you anticipate my meaning,
though in odious language.

Here Mrs Skewton rested her elbow on the little table at her side,
and suffering her wrist to droop in what she considered a graceful and
becoming manner, dangled her fan to and fro, and lazily admired her
hand while speaking.

'The agony I have endured,' she said mincingly, 'as the truth has
by degrees dawned upon me, has been too exceedingly terrific to dilate
upon. My whole existence is bound up in my sweetest Edith; and to see
her change from day to day - my beautiful pet, who has positively
garnered up her heart since the death of that most delightful
creature, Granger - is the most affecting thing in the world.'

Mrs Skewton's world was not a very trying one, if one might judge
of it by the influence of its most affecting circumstance upon her;
but this by the way.

'Edith,' simpered Mrs Skewton, 'who is the perfect pearl of my
life, is said to resemble me. I believe we are alike.'

'There is one man in the world who never will admit that anyone
resembles you, Ma'am,' said the Major; 'and that man's name is Old Joe
Bagstock.'

Cleopatra made as if she would brain the flatterer with her fan,
but relenting, smiled upon him and proceeded:

'If my charming girl inherits any advantages from me, wicked one!':
the Major was the wicked one: 'she inherits also my foolish nature.
She has great force of character - mine has been said to be immense,
though I don't believe it - but once moved, she is susceptible and
sensitive to the last extent. What are my feelings when I see her
pining! They destroy me.

The Major advancing his double chin, and pursing up his blue lips
into a soothing expression, affected the profoundest sympathy.

'The confidence,' said Mrs Skewton, 'that has subsisted between us
- the free development of soul, and openness of sentiment - is
touching to think of. We have been more like sisters than Mama and
child.'

'J. B.'s own sentiment,' observed the Major, 'expressed by J. B.
fifty thousand times!'

'Do not interrupt, rude man!' said Cleopatra. 'What are my
feelings, then, when I find that there is one subject avoided by us!
That there is a what's-his-name - a gulf - opened between us. That my
own artless Edith is changed to me! They are of the most poignant
description, of course.'

The Major left his chair, and took one nearer to the little table.

'From day to day I see this, my dear Major,' proceeded Mrs Skewton.
'From day to day I feel this. From hour to hour I reproach myself for
that excess of faith and trustfulness which has led to such
distressing consequences; and almost from minute to minute, I hope
that Mr Dombey may explain himself, and relieve the torture I undergo,
which is extremely wearing. But nothing happens, my dear Major; I am
the slave of remorse - take care of the coffee-cup: you are so very
awkward - my darling Edith is an altered being; and I really don't see
what is to be done, or what good creature I can advise with.'

Major Bagstock, encouraged perhaps by the softened and confidential
tone into which Mrs Skewton, after several times lapsing into it for a
moment, seemed now to have subsided for good, stretched out his hand
across the little table, and said with a leer,

'Advise with Joe, Ma'am.'

'Then, you aggravating monster,' said Cleopatra, giving one hand to
the Major, and tapping his knuckles with her fan, which she held in
the other: 'why don't you talk to me? you know what I mean. Why don't
you tell me something to the purpose?'

The Major laughed, and kissed the hand she had bestowed upon him,
and laughed again immensely.

'Is there as much Heart in Mr Dombey as I gave him credit for?'
languished Cleopatra tenderly. 'Do you think he is in earnest, my dear
Major? Would you recommend his being spoken to, or his being left
alone? Now tell me, like a dear man, what would you advise.'

'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am?' chuckled the Major,
hoarsely.

'Mysterious creature!' returned Cleopatra, bringing her fan to bear
upon the Major's nose. 'How can we marry him?'

'Shall we marry him to Edith Granger, Ma'am, I say?' chuckled the
Major again.

Mrs Skewton returned no answer in words, but smiled upon the Major
with so much archness and vivacity, that that gallant officer
considering himself challenged, would have imprinted a kiss on her
exceedingly red lips, but for her interposing the fan with a very
winning and juvenile dexterity. It might have been in modesty; it
might have been in apprehension of some danger to their bloom.

'Dombey, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'is a great catch.'

'Oh, mercenary wretch!' cried Cleopatra, with a little shriek, 'I
am shocked.'

'And Dombey, Ma'am,' pursued the Major, thrusting forward his head,
and distending his eyes, 'is in earnest. Joseph says it; Bagstock
knows it; J. B. keeps him to the mark. Leave Dombey to himself, Ma'am.
Dombey is safe, Ma'am. Do as you have done; do no more; and trust to
J. B. for the end.'

'You really think so, my dear Major?' returned Cleopatra, who had
eyed him very cautiously, and very searchingly, in spite of her
listless bearing.

'Sure of it, Ma'am,' rejoined the Major. 'Cleopatra the peerless,
and her Antony Bagstock, will often speak of this, triumphantly, when
sharing the elegance and wealth of Edith Dombey's establishment.
Dombey's right-hand man, Ma'am,' said the Major, stopping abruptly in
a chuckle, and becoming serious, 'has arrived.'

'This morning?' said Cleopatra.

'This morning, Ma'am,' returned the Major. 'And Dombey's anxiety
for his arrival, Ma'am, is to be referred - take J. B.'s word for
this; for Joe is devilish sly' - the Major tapped his nose, and
screwed up one of his eyes tight: which did not enhance his native
beauty - 'to his desire that what is in the wind should become known
to him' without Dombey's telling and consulting him. For Dombey is as
proud, Ma'am,' said the Major, 'as Lucifer.'

'A charming quality,' lisped Mrs Skewton; 'reminding one of dearest
Edith.'

'Well, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'I have thrown out hints already,
and the right-hand man understands 'em; and I'll throw out more,
before the day is done. Dombey projected this morning a ride to
Warwick Castle, and to Kenilworth, to-morrow, to be preceded by a
breakfast with us. I undertook the delivery of this invitation. Will
you honour us so far, Ma'am?' said the Major, swelling with shortness
of breath and slyness, as he produced a note, addressed to the
Honourable Mrs Skewton, by favour of Major Bagstock, wherein hers ever
faithfully, Paul Dombey, besought her and her amiable and accomplished
daughter to consent to the proposed excursion; and in a postscript
unto which, the same ever faithfully Paul Dombey entreated to be
recalled to the remembrance of Mrs Granger.

'Hush!' said Cleopatra, suddenly, 'Edith!'

The loving mother can scarcely be described as resuming her insipid
and affected air when she made this exclamation; for she had never
cast it off; nor was it likely that she ever would or could, in any
other place than in the grave. But hurriedly dismissing whatever
shadow of earnestness, or faint confession of a purpose, laudable or
wicked, that her face, or voice, or manner: had, for the moment,
betrayed, she lounged upon the couch, her most insipid and most
languid self again, as Edith entered the room.

Edith, so beautiful and stately, but so cold and so repelling. Who,
slightly acknowledging the presence of Major Bagstock, and directing a
keen glance at her mother, drew back the from a window, and sat down
there, looking out.

'My dearest Edith,' said Mrs Skewton, 'where on earth have you
been? I have wanted you, my love, most sadly.'

'You said you were engaged, and I stayed away,' she answered,
without turning her head.

'It was cruel to Old Joe, Ma'am,' said the Major in his gallantry.

'It was very cruel, I know,' she said, still looking out - and said
with such calm disdain, that the Major was discomfited, and could
think of nothing in reply.

'Major Bagstock, my darling Edith,' drawled her mother, 'who is
generally the most useless and disagreeable creature in the world: as
you know - '

'It is surely not worthwhile, Mama,' said Edith, looking round, 'to
observe these forms of speech. We are quite alone. We know each
other.'

The quiet scorn that sat upon her handsome face - a scorn that
evidently lighted on herself, no less than them - was so intense and
deep, that her mother's simper, for the instant, though of a hardy
constitution, drooped before it.

'My darling girl,' she began again.

'Not woman yet?' said Edith, with a smile.

'How very odd you are to-day, my dear! Pray let me say, my love,
that Major Bagstock has brought the kindest of notes from Mr Dombey,
proposing that we should breakfast with him to-morrow, and ride to
Warwick and Kenilworth. Will you go, Edith?'

'Will I go!' she repeated, turning very red, and breathing quickly
as she looked round at her mother.

'I knew you would, my own, observed the latter carelessly. 'It is,
as you say, quite a form to ask. Here is Mr Dombey's letter, Edith.'

'Thank you. I have no desire to read it,' was her answer.

'Then perhaps I had better answer it myself,' said Mrs Skewton,
'though I had thought of asking you to be my secretary, darling.' As
Edith made no movement, and no answer, Mrs Skewton begged the Major to
wheel her little table nearer, and to set open the desk it contained,
and to take out pen and paper for her; all which congenial offices of
gallantry the Major discharged, with much submission and devotion.

'Your regards, Edith, my dear?' said Mrs Skewton, pausing, pen in
hand, at the postscript.

'What you will, Mama,' she answered, without turning her head, and
with supreme indifference.

Mrs Skewton wrote what she would, without seeking for any more
explicit directions, and handed her letter to the Major, who receiving
it as a precious charge, made a show of laying it near his heart, but
was fain to put it in the pocket of his pantaloons on account of the
insecurity of his waistcoat The Major then took a very polished and
chivalrous farewell of both ladies, which the elder one acknowledged
in her usual manner, while the younger, sitting with her face
addressed to the window, bent her head so slightly that it would have
been a greater compliment to the Major to have made no sign at all,
and to have left him to infer that he had not been heard or thought
of.

'As to alteration in her, Sir,' mused the Major on his way back; on
which expedition - the afternoon being sunny and hot - he ordered the
Native and the light baggage to the front, and walked in the shadow of
that expatriated prince: 'as to alteration, Sir, and pining, and so
forth, that won't go down with Joseph Bagstock, None of that, Sir. It
won't do here. But as to there being something of a division between
'em - or a gulf as the mother calls it - damme, Sir, that seems true
enough. And it's odd enough! Well, Sir!' panted the Major, 'Edith
Granger and Dombey are well matched; let 'em fight it out! Bagstock
backs the winner!'

The Major, by saying these latter words aloud, in the vigour of his
thoughts, caused the unhappy Native to stop, and turn round, in the
belief that he was personally addressed. Exasperated to the last
degree by this act of insubordination, the Major (though he was
swelling with enjoyment of his own humour, at the moment of its
occurrence instantly thrust his cane among the Native's ribs, and
continued to stir him up, at short intervals, all the way to the
hotel.

Nor was the Major less exasperated as he dressed for dinner, during
which operation the dark servant underwent the pelting of a shower of
miscellaneous objects, varying in size from a boot to a hairbrush, and
including everything that came within his master's reach. For the
Major plumed himself on having the Native in a perfect state of drill,
and visited the least departure from strict discipline with this kind
of fatigue duty. Add to this, that he maintained the Native about his
person as a counter-irritant against the gout, and all other
vexations, mental as well as bodily; and the Native would appear to
have earned his pay - which was not large.

At length, the Major having disposed of all the missiles that were
convenient to his hand, and having called the Native so many new names
as must have given him great occasion to marvel at the resources of
the English language, submitted to have his cravat put on; and being
dressed, and finding himself in a brisk flow of spirits after this
exercise, went downstairs to enliven 'Dombey' and his right-hand man.

Dombey was not yet in the room, but the right-hand man was there,
and his dental treasures were, as usual, ready for the Major.

'Well, Sir!' said the Major. 'How have you passed the time since I
had the happiness of meeting you? Have you walked at all?'

'A saunter of barely half an hour's duration,' returned Carker. 'We
have been so much occupied.'

'Business, eh?' said the Major.

'A variety of little matters necessary to be gone through,' replied
Carker. 'But do you know - this is quite unusual with me, educated in
a distrustful school, and who am not generally disposed to be
communicative,' he said, breaking off, and speaking in a charming tone
of frankness - 'but I feel quite confidential with you, Major
Bagstock.'

'You do me honour, Sir,' returned the Major. 'You may be.'

'Do you know, then,' pursued Carker, 'that I have not found my
friend - our friend, I ought rather to call him - '

'Meaning Dombey, Sir?' cried the Major. 'You see me, Mr Carker,
standing here! J. B.?'

He was puffy enough to see, and blue enough; and Mr Carker
intimated the he had that pleasure.

'Then you see a man, Sir, who would go through fire and water to
serve Dombey,' returned Major Bagstock.

Mr Carker smiled, and said he was sure of it. 'Do you know, Major,'
he proceeded: 'to resume where I left off' that I have not found our
friend so attentive to business today, as usual?'

'No?' observed the delighted Major.

'I have found him a little abstracted, and with his attention
disposed to wander,' said Carker.

'By Jove, Sir,' cried the Major, 'there's a lady in the case.'

'Indeed, I begin to believe there really is,' returned Carker; 'I
thought you might be jesting when you seemed to hint at it; for I know
you military men -

The Major gave the horse's cough, and shook his head and shoulders,
as much as to say, 'Well! we are gay dogs, there's no denying.' He
then seized Mr Carker by the button-hole, and with starting eyes
whispered in his ear, that she was a woman of extraordinary charms,
Sir. That she was a young widow, Sir. That she was of a fine family,
Sir. That Dombey was over head and ears in love with her, Sir, and
that it would be a good match on both sides; for she had beauty,
blood, and talent, and Dombey had fortune; and what more could any
couple have? Hearing Mr Dombey's footsteps without, the Major cut
himself short by saying, that Mr Carker would see her tomorrow
morning, and would judge for himself; and between his mental
excitement, and the exertion of saying all this in wheezy whispers,
the Major sat gurgling in the throat and watering at the eyes, until
dinner was ready.

The Major, like some other noble animals, exhibited himself to
great advantage at feeding-time. On this occasion, he shone
resplendent at one end of the table, supported by the milder lustre of
Mr Dombey at the other; while Carker on one side lent his ray to
either light, or suffered it to merge into both, as occasion arose.

During the first course or two, the Major was usually grave; for
the Native, in obedience to general orders, secretly issued, collected
every sauce and cruet round him, and gave him a great deal to do, in
taking out the stoppers, and mixing up the contents in his plate.
Besides which, the Native had private zests and flavours on a
side-table, with which the Major daily scorched himself; to say
nothing of strange machines out of which he spirited unknown liquids
into the Major's drink. But on this occasion, Major Bagstock, even
amidst these many occupations, found time to be social; and his
sociality consisted in excessive slyness for the behoof of Mr Carker,
and the betrayal of Mr Dombey's state of mind.

'Dombey,' said the Major, 'you don't eat; what's the matter?'

'Thank you,' returned the gentleman, 'I am doing very well; I have
no great appetite today.'

'Why, Dombey, what's become of it?' asked the Major. 'Where's it
gone? You haven't left it with our friends, I'll swear, for I can
answer for their having none to-day at luncheon. I can answer for one
of 'em, at least: I won't say which.'

Then the Major winked at Carker, and became so frightfully sly,
that his dark attendant was obliged to pat him on the back, without
orders, or he would probably have disappeared under the table.

In a later stage of the dinner: that is to say, when the Native
stood at the Major's elbow ready to serve the first bottle of
champagne: the Major became still slyer.

'Fill this to the brim, you scoundrel,' said the Major, holding up
his glass. 'Fill Mr Carker's to the brim too. And Mr Dombey's too. By
Gad, gentlemen,' said the Major, winking at his new friend, while Mr
Dombey looked into his plate with a conscious air, 'we'll consecrate
this glass of wine to a Divinity whom Joe is proud to know, and at a
distance humbly and reverently to admire. Edith,' said the Major, 'is
her name; angelic Edith!'

'To angelic Edith!' cried the smiling Carker.

'Edith, by all means,' said Mr Dombey.

The entrance of the waiters with new dishes caused the Major to be
slyer yet, but in a more serious vein. 'For though among ourselves,
Joe Bagstock mingles jest and earnest on this subject, Sir,' said the
Major, laying his finger on his lips, and speaking half apart to
Carker, 'he holds that name too sacred to be made the property of
these fellows, or of any fellows. Not a word!, Sir' while they are
here!'

This was respectful and becoming on the Major's part, and Mr Dombey
plainly felt it so. Although embarrassed in his own frigid way, by the
Major's allusions, Mr Dombey had no objection to such rallying, it was
clear, but rather courted it. Perhaps the Major had been pretty near
the truth, when he had divined that morning that the great man who was
too haughty formally to consult with, or confide in his prime
minister, on such a matter, yet wished him to be fully possessed of
it. Let this be how it may, he often glanced at Mr Carker while the
Major plied his light artillery, and seemed watchful of its effect
upon him.

But the Major, having secured an attentive listener, and a smiler
who had not his match in all the world - 'in short, a devilish
intelligent and able fellow,' as he often afterwards declared - was
not going to let him off with a little slyness personal to Mr Dombey.
Therefore, on the removal of the cloth, the Major developed himself as
a choice spirit in the broader and more comprehensive range of
narrating regimental stories, and cracking regimental jokes, which he
did with such prodigal exuberance, that Carker was (or feigned to be)
quite exhausted with laughter and admiration: while Mr Dombey looked
on over his starched cravat, like the Major's proprietor, or like a
stately showman who was glad to see his bear dancing well.

When the Major was too hoarse with meat and drink, and the display
of his social powers, to render himself intelligible any longer, they
adjourned to coffee. After which, the Major inquired of Mr Carker the
Manager, with little apparent hope of an answer in the affirmative, if
he played picquet.

'Yes, I play picquet a little,' said Mr Carker.

'Backgammon, perhaps?' observed the Major, hesitating.

'Yes, I play backgammon a little too,' replied the man of teeth.

'Carker plays at all games, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, laying
himself on a sofa like a man of wood, without a hinge or a joint in
him; 'and plays them well.'

In sooth, he played the two in question, to such perfection, that
the Major was astonished, and asked him, at random, if he played
chess.

'Yes, I play chess a little,' answered Carker. 'I have sometimes
played, and won a game - it's a mere trick - without seeing the
board.'

'By Gad, Sir!' said the Major, staring, 'you are a contrast to
Dombey, who plays nothing.'

'Oh! He!' returned the Manager. 'He has never had occasion to
acquire such little arts. To men like me, they are sometimes useful.
As at present, Major Bagstock, when they enable me to take a hand with
you.'

It might be only the false mouth, so smooth and wide; and yet there
seemed to lurk beneath the humility and subserviency of this short
speech, a something like a snarl; and, for a moment, one might have
thought that the white teeth were prone to bite the hand they fawned
upon. But the Major thought nothing about it; and Mr Dombey lay
meditating with his eyes half shut, during the whole of the play,
which lasted until bed-time.

By that time, Mr Carker, though the winner, had mounted high into
the Major's good opinion, insomuch that when he left the Major at his
own room before going to bed, the Major as a special attention, sent
the Native - who always rested on a mattress spread upon the ground at
his master's door - along the gallery, to light him to his room in
state.

There was a faint blur on the surface of the mirror in Mr Carker's
chamber, and its reflection was, perhaps, a false one. But it showed,
that night, the image of a man, who saw, in his fancy, a crowd of
people slumbering on the ground at his feet, like the poor Native at
his master's door: who picked his way among them: looking down,
maliciously enough: but trod upon no upturned face - as yet.

CHAPTER 27.

Deeper Shadows

Mr Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in
the summer day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted
brows while he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the
lark, or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their
nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the dust and worms. But
there was not a bird in the air, singing unseen, farther beyond the
reach of human eye than Mr Carker's thoughts. He had his face so
perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms,
of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It
pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in
thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he
fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark
came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped
among the green wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning
like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked round with a
sudden smile, as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous
observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse, after being thus
awakened; but clearing his face, like one who bethought himself that
it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for
practice.

Perhaps with an eye to first impressions, Mr Carker was very
carefully and trimly dressed, that morning. Though always somewhat
formal, in his dress, in imitation of the great man whom he served, he
stopped short of the extent of Mr Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps
because he knew it to be ludicrous, and because in doing so he found
another means of expressing his sense of the difference and distance
between them. Some people quoted him indeed, in this respect, as a
pointed commentary, and not a flattering one, on his icy patron - but
the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr Carker was not
accountable for its bad propensity.

Clean and florid: with his light complexion, fading as it were, in
the sun, and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr
Carker the Manager strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided
among avenues of trees, until it was time to return to breakfast.
Taking a nearer way back, Mr Carker pursued it, airing his teeth, and
said aloud as he did so, 'Now to see the second Mrs Dombey!'

He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered it by a pleasant
walk, where there was a deep shade of leafy trees, and where there
were a few benches here and there for those who chose to rest. It not
being a place of general resort at any hour, and wearing at that time
of the still morning the air of being quite deserted and retired, Mr
Carker had it, or thought he had it, all to himself. So, with the whim
of an idle man, to whom there yet remained twenty minutes for reaching
a destination easily able in ten, Mr Carker threaded the great boles
of the trees, and went passing in and out, before this one and behind
that, weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground.

But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the
grove, for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree, on which
the obdurate bark was knotted and overlapped like the hide of a
rhinoceros or some kindred monster of the ancient days before the
Flood, he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a bench near at hand,
about which, in another moment, he would have wound the chain he was
making.

It was that of a lady, elegantly dressed and very handsome, whose
dark proud eyes were fixed upon the ground, and in whom some passion
or struggle was raging. For as she sat looking down, she held a corner
of her under lip within her mouth, her bosom heaved, her nostril
quivered, her head trembled, indignant tears were on her cheek, and
her foot was set upon the moss as though she would have crushed it
into nothing. And yet almost the self-same glance that showed him
this, showed him the self-same lady rising with a scornful air of
weariness and lassitude, and turning away with nothing expressed in
face or figure but careless beauty and imperious disdain.

A withered and very ugly old woman, dressed not so much like a
gipsy as like any of that medley race of vagabonds who tramp about the
country, begging, and stealing, and tinkering, and weaving rushes, by
turns, or all together, had been observing the lady, too; for, as she
rose, this second figure strangely confronting the first, scrambled up
from the ground - out of it, it almost appeared - and stood in the
way.

'Let me tell your fortune, my pretty lady,' said the old woman,
munching with her jaws, as if the Death's Head beneath her yellow skin
were impatient to get out.

'I can tell it for myself,' was the reply.

'Ay, ay, pretty lady; but not right. You didn't tell it right when
you were sitting there. I see you! Give me a piece of silver, pretty
lady, and I'll tell your fortune true. There's riches, pretty lady, in
your face.'

'I know,' returned the lady, passing her with a dark smile, and a
proud step. 'I knew it before.

'What! You won't give me nothing?' cried the old woman. 'You won't
give me nothing to tell your fortune, pretty lady? How much will you
give me to tell it, then? Give me something, or I'll call it after
you!' croaked the old woman, passionately.

Mr Carker, whom the lady was about to pass close, slinking against
his tree as she crossed to gain the path, advanced so as to meet her,
and pulling off his hat as she went by, bade the old woman hold her
peace. The lady acknowledged his interference with an inclination of
the head, and went her way.

'You give me something then, or I'll call it after her!' screamed
the old woman, throwing up her arms, and pressing forward against his
outstretched hand. 'Or come,' she added, dropping her voice suddenly,
looking at him earnestly, and seeming in a moment to forget the object
of her wrath, 'give me something, or I'll call it after you! '

'After me, old lady!' returned the Manager, putting his hand in his
pocket.

'Yes,' said the woman, steadfast in her scrutiny, and holding out
her shrivelled hand. 'I know!'

'What do you know?' demanded Carker, throwing her a shilling. 'Do
you know who the handsome lady is?'

Munching like that sailor's wife of yore, who had chestnuts In her
lap, and scowling like the witch who asked for some in vain, the old
woman picked the shilling up, and going backwards, like a crab, or
like a heap of crabs: for her alternately expanding and contracting
hands might have represented two of that species, and her creeping
face, some half-a-dozen more: crouched on the veinous root of an old
tree, pulled out a short black pipe from within the crown of her
bonnet, lighted it with a match, and smoked in silence, looking
fixedly at her questioner.

Mr Carker laughed, and turned upon his heel.

'Good!' said the old woman. 'One child dead, and one child living:
one wife dead, and one wife coming. Go and meet her!'

In spite of himself, the Manager looked round again, and stopped.
The old woman, who had not removed her pipe, and was munching and
mumbling while she smoked, as if in conversation with an invisible
familiar, pointed with her finger in the direction he was going, and
laughed.

'What was that you said, Beldamite?' he demanded.

The woman mumbled, and chattered, and smoked, and still pointed
before him; but remained silent Muttering a farewell that was not
complimentary, Mr Carker pursued his way; but as he turned out of that
place, and looked over his shoulder at the root of the old tree, he
could yet see the finger pointing before him, and thought he heard the
woman screaming, 'Go and meet her!'

Preparations for a choice repast were completed, he found, at the
hotel; and Mr Dombey, and the Major, and the breakfast, were awaiting
the ladies. Individual constitution has much to do with the
development of such facts, no doubt; but in this case, appetite
carried it hollow over the tender passion; Mr Dombey being very cool
and collected, and the Major fretting and fuming in a state of violent
heat and irritation. At length the door was thrown open by the Native,
and, after a pause, occupied by her languishing along the gallery, a
very blooming, but not very youthful lady, appeared.

'My dear Mr Dombey,' said the lady, 'I am afraid we are late, but
Edith has been out already looking for a favourable point of view for
a sketch, and kept me waiting for her. Falsest of Majors,' giving him
her little finger, 'how do you do?'

'Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, 'let me gratify my friend Carker:'
Mr Dombey unconsciously emphasised the word friend, as saying "no
really; I do allow him to take credit for that distinction:" 'by
presenting him to you. You have heard me mention Mr Carker.'

'I am charmed, I am sure,' said Mrs Skewton, graciously.

Mr Carker was charmed, of course. Would he have been more charmed
on Mr Dombey's behalf, if Mrs Skewton had been (as he at first
supposed her) the Edith whom they had toasted overnight?

'Why, where, for Heaven's sake, is Edith?' exclaimed Mrs Skewton,
looking round. 'Still at the door, giving Withers orders about the
mounting of those drawings! My dear Mr Dombey, will you have the
kindness -

Mr Dombey was already gone to seek her. Next moment he returned,
bearing on his arm the same elegantly dressed and very handsome lady
whom Mr Carker had encountered underneath the trees.

'Carker - ' began Mr Dombey. But their recognition of each other
was so manifest, that Mr Dombey stopped surprised.

'I am obliged to the gentleman,' said Edith, with a stately bend,
'for sparing me some annoyance from an importunate beggar just now.'

'I am obliged to my good fortune,' said Mr Carker, bowing low, 'for
the opportunity of rendering so slight a service to one whose servant
I am proud to be.'

As her eye rested on him for an instant, and then lighted on the
ground, he saw in its bright and searching glance a suspicion that he
had not come up at the moment of his interference, but had secretly
observed her sooner. As he saw that, she saw in his eye that her
distrust was not without foundation.

'Really,' cried Mrs Skewton, who had taken this opportunity of
inspecting Mr Carker through her glass, and satisfying herself (as she
lisped audibly to the Major) that he was all heart; 'really now, this
is one of the most enchanting coincidences that I ever heard of. The
idea! My dearest Edith, there is such an obvious destiny in it, that
really one might almost be induced to cross one's arms upon one's
frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, there is no What's-his-name
but Thingummy, and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!'

Edith designed no revision of this extraordinary quotation from the
Koran, but Mr Dombey felt it necessary to offer a few polite remarks.

'It gives me great pleasure,' said Mr Dombey, with cumbrous
gallantry, 'that a gentleman so nearly connected with myself as Carker
is, should have had the honour and happiness of rendering the least
assistance to Mrs Granger.' Mr Dombey bowed to her. 'But it gives me
some pain, and it occasions me to be really envious of Carker;' he
unconsciously laid stress on these words, as sensible that they must
appear to involve a very surprising proposition; 'envious of Carker,
that I had not that honour and that happiness myself.' Mr Dombey bowed
again. Edith, saving for a curl of her lip, was motionless.

'By the Lord, Sir,' cried the Major, bursting into speech at sight
of the waiter, who was come to announce breakfast, 'it's an
extraordinary thing to me that no one can have the honour and
happiness of shooting all such beggars through the head without being
brought to book for it. But here's an arm for Mrs Granger if she'll do
J. B. the honour to accept it; and the greatest service Joe can render
you, Ma'am, just now, is, to lead you into table!'

With this, the Major gave his arm to Edith; Mr Dombey led the way
with Mrs Skewton; Mrs Carker went last, smiling on the party.

'I am quite rejoiced, Mr Carker,' said the lady-mother, at
breakfast, after another approving survey of him through her glass,
'that you have timed your visit so happily, as to go with us to-day.
It is the most enchanting expedition!'

'Any expedition would be enchanting in such society,' returned
Carker; 'but I believe it is, in itself, full of interest.'

'Oh!' cried Mrs Skewton, with a faded little scream of rapture,
'the Castle is charming! - associations of the Middle Ages - and all
that - which is so truly exquisite. Don't you dote upon the Middle
Ages, Mr Carker?'

'Very much, indeed,' said Mr Carker.

'Such charming times!' cried Cleopatra. 'So full of faith! So
vigorous and forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from
commonplace! Oh dear! If they would only leave us a little more of the
poetry of existence in these terrible days!'

Mrs Skewton was looking sharp after Mr Dombey all the time she said
this, who was looking at Edith: who was listening, but who never
lifted up her eyes.

'We are dreadfully real, Mr Carker,' said Mrs Skewton; 'are we
not?'

Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than
Cleopatra, who had as much that was false about her as could well go
to the composition of anybody with a real individual existence. But Mr
Carker commiserated our reality nevertheless, and agreed that we were
very hardly used in that regard.

'Pictures at the Castle, quite divine!' said Cleopatra. 'I hope you
dote upon pictures?'

'I assure you, Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, with solemn
encouragement of his Manager, 'that Carker has a very good taste for
pictures; quite a natural power of appreciating them. He is a very
creditable artist himself. He will be delighted, I am sure, with Mrs
Granger's taste and skill.'

'Damme, Sir!' cried Major Bagstock, 'my opinion is, that you're the
admirable Carker, and can do anything.'

'Oh!' smiled Carker, with humility, 'you are much too sanguine,
Major Bagstock. I can do very little. But Mr Dombey is so generous in
his estimation of any trivial accomplishment a man like myself may
find it almost necessary to acquire, and to which, in his very
different sphere, he is far superior, that - ' Mr Carker shrugged his
shoulders, deprecating further praise, and said no more.

All this time, Edith never raised her eyes, unless to glance
towards her mother when that lady's fervent spirit shone forth in
words. But as Carker ceased, she looked at Mr Dombey for a moment. For
a moment only; but with a transient gleam of scornful wonder on her
face, not lost on one observer, who was smiling round the board.

Mr Dombey caught the dark eyelash in its descent, and took the
opportunity of arresting it.

'You have been to Warwick often, unfortunately?' said Mr Dombey.

'Several times.'

'The visit will be tedious to you, I am afraid.'

'Oh no; not at all.'

'Ah! You are like your cousin Feenix, my dearest Edith,' said Mrs
Skewton. 'He has been to Warwick Castle fifty times, if he has been
there once; yet if he came to Leamington to-morrow - I wish he would,
dear angel! - he would make his fifty-second visit next day.'

'We are all enthusiastic, are we not, Mama?' said Edith, with a
cold smile.

'Too much so, for our peace, perhaps, my dear,' returned her
mother; 'but we won't complain. Our own emotions are our recompense.
If, as your cousin Feenix says, the sword wears out the
what's-its-name

'The scabbard, perhaps,' said Edith.

'Exactly - a little too fast, it is because it is bright and
glowing, you know, my dearest love.'

Mrs Skewton heaved a gentle sigh, supposed to cast a shadow on the
surface of that dagger of lath, whereof her susceptible bosom was the
sheath: and leaning her head on one side, in the Cleopatra manner,
looked with pensive affection on her darling child.

Edith had turned her face towards Mr Dombey when he first addressed
her, and had remained in that attitude, while speaking to her mother,
and while her mother spoke to her, as though offering him her
attention, if he had anything more to say. There was something in the
manner of this simple courtesy: almost defiant, and giving it the
character of being rendered on compulsion, or as a matter of traffic
to which she was a reluctant party again not lost upon that same
observer who was smiling round the board. It set him thinking of her
as he had first seen her, when she had believed herself to be alone
among the trees.

Mr Dombey having nothing else to say, proposed - the breakfast
being now finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor -
that they should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the
orders of that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took
their seats in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr
Towlinson being left behind; and Mr Carker, on horseback, brought up
the rear. Mr Carker cantered behind the carriage. at the distance of a
hundred yards or so, and watched it, during all the ride, as if he
were a cat, indeed, and its four occupants, mice. Whether he looked to
one side of the road, or to the other - over distant landscape, with
its smooth undulations, wind-mills, corn, grass, bean fields,
wild-flowers, farm-yards, hayricks, and the spire among the wood - or
upwards in the sunny air, where butterflies were sporting round his
head, and birds were pouring out their songs - or downward, where the
shadows of the branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet on the
road - or onward, where the overhanging trees formed aisles and
arches, dim with the softened light that steeped through leaves - one
corner of his eye was ever on the formal head of Mr Dombey, addressed
towards him, and the feather in the bonnet, drooping so neglectfully
and scornfully between them; much as he had seen the haughty eyelids
droop; not least so, when the face met that now fronting it. Once, and
once only, did his wary glance release these objects; and that was,
when a leap over a low hedge, and a gallop across a field, enabled him
to anticipate the carriage coming by the road, and to be standing
ready, at the journey's end, to hand the ladies out. Then, and but
then, he met her glance for an instant in her first surprise; but when
he touched her, in alighting, with his soft white hand, it overlooked
him altogether as before.

Mrs Skewton was bent on taking charge of Mr Carker herself, and
showing him the beauties of the Castle. She was determined to have his
arm, and the Major's too. It would do that incorrigible creature: who
was the most barbarous infidel in point of poetry: good to be in such
company. This chance arrangement left Mr Dombey at liberty to escort
Edith: which he did: stalking before them through the apartments with
a gentlemanly solemnity.

'Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,' said Cleopatra, 'with
their delicious fortresses, and their dear old dungeons, and their
delightful places of torture, and their romantic vengeances, and their
picturesque assaults and sieges, and everything that makes life truly
charming! How dreadfully we have degenerated!'

'Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,' said Mr Carker.

The peculiarity of their conversation was, that Mrs Skewton, in
spite of her ecstasies, and Mr Carker, in spite of his urbanity, were
both intent on watching Mr Dombey and Edith. With all their
conversational endowments, they spoke somewhat distractedly, and at
random, in consequence.

'We have no Faith left, positively,' said Mrs Skewton, advancing
her shrivelled ear; for Mr Dombey was saying something to Edith. 'We
have no Faith in the dear old Barons, who were the most delightful
creatures - or in the dear old Priests, who were the most warlike of
men - or even in the days of that inestimable Queen Bess, upon the
wall there, which were so extremely golden. Dear creature! She was all
Heart And that charming father of hers! I hope you dote on Harry the
Eighth!'

'I admire him very much,' said Carker.

'So bluff!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'wasn't he? So burly. So truly
English. Such a picture, too, he makes, with his dear little peepy
eyes, and his benevolent chin!'

'Ah, Ma'am!' said Carker, stopping short; 'but if you speak of
pictures, there's a composition! What gallery in the world can produce
the counterpart of that?'

As the smiling gentleman thus spake, he pointed through a doorway
to where Mr Dombey and Edith were standing alone in the centre of
another room.

They were not interchanging a word or a look. Standing together,
arm in arm, they had the appearance of being more divided than if seas
had rolled between them. There was a difference even in the pride of
the two, that removed them farther from each other, than if one had
been the proudest and the other the humblest specimen of humanity in
all creation. He, self-important, unbending, formal, austere. She,
lovely and graceful, in an uncommon degree, but totally regardless of
herself and him and everything around, and spurning her own
attractions with her haughty brow and lip, as if they were a badge or
livery she hated. So unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and
linked together by a chain which adverse hazard and mischance had
forged: that fancy might have imagined the pictures on the walls
around them, startled by the unnatural conjunction, and observant of
it in their several expressions. Grim knights and warriors looked
scowling on them. A churchman, with his hand upraised, denounced the
mockery of such a couple coming to God's altar. Quiet waters in
landscapes, with the sun reflected in their depths, asked, if better
means of escape were not at hand, was there no drowning left? Ruins
cried, 'Look here, and see what We are, wedded to uncongenial Time!'
Animals, opposed by nature, worried one another, as a moral to them.
Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had no such
torment in its painted history of suffering.

Nevertheless, Mrs Skewton was so charmed by the sight to which Mr
Carker invoked her attention, that she could not refraIn from saying,
half aloud, how sweet, how very full of soul it was! Edith,
overhearing, looked round, and flushed indignant scarlet to her hair.

'My dearest Edith knows I was admiring her!' said Cleopatra,
tapping her, almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. 'Sweet
pet!'

Again Mr Carker saw the strife he had witnessed so unexpectedly
among the trees. Again he saw the haughty languor and indifference
come over it, and hide it like a cloud.

She did not raise her eyes to him; but with a slight peremptory
motion of them, seemed to bid her mother come near. Mrs Skewton
thought it expedient to understand the hint, and advancing quickly,
with her two cavaliers, kept near her daughter from that time,

Mr Carker now, having nothing to distract his attention, began to
discourse upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them out
to Mr Dombey: speaking with his usual familiar recognition of Mr
Dombey's greatness, and rendering homage by adjusting his eye-glass
for him, or finding out the right place in his catalogue, or holding
his stick, or the like. These services did not so much originate with
Mr Carker, in truth, as with Mr Dombey himself, who was apt to assert
his chieftainship by saying, with subdued authority, and in an easy
way - for him - 'Here, Carker, have the goodness to assist me, will
you?' which the smiling gentleman always did with pleasure.

They made the tour of the pictures, the walls, crow's nest, and so
forth; and as they were still one little party, and the Major was
rather in the shade: being sleepy during the process of digestion: Mr
Carker became communicative and agreeable. At first, he addressed
himself for the most part to Mrs Skewton; but as that sensitive lady
was in such ecstasies with the works of art, after the first quarter
of an hour, that she could do nothing but yawn (they were such perfect
inspirations, she observed as a reason for that mark of rapture), he
transferred his attentions to Mr Dombey. Mr Dombey said little beyond
an occasional 'Very true, Carker,' or 'Indeed, Carker,' but he tacitly
encouraged Carker to proceed, and inwardly approved of his behaviour
very much: deeming it as well that somebody should talk, and thinking
that his remarks, which were, as one might say, a branch of the parent
establishment, might amuse Mrs Granger. Mr Carker, who possessed an
excellent discretion, never took the liberty of addressing that lady,
direct; but she seemed to listen, though she never looked at him; and
once or twice, when he was emphatic in his peculiar humility, the
twilight smile stole over her face, not as a light, but as a deep
black shadow.

Warwick Castle being at length pretty well exhausted, and the Major
very much so: to say nothing of Mrs Skewton, whose peculiar
demonstrations of delight had become very frequent Indeed: the
carriage was again put In requisition, and they rode to several
admired points of view In the neighbourhood. Mr Dombey ceremoniously
observed of one of these, that a sketch, however slight, from the fair
hand of Mrs Granger, would be a remembrance to him of that agreeable
day: though he wanted no artificial remembrance, he was sure (here Mr
Dombey made another of his bows), which he must always highly value.
Withers the lean having Edith's sketch-book under his arm, was
immediately called upon by Mrs Skewton to produce the same: and the
carriage stopped, that Edith might make the drawing, which Mr Dombey
was to put away among his treasures.

'But I am afraid I trouble you too much,' said Mr Dombey.

'By no means. Where would you wish it taken from?' she answered,
turning to him with the same enforced attention as before.

Mr Dombey, with another bow, which cracked the starch in his
cravat, would beg to leave that to the Artist.

'I would rather you chose for yourself,' said Edith.

'Suppose then,' said Mr Dombey, 'we say from here. It appears a
good spot for the purpose, or - Carker, what do you think?'

There happened to be in the foreground, at some little distance, a
grove of trees, not unlike that In which Mr Carker had made his chain
of footsteps in the morning, and with a seat under one tree, greatly
resembling, in the general character of its situation, the point where
his chain had broken.

'Might I venture to suggest to Mrs Granger,' said Carker, 'that
that is an interesting - almost a curious - point of view?'

She followed the direction of his riding-whip with her eyes, and
raised them quickly to his face. It was the second glance they had
exchanged since their introduction; and would have been exactly like
the first, but that its expression was plainer.

'Will you like that?' said Edith to Mr Dombey.

'I shall be charmed,' said Mr Dombey to Edith.

Therefore the carriage was driven to the spot where Mr Dombey was
to be charmed; and Edith, without moving from her seat, and openIng
her sketch-book with her usual proud indifference, began to sketch.

'My pencils are all pointless,' she said, stopping and turning them
over.

'Pray allow me,' said Mr Dombey. 'Or Carker will do it better, as
he understands these things. Carker, have the goodness to see to these
pencils for Mrs Granger.

Mr Carker rode up close to the carriage-door on Mrs Granger's side,
and letting the rein fall on his horse's neck, took the pencils from
her hand with a smile and a bow, and sat in the saddle leisurely
mending them. Having done so, he begged to be allowed to hold them,
and to hand them to her as they were required; and thus Mr Carker,
with many commendations of Mrs Granger's extraordinary skill -
especially in trees - remained - close at her side, looking over the
drawing as she made it. Mr Dombey in the meantime stood bolt upright
in the carriage like a highly respectable ghost, looking on too; while
Cleopatra and the Major dallied as two ancient doves might do.

'Are you satisfied with that, or shall I finish it a little more?'
said Edith, showing the sketch to Mr Dombey.

Mr Dombey begged that it might not be touched; it was perfection.

'It is most extraordinary,' said Carker, bringing every one of his
red gums to bear upon his praise. 'I was not prepared for anything so
beautiful, and so unusual altogether.'

This might have applied to the sketcher no less than to the sketch;
but Mr Carker's manner was openness itself - not as to his mouth
alone, but as to his whole spirit. So it continued to be while the
drawing was laid aside for Mr Dombey, and while the sketching
materials were put up; then he handed in the pencils (which were
received with a distant acknowledgment of his help, but without a
look), and tightening his rein, fell back, and followed the carriage
again.

Thinking, perhaps, as he rode, that even this trivial sketch had
been made and delivered to its owner, as if it had been bargained for
and bought. Thinking, perhaps, that although she had assented with
such perfect readiness to his request, her haughty face, bent over the
drawing, or glancing at the distant objects represented in it, had
been the face of a proud woman, engaged in a sordid and miserable
transaction. Thinking, perhaps, of such things: but smiling certainly,
and while he seemed to look about him freely, in enjoyment of the air
and exercise, keeping always that sharp corner of his eye upon the
carriage.

A stroll among the haunted ruins of Kenilworth, and more rides to
more points of view: most of which, Mrs Skewton reminded Mr Dombey,
Edith had already sketched, as he had seen in looking over her
drawings: brought the day's expedition to a close. Mrs Skewton and
Edith were driven to their own lodgings; Mr Carker was graciously
invited by Cleopatra to return thither with Mr Dombey and the Major,
in the evening, to hear some of Edith's music; and the three gentlemen
repaired to their hotel to dinner.

The dinner was the counterpart of yesterday's, except that the
Major was twenty-four hours more triumphant and less mysterious. Edith
was toasted again. Mr Dombey was again agreeably embarrassed. And Mr
Carker was full of interest and praise.

There were no other visitors at Mrs Skewton's. Edith's drawings
were strewn about the room, a little more abundantly than usual
perhaps; and Withers, the wan page, handed round a little stronger
tea. The harp was there; the piano was there; and Edith sang and
played. But even the music was played by Edith to Mr Dombey's order,
as it were, in the same uncompromising way. As thus.

'Edith, my dearest love,' said Mrs Skewton, half an hour after tea,
'Mr Dombey is dying to hear you, I know.'

'Mr Dombey has life enough left to say so for himself, Mama, I have
no doubt.'

'I shall be immensely obliged,' said Mr Dombey.

'What do you wish?'

'Piano?' hesitated Mr Dombey.

'Whatever you please. You have only to choose.

Accordingly, she began with the piano. It was the same with the
harp; the same with her singing; the same with the selection of the
pieces that she sang and played. Such frigid and constrained, yet
prompt and pointed acquiescence with the wishes he imposed upon her,
and on no one else, was sufficiently remarkable to penetrate through
all the mysteries of picquet, and impress itself on Mr Carker's keen
attention. Nor did he lose sight of the fact that Mr Dombey was
evidently proud of his power, and liked to show it.

Nevertheless, Mr Carker played so well - some games with the Major,
and some with Cleopatra, whose vigilance of eye in respect of Mr
Dombey and Edith no lynx could have surpassed - that he even
heightened his position in the lady-mother's good graces; and when on
taking leave he regretted that he would be obliged to return to London
next morning, Cleopatra trusted: community of feeling not being met
with every day: that it was far from being the last time they would
meet.

'I hope so,' said Mr Carker, with an expressive look at the couple
in the distance, as he drew towards the door, following the Major. 'I
think so.'

Mr Dombey, who had taken a stately leave of Edith, bent, or made
some approach to a bend, over Cleopatra's couch, and said, in a low
voice:

'I have requested Mrs Granger's permission to call on her to-morrow
morning - for a purpose - and she has appointed twelve o'clock. May I
hope to have the pleasure of finding you at home, Madam, afterwards?'

Cleopatra was so much fluttered and moved, by hearing this, of
course, incomprehensible speech, that she could only shut her eyes,
and shake her head, and give Mr Dombey her hand; which Mr Dombey, not
exactly knowing what to do with, dropped.

'Dombey, come along!' cried the Major, looking in at the door.
'Damme, Sir, old Joe has a great mind to propose an alteration in the
name of the Royal Hotel, and that it should be called the Three Jolly
Bachelors, in honour of ourselves and Carker.' With this, the Major
slapped Mr Dombey on the back, and winking over his shoulder at the
ladies, with a frightful tendency of blood to the head, carried him
off.

Mrs Skewton reposed on her sofa, and Edith sat apart, by her harp,
in silence. The mother, trifling with her fan, looked stealthily at
the daughter more than once, but the daughter, brooding gloomily with
downcast eyes, was not to be disturbed.

Thus they remained for a long hour, without a word, until Mrs
Skewton's maid appeared, according to custom, to prepare her gradually
for night. At night, she should have been a skeleton, with dart and
hour-glass, rather than a woman, this attendant; for her touch was as
the touch of Death. The painted object shrivelled underneath her hand;
the form collapsed, the hair dropped off, the arched dark eyebrows
changed to scanty tufts of grey; the pale lips shrunk, the skin became
cadaverous and loose; an old, worn, yellow, nodding woman, with red
eyes, alone remained in Cleopatra's place, huddled up, like a slovenly
bundle, in a greasy flannel gown.

The very voice was changed, as it addressed Edith, when they were
alone again.

'Why don't you tell me,' it said sharply, 'that he is coming here
to-morrow by appointment?'

'Because you know it,' returned Edith, 'Mother.'

The mocking emphasis she laid on that one word!

'You know he has bought me,' she resumed. 'Or that he will,
to-morrow. He has considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his
friend; he is even rather proud of it; he thinks that it will suit
him, and may be had sufficiently cheap; and he will buy to-morrow.
God, that I have lived for this, and that I feel it!'

Compress into one handsome face the conscious self-abasement, and
the burning indignation of a hundred women, strong in passion and in
pride; and there it hid itself with two white shuddering arms.

'What do you mean?' returned the angry mother. 'Haven't you from a
child - '

'A child!' said Edith, looking at her, 'when was I a child? What
childhood did you ever leave to me? I was a woman - artful, designing,
mercenary, laying snares for men - before I knew myself, or you, or
even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I
learnt You gave birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride
tonight'

And as she spoke, she struck her hand upon her beautiful bosom, as
though she would have beaten down herself

'Look at me,' she said, 'who have never known what it is to have an
honest heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when
children play; and married in my youth - an old age of design - to one
for whom I had no feeling but indifference. Look at me, whom he left a
widow, dying before his inheritance descended to him - a judgment on
you! well deserved! - and tell me what has been my life for ten years
since.'

'We have been making every effort to endeavour to secure to you a
good establishment,' rejoined her mother. 'That has been your life.
And now you have got it.'

'There is no slave in a market: there is no horse in a fair: so
shown and offered and examined and paraded, Mother, as I have been,
for ten shameful years,' cried Edith, with a burning brow, and the
same bitter emphasis on the one word. 'Is it not so? Have I been made
the bye-word of all kinds of men? Have fools, have profligates, have
boys, have dotards, dangled after me, and one by one rejected me, and
fallen off, because you were too plain with all your cunning: yes, and
too true, with all those false pretences: until we have almost come to
be notorious? The licence of look and touch,' she said, with flashing
eyes, 'have I submitted to it, in half the places of resort upon the
map of England? Have I been hawked and vended here and there, until
the last grain of self-respect is dead within me, and I loathe myself?
Has been my late childhood? I had none before. Do not tell me that I
had, tonight of all nights in my life!'

'You might have been well married,' said her mother, 'twenty times
at least, Edith, if you had given encouragement enough.'

'No! Who takes me, refuse that I am, and as I well deserve to be,'
she answered, raising her head, and trembling in her energy of shame
and stormy pride, 'shall take me, as this man does, with no art of
mine put forth to lure him. He sees me at the auction, and he thinks
it well to buy me. Let him! When he came to view me - perhaps to bid -
he required to see the roll of my accomplishments. I gave it to him.
When he would have me show one of them, to justify his purchase to his
men, I require of him to say which he demands, and I exhibit it. I
will do no more. He makes the purchase of his own will, and with his
own sense of its worth, and the power of his money; and I hope it may
never disappoint him. I have not vaunted and pressed the bargain;
neither have you, so far as I have been able to prevent you.

'You talk strangely to-night, Edith, to your own Mother.'

'It seems so to me; stranger to me than you,' said Edith. 'But my
education was completed long ago. I am too old now, and have fallen
too low, by degrees, to take a new course, and to stop yours, and to
help myself. The germ of all that purifies a woman's breast, and makes
it true and good, has never stirred in mine, and I have nothing else
to sustain me when I despise myself.' There had been a touching
sadness in her voice, but it was gone, when she went on to say, with a
curled lip, 'So, as we are genteel and poor, I am content that we
should be made rich by these means; all I say is, I have kept the only
purpose I have had the strength to form - I had almost said the power,
with you at my side, Mother - and have not tempted this man on.'

'This man! You speak,' said her mother, 'as if you hated him.'

'And you thought I loved him, did you not?' she answered, stopping
on her way across the room, and looking round. 'Shall I tell you,' she
continued, with her eyes fixed on her mother, 'who already knows us
thoroughly, and reads us right, and before whom I have even less of
self-respect or confidence than before my own inward self; being so
much degraded by his knowledge of me?'

'This is an attack, I suppose,' returned her mother coldly, 'on
poor, unfortunate what's-his-name - Mr Carker! Your want of
self-respect and confidence, my dear, in reference to that person (who
is very agreeable, it strikes me), is not likely to have much effect
on your establishment. Why do you look at me so hard? Are you ill?'

Edith suddenly let fall her face, as if it had been stung, and
while she pressed her hands upon it, a terrible tremble crept over her
whole frame. It was quickly gone; and with her usual step, she passed
out of the room.

The maid who should have been a skeleton, then reappeared, and
giving one arm to her mistress, who appeared to have taken off her
manner with her charms, and to have put on paralysis with her flannel
gown, collected the ashes of Cleopatra, and carried them away in the
other, ready for tomorrow's revivification.

CHAPTER 28.

Alterations

'So the day has come at length, Susan,' said Florence to the
excellent Nipper, 'when we are going back to our quiet home!'

Susan drew in her breath with an amount of expression not easily
described, further relieving her feelings with a smart cough,
answered, 'Very quiet indeed, Miss Floy, no doubt. Excessive so.'

'When I was a child,' said Florence, thoughtfully, and after musing
for some moments, 'did you ever see that gentleman who has taken the
trouble to ride down here to speak to me, now three times - three
times, I think, Susan?'

'Three times, Miss,' returned the Nipper. 'Once when you was out a
walking with them Sket- '

Florence gently looked at her, and Miss Nipper checked herself.

'With Sir Barnet and his lady, I mean to say, Miss, and the young
gentleman. And two evenings since then.'

'When I was a child, and when company used to come to visit Papa,
did you ever see that gentleman at home, Susan?' asked Florence.

'Well, Miss,' returned her maid, after considering, 'I really
couldn't say I ever did. When your poor dear Ma died, Miss Floy, I was
very new in the family, you see, and my element:' the Nipper bridled,
as opining that her merits had been always designedly extinguished by
Mr Dombey: 'was the floor below the attics.'

'To be sure,' said Florence, still thoughtfully; 'you are not
likely to have known who came to the house. I quite forgot.'

'Not, Miss, but what we talked about the family and visitors,' said
Susan, 'and but what I heard much said, although the nurse before Mrs
Richards make unpleasant remarks when I was in company, and hint at
little Pitchers, but that could only be attributed, poor thing,'
observed Susan, with composed forbearance, 'to habits of intoxication,
for which she was required to leave, and did.'

Florence, who was seated at her chamber window, with her face
resting on her hand, sat looking out, and hardly seemed to hear what
Susan said, she was so lost in thought.

'At all events, Miss,' said Susan, 'I remember very well that this
same gentleman, Mr Carker, was almost, if not quite, as great a
gentleman with your Papa then, as he is now. It used to be said in the
house then, Miss, that he was at the head of all your Pa's affairs in
the City, and managed the whole, and that your Pa minded him more than
anybody, which, begging your pardon, Miss Floy, he might easy do, for
he never minded anybody else. I knew that, Pitcher as I might have
been.'

Susan Nipper, with an injured remembrance of the nurse before Mrs
Richards, emphasised 'Pitcher' strongly.

'And that Mr Carker has not fallen off, Miss,' she pursued, 'but
has stood his ground, and kept his credit with your Pa, I know from
what is always said among our people by that Perch, whenever he comes
to the house; and though he's the weakest weed in the world, Miss
Floy, and no one can have a moment's patience with the man, he knows
what goes on in the City tolerable well, and says that your Pa does
nothing without Mr Carker, and leaves all to Mr Carker, and acts
according to Mr Carker, and has Mr Carker always at his elbow, and I
do believe that he believes (that washiest of Perches!) that after
your Pa, the Emperor of India is the child unborn to Mr Carker.'

Not a word of this was lost on Florence, who, with an awakened
interest in Susan's speech, no longer gazed abstractedly on the
prospect without, but looked at her, and listened with attention.

'Yes, Susan,' she said, when that young lady had concluded. 'He is
in Papa's confidence, and is his friend, I am sure.'

Florence's mind ran high on this theme, and had done for some days.
Mr Carker, in the two visits with which he had followed up his first
one, had assumed a confidence between himself and her - a right on his
part to be mysterious and stealthy, in telling her that the ship was
still unheard of - a kind of mildly restrained power and authority
over her - that made her wonder, and caused her great uneasiness. She
had no means of repelling it, or of freeing herself from the web he
was gradually winding about her; for that would have required some art
and knowledge of the world, opposed to such address as his; and
Florence had none. True, he had said no more to her than that there
was no news of the ship, and that he feared the worst; but how he came
to know that she was interested in the ship, and why he had the right
to signify his knowledge to her, so insidiously and darkly, troubled
Florence very much.

This conduct on the part of Mr Carker, and her habit of often
considering it with wonder and uneasiness, began to invest him with an
uncomfortable fascination in Florence's thoughts. A more distinct
remembrance of his features, voice, and manner: which she sometimes
courted, as a means of reducing him to the level of a real personage,
capable of exerting no greater charm over her than another: did not
remove the vague impression. And yet he never frowned, or looked upon
her with an air of dislike or animosity, but was always smiling and
serene.

Again, Florence, in pursuit of her strong purpose with reference to
her father, and her steady resolution to believe that she was herself
unwittingly to blame for their so cold and distant relations, would
recall to mind that this gentleman was his confidential friend, and
would think, with an anxious heart, could her struggling tendency to
dislike and fear him be a part of that misfortune in her, which had
turned her father's love adrift, and left her so alone? She dreaded
that it might be; sometimes believed it was: then she resolved that
she would try to conquer this wrong feeling; persuaded herself that
she was honoured and encouraged by the notice of her father's friend;
and hoped that patient observation of him and trust in him would lead
her bleeding feet along that stony road which ended in her father's
heart.

Thus, with no one to advise her - for she could advise with no one
without seeming to complain against him - gentle Florence tossed on an
uneasy sea of doubt and hope; and Mr Carker, like a scaly monster of
the deep, swam down below, and kept his shining eye upon her. Florence
had a new reason in all this for wishing to be at home again. Her
lonely life was better suited to her course of timid hope and doubt;
and she feared sometimes, that in her absence she might miss some
hopeful chance of testifying her affection for her father. Heaven
knows, she might have set her mind at rest, poor child! on this last
point; but her slighted love was fluttering within her, and, even in
her sleep, it flew away in dreams, and nestled, like a wandering bird
come home, upon her father's neck.

Of Walter she thought often. Ah! how often, when the night was
gloomy, and the wind was blowing round the house! But hope was strong
in her breast. It is so difficult for the young and ardent, even with
such experience as hers, to imagine youth and ardour quenched like a
weak flame, and the bright day of life merging into night, at noon,
that hope was strong yet. Her tears fell frequently for Walter's
sufferings; but rarely for his supposed death, and never long.

She had written to the old Instrument-maker, but had received no
answer to her note: which indeed required none. Thus matters stood
with Florence on the morning when she was going home, gladly, to her
old secluded life.

Doctor and Mrs Blimber, accompanied (much against his will) by
their valued charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to
Brighton, where that young gentleman and his fellow-pilgrims to
Parnassus were then, no doubt, in the continual resumption of their
studies. The holiday time was past and over; most of the juvenile
guests at the villa had taken their departure; and Florence's long
visit was come to an end.

There was one guest, however, albeit not resident within the house,
who had been very constant in his attentions to the family, and who
still remained devoted to them. This was Mr Toots, who after renewing,
some weeks ago, the acquaintance he had had the happiness of forming
with Skettles Junior, on the night when he burst the Blimberian bonds
and soared into freedom with his ring on, called regularly every other
day, and left a perfect pack of cards at the hall-door; so many
indeed, that the ceremony was quite a deal on the part of Mr Toots,
and a hand at whist on the part of the servant.

Mr Toots, likewise, with the bold and happy idea of preventing the
family from forgetting him (but there is reason to suppose that this
expedient originated in the teeming brain of the Chicken), had
established a six-oared cutter, manned by aquatic friends of the
Chicken's and steered by that illustrious character in person, who
wore a bright red fireman's coat for the purpose, and concealed the
perpetual black eye with which he was afflicted, beneath a green
shade. Previous to the institution of this equipage, Mr Toots sounded
the Chicken on a hypothetical case, as, supposing the Chicken to be
enamoured of a young lady named Mary, and to have conceived the
intention of starting a boat of his own, what would he call that boat?
The Chicken replied, with divers strong asseverations, that he would
either christen it Poll or The Chicken's Delight. Improving on this
idea, Mr Toots, after deep study and the exercise of much invention,
resolved to call his boat The Toots's Joy, as a delicate compliment to
Florence, of which no man knowing the parties, could possibly miss the
appreciation.

Stretched on a crimson cushion in his gallant bark, with his shoes
in the air, Mr Toots, in the exercise of his project, had come up the
river, day after day, and week after week, and had flitted to and fro,
near Sir Barnet's garden, and had caused his crew to cut across and
across the river at sharp angles, for his better exhibition to any
lookers-out from Sir Barnet's windows, and had had such evolutions
performed by the Toots's Joy as had filled all the neighbouring part
of the water-side with astonishment. But whenever he saw anyone in Sir
Barnet's garden on the brink of the river, Mr Toots always feigned to
be passing there, by a combination of coincidences of the most
singular and unlikely description.

'How are you, Toots?' Sir Barnet would say, waving his hand from
the lawn, while the artful Chicken steered close in shore.

'How de do, Sir Barnet?' Mr Toots would answer, What a surprising
thing that I should see you here!'

Mr Toots, in his sagacity, always said this, as if, instead of that
being Sir Barnet's house, it were some deserted edifice on the banks
of the Nile, or Ganges.

'I never was so surprised!' Mr Toots would exclaim. - 'Is Miss
Dombey there?'

Whereupon Florence would appear, perhaps.

'Oh, Diogenes is quite well, Miss Dombey,' Toots would cry. 'I
called to ask this morning.'

'Thank you very much!' the pleasant voice of Florence would reply.

'Won't you come ashore, Toots?' Sir Barnet would say then. 'Come!
you're in no hurry. Come and see us.'

'Oh, it's of no consequence, thank you!' Mr Toots would blushingly
rejoin. 'I thought Miss Dombey might like to know, that's all.
Good-bye!' And poor Mr Toots, who was dying to accept the invitation,
but hadn't the courage to do it, signed to the Chicken, with an aching
heart, and away went the Joy, cleaving the water like an arrow.

The Joy was lying in a state of extraordinary splendour, at the
garden steps, on the morning of Florence's departure. When she went
downstairs to take leave, after her talk with Susan, she found Mr
Toots awaiting her in the drawing-room.

'Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey?' said the stricken Toots, always
dreadfully disconcerted when the desire of his heart was gained, and
he was speaking to her; 'thank you, I'm very well indeed, I hope
you're the same, so was Diogenes yesterday.'

'You are very kind,' said Florence.

'Thank you, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I thought
perhaps you wouldn't mind, in this fine weather, coming home by water,
Miss Dombey. There's plenty of room in the boat for your maid.'

'I am very much obliged to you,' said Florence, hesitating. 'I
really am - but I would rather not.'

'Oh, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'Good morning.'

'Won't you wait and see Lady Skettles?' asked Florence, kindly.

'Oh no, thank you,' returned Mr Toots, 'it's of no consequence at
all.'

So shy was Mr Toots on such occasions, and so flurried! But Lady
Skettles entering at the moment, Mr Toots was suddenly seized with a
passion for asking her how she did, and hoping she was very well; nor
could Mr Toots by any possibility leave off shaking hands with her,
until Sir Barnet appeared: to whom he immediately clung with the
tenacity of desperation.

'We are losing, today, Toots,' said Sir Barnet, turning towards
Florence, 'the light of our house, I assure you'

'Oh, it's of no conseq - I mean yes, to be sure,' faltered the
embarrassed Mr Toots. 'Good morning!'

Notwithstanding the emphatic nature of this farewell, Mr Toots,
instead of going away, stood leering about him, vacantly. Florence, to
relieve him, bade adieu, with many thanks, to Lady Skettles, and gave
her arm to Sir Barnet.

'May I beg of you, my dear Miss Dombey,' said her host, as he
conducted her to the carriage, 'to present my best compliments to your
dear Papa?'

It was distressing to Florence to receive the commission, for she
felt as if she were imposing on Sir Barnet by allowing him to believe
that a kindness rendered to her, was rendered to her father. As she
could not explain, however, she bowed her head and thanked him; and
again she thought that the dull home, free from such embarrassments,
and such reminders of her sorrow, was her natural and best retreat.

Such of her late friends and companions as were yet remaining at
the villa, came running from within, and from the garden, to say
good-bye. They were all attached to her, and very earnest in taking
leave of her. Even the household were sorry for her going, and the
servants came nodding and curtseying round the carriage door. As
Florence looked round on the kind faces, and saw among them those of
Sir Barnet and his lady, and of Mr Toots, who was chuckling and
staring at her from a distance, she was reminded of the night when
Paul and she had come from Doctor Blimber's: and when the carriage
drove away, her face was wet with tears.

Sorrowful tears, but tears of consolation, too; for all the softer
memories connected with the dull old house to which she was returning
made it dear to her, as they rose up. How long it seemed since she had
wandered through the silent rooms: since she had last crept, softly
and afraid, into those her father occupied: since she had felt the
solemn but yet soothing influence of the beloved dead in every action
of her daily life! This new farewell reminded her, besides, of her
parting with poor Walter: of his looks and words that night: and of
the gracious blending she had noticed in him, of tenderness for those
he left behind, with courage and high spirit. His little history was
associated with the old house too, and gave it a new claim and hold
upon her heart. Even Susan Nipper softened towards the home of so many
years, as they were on their way towards it. Gloomy as it was, and
rigid justice as she rendered to its gloom, she forgave it a great
deal. 'I shall be glad to see it again, I don't deny, Miss,' said the
Nipper. 'There ain't much in it to boast of, but I wouldn't have it
burnt or pulled down, neither!'

'You'll be glad to go through the old rooms, won't you, Susan?'
said Florence, smiling.

'Well, Miss,' returned the Nipper, softening more and more towards
the house, as they approached it nearer, 'I won't deny but what I
shall, though I shall hate 'em again, to-morrow, very likely.'

Florence felt that, for her, there was greater peace within it than
elsewhere. It was better and easier to keep her secret shut up there,
among the tall dark walls, than to carry it abroad into the light, and
try to hide it from a crowd of happy eyes. It was better to pursue the
study of her loving heart, alone, and find no new discouragements in
loving hearts about her. It was easier to hope, and pray, and love on,
all uncared for, yet with constancy and patience, in the tranquil
sanctuary of such remembrances: although it mouldered, rusted, and
decayed about her: than in a new scene, let its gaiety be what it
would. She welcomed back her old enchanted dream of life, and longed
for the old dark door to close upon her, once again.

Full of such thoughts, they turned into the long and sombre street.
Florence was not on that side of the carriage which was nearest to her
home, and as the distance lessened between them and it, she looked out
of her window for the children over the way.

She was thus engaged, when an exclamation from Susan caused her to
turn quickly round.

'Why, Gracious me!' cried Susan, breathless, 'where's our house!'

'Our house!' said Florence.

Susan, drawing in her head from the window, thrust it out again,
drew it in again as the carriage stopped, and stared at her mistress
in amazement.

There was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all round the house,
from the basement to the roof. Loads of bricks and stones, and heaps
of mortar, and piles of wood, blocked up half the width and length of
the broad street at the side. Ladders were raised against the walls;
labourers were climbing up and down; men were at work upon the steps
of the scaffolding; painters and decorators were busy inside; great
rolls of ornamental paper were being delivered from a cart at the
door; an upholsterer's waggon also stopped the way; no furniture was
to be seen through the gaping and broken windows in any of the rooms;
nothing but workmen, and the implements of their several trades,
swarming from the kitchens to the garrets. Inside and outside alike:
bricklayers, painters, carpenters, masons: hammer, hod, brush,
pickaxe, saw, and trowel: all at work together, in full chorus!

Florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it were, or
could be the right house, until she recognised Towlinson, with a
sun-burnt face, standing at the door to receive her.

'There is nothing the matter?' inquired Florence.

'Oh no, Miss.'

'There are great alterations going on.'

'Yes, Miss, great alterations,' said Towlinson.

Florence passed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried
upstairs. The garish light was in the long-darkened drawing-room and
there were steps and platforms, and men In paper caps, in the high
places. Her mother's picture was gone with the rest of the moveables,
and on the mark where it had been, was scrawled in chalk, 'this room
in panel. Green and gold.' The staircase was a labyrinth of posts and
planks like the outside of the house, and a whole Olympus of plumbers
and glaziers was reclining in various attitudes, on the skylight. Her
own room was not yet touched within, but there were beams and boards
raised against it without, baulking the daylight. She went up swiftly
to that other bedroom, where the little bed was; and a dark giant of a
man with a pipe in his mouth, and his head tied up in a
pocket-handkerchief, was staring in at the window.

It was here that Susan Nipper, who had been in quest of Florence,
found her, and said, would she go downstairs to her Papa, who wished
to speak to her.

'At home! and wishing to speak to me!' cried Florence, trembling.

Susan, who was infinitely more distraught than Florence herself,
repeated her errand; and Florence, pale and agitated, hurried down
again, without a moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down,
would she dare to kiss him? The longing of her heart resolved her, and
she thought she would.

Her father might have heard that heart beat, when it came into his
presence. One instant, and it would have beat against his breast.

But he was not alone. There were two ladies there; and Florence
stopped. Striving so hard with her emotion, that if her brute friend
Di had not burst in and overwhelmed her with his caresses as a welcome
home - at which one of the ladies gave a little scream, and that
diverted her attention from herself - she would have swooned upon the
floor.

'Florence,' said her father, putting out his hand: so stiffly that
it held her off: 'how do you do?'

Florence took the hand between her own, and putting it timidly to
her lips, yielded to its withdrawal. It touched the door in shutting
it, with quite as much endearment as it had touched her.

'What dog is that?' said Mr Dombey, displeased.

'It is a dog, Papa - from Brighton.'

'Well!' said Mr Dombey; and a cloud passed over his face, for he
understood her.

'He is very good-tempered,' said Florence, addressing herself with
her natural grace and sweetness to the two lady strangers. 'He is only
glad to see me. Pray forgive him.'

She saw in the glance they interchanged, that the lady who had
screamed, and who was seated, was old; and that the other lady, who
stood near her Papa, was very beautiful, and of an elegant figure.

'Mrs Skewton,' said her father, turning to the first, and holding
out his hand, 'this is my daughter Florence.'

'Charming, I am sure,' observed the lady, putting up her glass. 'So
natural! My darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you please.'

Florence having done so, turned towards the other lady, by whom her
father stood waiting.

'Edith,' said Mr Dombey, 'this is my daughter Florence. Florence,
this lady will soon be your Mama.'

Florence started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict
of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened, struggled for a
moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of
fear. Then she cried out, 'Oh, Papa, may you be happy! may you be
very, very happy all your life!' and then fell weeping on the lady's
bosom.

There was a short silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had
seemed to hesitate whether or no she should advance to Florence, held
her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her,
close about her waist, as if to reassure her and comfort her. Not one
word passed the lady's lips. She bent her head down over Florence, and
she kissed her on the cheek, but she said no word.

'Shall we go on through the rooms,' said Mr Dombey, 'and see how
our workmen are doing? Pray allow me, my dear madam.'

He said this in offering his arm to Mrs Skewton, who had been
looking at Florence through her glass, as though picturing to herself
what she might be made, by the infusion - from her own copious
storehouse, no doubt - of a little more Heart and Nature. Florence was
still sobbing on the lady's breast, and holding to her, when Mr Dombey
was heard to say from the Conservatory:

'Let us ask Edith. Dear me, where is she?'

'Edith, my dear!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'where are you? Looking for Mr
Dombey somewhere, I know. We are here, my love.'

The beautiful lady released her hold of Florence, and pressing her
lips once more upon her face, withdrew hurriedly, and joined them.
Florence remained standing In the same place: happy, sorry, joyful,
and in tears, she knew not how, or how long, but all at once: when her
new Mama came back, and took her in her arms again.

'Florence,' said the lady, hurriedly, and looking into her face
with great earnestness. 'You will not begin by hating me?'

'By hating you, Mama?' cried Florence, winding her arm round her
neck, and returning the look.

'Hush! Begin by thinking well of me,' said the beautiful lady.
'Begin by believing that I will try to make you happy, and that I am
prepared to love you, Florence. Good-bye. We shall meet again soon.
Good-bye! Don't stay here, now.'

Again she pressed her to her breast she had spoken in a rapid
manner, but firmly - and Florence saw her rejoin them in the other
room. And now Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new
and beautiful Mama, how to gaIn her father's love; and in her sleep
that night, in her lost old home, her own Mama smiled radiantly upon
the hope, and blessed it. Dreaming Florence!

CHAPTER 29.

The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick

Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connexion
with Mr Dombey's house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with
their heads tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the windows
like flying genii or strange birds, - having breakfasted one morning
at about this eventful period of time, on her customary viands; to
wit, one French roll rasped, one egg new laid (or warranted to be),
and one little pot of tea, wherein was infused one little silver
scoopful of that herb on behalf of Miss Tox, and one little silver
scoopful on behalf of the teapot - a flight of fancy in which good
housekeepers delight; went upstairs to set forth the bird waltz on the
harpsichord, to water and arrange the plants, to dust the nick-nacks,
and, according to her daily custom, to make her little drawing-room
the garland of Princess's Place.

Miss Tox endued herself with a pair of ancient gloves, like dead
leaves, in which she was accustomed to perform these avocations -
hidden from human sight at other times in a table drawer - and went
methodically to work; beginning with the bird waltz; passing, by a
natural association of ideas, to her bird - a very high-shouldered
canary, stricken in years, and much rumpled, but a piercing singer, as
Princess's Place well knew; taking, next in order, the little china
ornaments, paper fly-cages, and so forth; and coming round, in good
time, to the plants, which generally required to be snipped here and
there with a pair of scissors, for some botanical reason that was very
powerful with Miss Tox. Miss Tox was slow in coming to the plants,
this morning. The weather was warm, the wind southerly; and there was
a sigh of the summer-time In Princess's Place, that turned Miss Tox's
thoughts upon the country. The pot-boy attached to the Princess's Arms
had come out with a can and trickled water, in a flowering pattern,
all over Princess's Place, and it gave the weedy ground a fresh scent
- quite a growing scent, Miss Tox said. There was a tiny blink of sun
peeping in from the great street round the corner, and the smoky
sparrows hopped over it and back again, brightening as they passed: or
bathed in it, like a stream, and became glorified sparrows,
unconnected with chimneys. Legends in praise of Ginger-Beer, with
pictorial representations of thirsty customers submerged in the
effervescence, or stunned by the flying corks, were conspicuous in the
window of the Princess's Arms. They were making late hay, somewhere
out of town; and though the fragrance had a long way to come, and many
counter fragrances to contend with among the dwellings of the poor
(may God reward the worthy gentlemen who stickle for the Plague as
part and parcel of the wisdom of our ancestors, and who do their
little best to keep those dwellings miserable!), yet it was wafted
faintly into Princess's Place, whispering of Nature and her wholesome
air, as such things will, even unto prisoners and captives, and those
who are desolate and oppressed, in very spite of aldermen and knights
to boot: at whose sage nod - and how they nod! - the rolling world
stands still!

Miss Tox sat down upon the window-seat, and thought of her good
Papa deceased - Mr Tox, of the Customs Department of the public
service; and of her childhood, passed at a seaport, among a
considerable quantity of cold tar, and some rusticity. She fell into a
softened remembrance of meadows, in old time, gleaming with
buttercups, like so many inverted firmaments of golden stars; and how
she had made chains of dandelion-stalks for youthful vowers of eternal
constancy, dressed chiefly in nankeen; and how soon those fetters had
withered and broken.

Sitting on the window-seat, and looking out upon the sparrows and
the blink of sun, Miss Tox thought likewise of her good Mama deceased
- sister to the owner of the powdered head and pigtail - of her
virtues and her rheumatism. And when a man with bulgy legs, and a
rough voice, and a heavy basket on his head that crushed his hat into
a mere black muffin, came crying flowers down Princess's Place, making
his timid little roots of daisies shudder in the vibration of every
yell he gave, as though he had been an ogre, hawking little children,
summer recollections were so strong upon Miss Tox, that she shook her
head, and murmured she would be comparatively old before she knew it -
which seemed likely.

In her pensive mood, Miss Tox's thoughts went wandering on Mr
Dombey's track; probably because the Major had returned home to his
lodgings opposite, and had just bowed to her from his window. What
other reason could Miss Tox have for connecting Mr Dombey with her
summer days and dandelion fetters? Was he more cheerful? thought Miss
Tox. Was he reconciled to the decrees of fate? Would he ever marry
again? and if yes, whom? What sort of person now!

A flush - it was warm weather - overspread Miss Tox's face, as,
while entertaining these meditations, she turned her head, and was
surprised by the reflection of her thoughtful image In the
chimney-glass. Another flush succeeded when she saw a little carriage
drive into Princess's Place, and make straight for her own door. Miss
Tox arose, took up her scissors hastily, and so coming, at last, to
the plants, was very busy with them when Mrs Chick entered the room.

'How is my sweetest friend!' exclaimed Miss Tox, with open arms.

A little stateliness was mingled with Miss Tox's sweetest friend's
demeanour, but she kissed Miss Tox, and said, 'Lucretia, thank you, I
am pretty well. I hope you are the same. Hem!'

Mrs Chick was labouring under a peculiar little monosyllabic cough;
a sort of primer, or easy introduction to the art of coughing.

'You call very early, and how kind that is, my dear!' pursued Miss
Tox. 'Now, have you breakfasted?'

'Thank you, Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'I have. I took an early
breakfast' - the good lady seemed curious on the subject of Princess's
Place, and looked all round it as she spoke - 'with my brother, who
has come home.'

'He is better, I trust, my love,' faltered Miss Tox.

'He is greatly better, thank you. Hem!'

'My dear Louisa must be careful of that cough' remarked Miss Tox.

'It's nothing,' returned Mrs Chic 'It's merely change of weather.
We must expect change.'

'Of weather?' asked Miss Tox, in her simplicity.

'Of everything' returned Mrs Chick 'Of course we must. It's a world
of change. Anyone would surprise me very much, Lucretia, and would
greatly alter my opinion of their understanding, if they attempted to
contradict or evade what is so perfectly evident. Change!' exclaimed
Mrs Chick, with severe philosophy. 'Why, my gracious me, what is there
that does not change! even the silkworm, who I am sure might be
supposed not to trouble itself about such subjects, changes into all
sorts of unexpected things continually.'

'My Louisa,' said the mild Miss Tox, 'is ever happy in her
illustrations.'

'You are so kind, Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, a little softened,
'as to say so, and to think so, I believe. I hope neither of us may
ever have any cause to lessen our opinion of the other, Lucretia.'

'I am sure of it,' returned Miss Tox.

Mrs Chick coughed as before, and drew lines on the carpet with the
ivory end of her parasol. Miss Tox, who had experience of her fair
friend, and knew that under the pressure of any slight fatigue or
vexation she was prone to a discursive kind of irritability, availed
herself of the pause, to change the subject.

'Pardon me, my dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'but have I caught
sight of the manly form of Mr Chick in the carriage?'

'He is there,' said Mrs Chick, 'but pray leave him there. He has
his newspaper, and would be quite contented for the next two hours. Go
on with your flowers, Lucretia, and allow me to sit here and rest.'

'My Louisa knows,' observed Miss Tox, 'that between friends like
ourselves, any approach to ceremony would be out of the question.
Therefore - ' Therefore Miss Tox finished the sentence, not in words
but action; and putting on her gloves again, which she had taken off,
and arming herself once more with her scissors, began to snip and clip
among the leaves with microscopic industry.

'Florence has returned home also,' said Mrs Chick, after sitting
silent for some time, with her head on one side, and her parasol
sketching on the floor; 'and really Florence is a great deal too old
now, to continue to lead that solitary life to which she has been
accustomed. Of course she is. There can be no doubt about it. I should
have very little respect, indeed, for anybody who could advocate a
different opinion. Whatever my wishes might be, I could not respect
them. We cannot command our feelings to such an extent as that.'

Miss Tox assented, without being particular as to the
intelligibility of the proposition.

'If she's a strange girl,' said Mrs Chick, 'and if my brother Paul
cannot feel perfectly comfortable in her society, after all the sad
things that have happened, and all the terrible disappointments that
have been undergone, then, what is the reply? That he must make an
effort. That he is bound to make an effort. We have always been a
family remarkable for effort. Paul is at the head of the family;
almost the only representative of it left - for what am I - I am of no
consequence - '

'My dearest love,' remonstrated Miss Tox.

Mrs Chick dried her eyes, which were, for the moment, overflowing;
and proceeded:

'And consequently he is more than ever bound to make an effort. And
though his having done so, comes upon me with a sort of shock - for
mine is a very weak and foolish nature; which is anything but a
blessing I am sure; I often wish my heart was a marble slab, or a
paving-stone -

'My sweet Louisa,' remonstrated Miss Tox again.

'Still, it is a triumph to me to know that he is so true to
himself, and to his name of Dombey; although, of course, I always knew
he would be. I only hope,' said Mrs Chick, after a pause, 'that she
may be worthy of the name too.

Miss Tox filled a little green watering-pot from a jug, and
happening to look up when she had done so, was so surprised by the
amount of expression Mrs Chick had conveyed into her face, and was
bestowing upon her, that she put the little watering-pot on the table
for the present, and sat down near it.

'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'will it be the least satisfaction
to you, if I venture to observe in reference to that remark, that I,
as a humble individual, think your sweet niece in every way most
promising?~ 'What do you mean, Lucretia?' returned Mrs Chick, with
increased stateliness of manner. 'To what remark of mine, my dear, do
you refer?'

'Her being worthy of her name, my love,' replied Miss Tox.

'If,' said Mrs Chick, with solemn patience, 'I have not expressed
myself with clearness, Lucretia, the fault of course is mine. There
is, perhaps, no reason why I should express myself at all, except the
intimacy that has subsisted between us, and which I very much hope,
Lucretia - confidently hope - nothing will occur to disturb. Because,
why should I do anything else? There is no reason; it would be absurd.
But I wish to express myself clearly, Lucretia; and therefore to go
back to that remark, I must beg to say that it was not intended to
relate to Florence, in any way.'

'Indeed!' returned Miss Tox.

'No,' said Mrs Chick shortly and decisively.

'Pardon me, my dear,' rejoined her meek friend; 'but I cannot have
understood it. I fear I am dull.'

Mrs Chick looked round the room and over the way; at the plants, at
the bird, at the watering-pot, at almost everything within view,
except Miss Tox; and finally dropping her glance upon Miss Tox, for a
moment, on its way to the ground, said, looking meanwhile with
elevated eyebrows at the carpet:

'When I speak, Lucretia, of her being worthy of the name, I speak
of my brother Paul's second wife. I believe I have already said, in
effect, if not in the very words I now use, that it is his intention
to marry a second wife.'

Miss Tox left her seat in a hurry, and returned to her plants;
clipping among the stems and leaves, with as little favour as a barber
working at so many pauper heads of hair.

'Whether she will be fully sensible of the distinction conferred
upon her,' said Mrs Chick, in a lofty tone, 'is quite another
question. I hope she may be. We are bound to think well of one another
in this world, and I hope she may be. I have not been advised with
myself If I had been advised with, I have no doubt my advice would
have been cavalierly received, and therefore it is infinitely better
as it is. I much prefer it as it is.'

Miss Tox, with head bent down, still clipped among the plants. Mrs
Chick, with energetic shakings of her own head from time to time,
continued to hold forth, as if in defiance of somebody. 'If my brother
Paul had consulted with me, which he sometimes does - or rather,
sometimes used to do; for he will naturally do that no more now, and
this is a circumstance which I regard as a relief from
responsibility,' said Mrs Chick, hysterically, 'for I thank Heaven I
am not jealous - ' here Mrs Chick again shed tears: 'if my brother
Paul had come to me, and had said, "Louisa, what kind of qualities
would you advise me to look out for, in a wife?" I should certainly
have answered, "Paul, you must have family, you must have beauty, you
must have dignity, you must have connexion." Those are the words I
should have used. You might have led me to the block immediately
afterwards,' said Mrs Chick, as if that consequence were highly
probable, 'but I should have used them. I should have said, "Paul! You
to marry a second time without family! You to marry without beauty!
You to marry without dignity! You to marry without connexion! There is
nobody in the world, not mad, who could dream of daring to entertain
such a preposterous idea!"'

Miss Tox stopped clipping; and with her head among the plants,
listened attentively. Perhaps Miss Tox thought there was hope in this
exordium, and the warmth of Mrs Chick.

I should have adopted this course of argument,' pursued the
discreet lady, 'because I trust I am not a fool. I make no claim to be
considered a person of superior intellect - though I believe some
people have been extraordinary enough to consider me so; one so little
humoured as I am, would very soon be disabused of any such notion; but
I trust I am not a downright fool. And to tell ME,' said Mrs Chick
with ineffable disdain, 'that my brother Paul Dombey could ever
contemplate the possibility of uniting himself to anybody - I don't
care who' - she was more sharp and emphatic in that short clause than
in any other part of her discourse - 'not possessing these requisites,
would be to insult what understanding I have got, as much as if I was
to be told that I was born and bred an elephant, which I may be told
next,' said Mrs Chick, with resignation. 'It wouldn't surprise me at
all. I expect it.'

In the moment's silence that ensued, Miss Tox's scissors gave a
feeble clip or two; but Miss Tox's face was still invisible, and Miss
Tox's morning gown was agitated. Mrs Chick looked sideways at her,
through the intervening plants, and went on to say, in a tone of bland
conviction, and as one dwelling on a point of fact that hardly
required to be stated:

'Therefore, of course my brother Paul has done what was to be
expected of him, and what anybody might have foreseen he would do, if
he entered the marriage state again. I confess it takes me rather by
surprise, however gratifying; because when Paul went out of town I had
no idea at all that he would form any attachment out of town, and he
certainly had no attachment when he left here. However, it seems to be
extremely desirable in every point of view. I have no doubt the mother
is a most genteel and elegant creature, and I have no right whatever
to dispute the policy of her living with them: which is Paul's affair,
not mine - and as to Paul's choice, herself, I have only seen her
picture yet, but that is beautiful indeed. Her name is beautiful too,'
said Mrs Chick, shaking her head with energy, and arranging herself in
her chair; 'Edith is at once uncommon, as it strikes me, and
distinguished. Consequently, Lucretia, I have no doubt you will be
happy to hear that the marriage is to take place immediately - of
course, you will:' great emphasis again: 'and that you are delighted
with this change in the condition of my brother, who has shown you a
great deal of pleasant attention at various times.'

Miss Tox made no verbal answer, but took up the little watering-pot
with a trembling hand, and looked vacantly round as if considering
what article of furniture would be improved by the contents. The room
door opening at this crisis of Miss Tox's feelings, she started,
laughed aloud, and fell into the arms of the person entering; happily
insensible alike of Mrs Chick's indignant countenance and of the Major
at his window over the way, who had his double-barrelled eye-glass in
full action, and whose face and figure were dilated with
Mephistophelean joy.

Not so the expatriated Native, amazed supporter of Miss Tox's
swooning form, who, coming straight upstairs, with a polite inquiry
touching Miss Tox's health (in exact pursuance of the Major's
malicious instructions), had accidentally arrived in the very nick of
time to catch the delicate burden in his arms, and to receive the
content' of the little watering-pot in his shoe; both of which
circumstances, coupled with his consciousness of being closely watched
by the wrathful Major, who had threatened the usual penalty in regard
of every bone in his skin in case of any failure, combined to render
him a moving spectacle of mental and bodily distress.

For some moments, this afflicted foreigner remained clasping Miss
Tox to his heart, with an energy of action in remarkable opposition to
his disconcerted face, while that poor lady trickled slowly down upon
him the very last sprinklings of the little watering-pot, as if he
were a delicate exotic (which indeed he was), and might be almost
expected to blow while the gentle rain descended. Mrs Chick, at length
recovering sufficient presence of mind to interpose, commanded him to
drop Miss Tox upon the sofa and withdraw; and the exile promptly
obeying, she applied herself to promote Miss Tox's recovery.

But none of that gentle concern which usually characterises the
daughters of Eve in their tending of each other; none of that
freemasonry in fainting, by which they are generally bound together In
a mysterious bond of sisterhood; was visible in Mrs Chick's demeanour.
Rather like the executioner who restores the victim to sensation
previous to proceeding with the torture (or was wont to do so, in the
good old times for which all true men wear perpetual mourning), did
Mrs Chick administer the smelling-bottle, the slapping on the hands,
the dashing of cold water on the face, and the other proved remedies.
And when, at length, Miss Tox opened her eyes, and gradually became
restored to animation and consciousness, Mrs Chick drew off as from a
criminal, and reversing the precedent of the murdered king of Denmark,
regarded her more in anger than In sorrow.'

'Lucretia!' said Mrs Chick 'I will not attempt to disguise what I
feel. My eyes are opened, all at once. I wouldn't have believed this,
if a Saint had told it to me.

'I am foolish to give way to faintness,' Miss Tox faltered. 'I
shall be better presently.'

'You will be better presently, Lucretia!' repeated Mrs Chick, with
exceeding scorn. 'Do you suppose I am blind? Do you imagine I am in my
second childhood? No, Lucretia! I am obliged to you!'

Miss Tox directed an imploring, helpless kind of look towards her
friend, and put her handkerchief before her face.

'If anyone had told me this yesterday,' said Mrs Chick, with
majesty, 'or even half-an-hour ago, I should have been tempted, I
almost believe, to strike them to the earth. Lucretia Tox, my eyes are
opened to you all at once. The scales:' here Mrs Chick cast down an
imaginary pair, such as are commonly used in grocers' shops: 'have
fallen from my sight. The blindness of my confidence is past,
Lucretia. It has been abused and played, upon, and evasion is quite
out of the question now, I assure you.

'Oh! to what do you allude so cruelly, my love?' asked Miss Tox,
through her tears.

'Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'ask your own heart. I must entreat you
not to address me by any such familiar term as you have just used, if
you please. I have some self-respect left, though you may think
otherwise.'

'Oh, Louisa!' cried Miss Tox. 'How can you speak to me like that?'

'How can I speak to you like that?' retorted Mrs Chick, who, in
default of having any particular argument to sustain herself upon,
relied principally on such repetitions for her most withering effects.
'Like that! You may well say like that, indeed!'

Miss Tox sobbed pitifully.

'The idea!' said Mrs Chick, 'of your having basked at my brother's
fireside, like a serpent, and wound yourself, through me, almost into
his confidence, Lucretia, that you might, in secret, entertain designs
upon him, and dare to aspire to contemplate the possibility of his
uniting himself to you! Why, it is an idea,' said Mrs Chick, with
sarcastic dignity, 'the absurdity of which almost relieves its
treachery.'

'Pray, Louisa,' urged Miss Tox, 'do not say such dreadful things.'

'Dreadful things!' repeated Mrs Chick. 'Dreadful things! Is it not
a fact, Lucretia, that you have just now been unable to command your
feelings even before me, whose eyes you had so completely closed?'

'I have made no complaint,' sobbed Miss Tox. 'I have said nothing.
If I have been a little overpowered by your news, Louisa, and have
ever had any lingering thought that Mr Dombey was inclined to be
particular towards me, surely you will not condemn me.'

'She is going to say,' said Mrs Chick, addressing herself to the
whole of the furniture, in a comprehensive glance of resignation and
appeal, 'She is going to say - I know it - that I have encouraged
her!'

'I don't wish to exchange reproaches, dear Louisa,' sobbed Miss Tox
'Nor do I wish to complain. But, in my own defence - '

'Yes,' cried Mrs Chick, looking round the room with a prophetic
smile, 'that's what she's going to say. I knew it. You had better say
it. Say it openly! Be open, Lucretia Tox,' said Mrs Chick, with
desperate sternness, 'whatever you are.'

'In my own defence,' faltered Miss Tox, 'and only In my own defence
against your unkind words, my dear Louisa, I would merely ask you if
you haven't often favoured such a fancy, and even said it might
happen, for anything we could tell?'

'There is a point,' said Mrs Chick, rising, not as if she were
going to stop at the floor, but as if she were about to soar up, high,
into her native skies, 'beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if
not culpable. I can bear much; but not too much. What spell was on me
when I came into this house this day, I don't know; but I had a
presentiment - a dark presentiment,' said Mrs Chick, with a shiver,
'that something was going to happen. Well may I have had that
foreboding, Lucretia, when my confidence of many years is destroyed in
an instant, when my eyes are opened all at once, and when I find you
revealed in your true colours. Lucretia, I have been mistaken in you.
It is better for us both that this subject should end here. I wish you
well, and I shall ever wish you well. But, as an individual who
desires to be true to herself in her own poor position, whatever that
position may be, or may not be - and as the sister of my brother - and
as the sister-in-law of my brother's wife - and as a connexion by
marriage of my brother's wife's mother - may I be permitted to add, as
a Dombey? - I can wish you nothing else but good morning.'

These words, delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened
by a lofty air of moral rectitude, carried the speaker to the door.
There she inclined her head in a ghostly and statue-like manner, and
so withdrew to her carriage, to seek comfort and consolation in the
arms of Mr Chick, her lord.

Figuratively speaking, that is to say; for the arms of Mr Chick
were full of his newspaper. Neither did that gentleman address his
eyes towards his wife otherwise than by stealth. Neither did he offer
any consolation whatever. In short, he sat reading, and humming fag
ends of tunes, and sometimes glancing furtively at her without
delivering himself of a word, good, bad, or indifferent.

In the meantime Mrs Chick sat swelling and bridling, and tossing
her head, as if she were still repeating that solemn formula of
farewell to Lucretia Tox. At length, she said aloud, 'Oh the extent to
which her eyes had been opened that day!'

'To which your eyes have been opened, my dear!' repeated Mr Chick.

'Oh, don't talk to me!' said Mrs Chic 'if you can bear to see me in
this state, and not ask me what the matter is, you had better hold
your tongue for ever.'

'What is the matter, my dear?' asked Mr Chick

'To think,' said Mrs Chick, in a state of soliloquy, 'that she
should ever have conceived the base idea of connecting herself with
our family by a marriage with Paul! To think that when she was playing
at horses with that dear child who is now in his grave - I never liked
it at the time - she should have been hiding such a double-faced
design! I wonder she was never afraid that something would happen to
her. She is fortunate if nothing does.'

'I really thought, my dear,' said Mr Chick slowly, after rubbing
the bridge of his nose for some time with his newspaper, 'that you had
gone on the same tack yourself, all along, until this morning; and had
thought it would be a convenient thing enough, if it could have been
brought about.'

Mrs Chick instantly burst into tears, and told Mr Chick that if he
wished to trample upon her with his boots, he had better do It.

'But with Lucretia Tox I have done,' said Mrs Chick, after
abandoning herself to her feelings for some minutes, to Mr Chick's
great terror. 'I can bear to resign Paul's confidence in favour of one
who, I hope and trust, may be deserving of it, and with whom he has a
perfect right to replace poor Fanny if he chooses; I can bear to be
informed, In Paul's cool manner, of such a change in his plans, and
never to be consulted until all is settled and determined; but deceit
I can not bear, and with Lucretia Tox I have done. It is better as it
is,' said Mrs Chick, piously; 'much better. It would have been a long
time before I could have accommodated myself comfortably with her,
after this; and I really don't know, as Paul is going to be very
grand, and these are people of condition, that she would have been
quite presentable, and might not have compromised myself. There's a
providence in everything; everything works for the best; I have been
tried today but on the whole I do not regret it.'

In which Christian spirit, Mrs Chick dried her eyes and smoothed
her lap, and sat as became a person calm under a great wrong. Mr Chick
feeling his unworthiness no doubt, took an early opportunity of being
set down at a street corner and walking away whistling, with his
shoulders very much raised, and his hands in his pockets.

While poor excommunicated Miss Tox, who, if she were a fawner and
toad-eater, was at least an honest and a constant one, and had ever
borne a faithful friendship towards her impeacher and had been truly
absorbed and swallowed up in devotion to the magnificence of Mr Dombey
- while poor excommunicated Miss Tox watered her plants with her
tears, and felt that it was winter in Princess's Place.

CHAPTER 30.

The interval before the Marriage

Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had
broken into it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and
down stairs all day long keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxysm of
barking, from sunrise to sunset - evidently convinced that his enemy
had got the better of him at last, and was then sacking the premises
in triumphant defiance - there was, at first, no other great change in
the method of Florence's life. At night, when the workpeople went
away, the house was dreary and deserted again; and Florence, listening
to their voices echoing through the hall and staircase as they
departed, pictured to herself the cheerful homes to which the were
returning, and the children who were waiting for them, and was glad to
think that they were merry and well pleased to go.

She welcomed back the evening silence as an old friend, but it came
now with an altered face, and looked more kindly on her. Fresh hope
was in it. The beautiful lady who had soothed and carressed her, in
the very room in which her heart had been so wrung, was a spirit of
promise to her. Soft shadows of the bright life dawning, when her
father's affection should be gradually won, and all, or much should be
restored, of what she had lost on the dark day when a mother's love
had faded with a mother's last breath on her cheek, moved about her in
the twilight and were welcome company. Peeping at the rosy children
her neighbours, it was a new and precious sensation to think that they
might soon speak together and know each other; when she would not
fear, as of old, to show herself before them, lest they should be
grieved to see her in her black dress sitting there alone!

In her thoughts of her new mother, and in the love and trust
overflowing her pure heart towards her, Florence loved her own dead
mother more and more. She had no fear of setting up a rival in her
breast. The new flower sprang from the deep-planted and long-cherished
root, she knew. Every gentle word that had fallen from the lips of the
beautiful lady, sounded to Florence like an echo of the voice long
hushed and silent. How could she love that memory less for living
tenderness, when it was her memory of all parental tenderness and
love!

Florence was, one day, sitting reading in her room, and thinking of
the lady and her promised visit soon - for her book turned on a
kindred subject - when, raising her eyes, she saw her standing in the
doorway.

'Mama!' cried Florence, joyfully meeting her. 'Come again!'

'Not Mama yet,' returned the lady, with a serious smile, as she
encircled Florence's neck with her arm.

'But very soon to be,' cried Florence.

'Very soon now, Florence: very soon.

Edith bent her head a little, so as to press the blooming cheek of
Florence against her own, and for some few moments remained thus
silent. There was something so very tender in her manner, that
Florence was even more sensible of it than on the first occasion of
their meeting.

She led Florence to a chair beside her, and sat down: Florence
looking in her face, quite wondering at its beauty, and willingly
leaving her hand In hers.

'Have you been alone, Florence, since I was here last?'

'Oh yes!' smiled Florence, hastily.

She hesitated and cast down her eyes; for her new Mama was very
earnest in her look, and the look was intently and thoughtfully fixed
upon her face.

'I - I- am used to be alone,' said Florence. 'I don't mind it at
all. Di and I pass whole days together, sometimes.' Florence might
have said, whole weeks and months.

'Is Di your maid, love?'

'My dog, Mama,' said Florence, laughing. 'Susan is my maid.'

'And these are your rooms,' said Edith, looking round. 'I was not
shown these rooms the other day. We must have them improved, Florence.
They shall be made the prettiest in the house.'

'If I might change them, Mama,' returned Florence; 'there is one
upstairs I should like much better.'

'Is this not high enough, dear girl?' asked Edith, smiling.

'The other was my brother's room,' said Florence, 'and I am very
fond of it. I would have spoken to Papa about it when I came home, and
found the workmen here, and everything changing; but - '

Florence dropped her eyes, lest the same look should make her
falter again.

'but I was afraid it might distress him; and as you said you would
be here again soon, Mama, and are the mistress of everything, I
determined to take courage and ask you.'

Edith sat looking at her, with her brilliant eyes intent upon her
face, until Florence raising her own, she, in her turn, withdrew her
gaze, and turned it on the ground. It was then that Florence thought
how different this lady's beauty was, from what she had supposed. She
had thought it of a proud and lofty kind; yet her manner was so
subdued and gentle, that if she had been of Florence's own age and
character, it scarcely could have invited confidence more.

Except when a constrained and singular reserve crept over her; and
then she seemed (but Florence hardly understood this, though she could
not choose but notice it, and think about it) as if she were humbled
before Florence, and ill at ease. When she had said that she was not
her Mama yet, and when Florence had called her the mistress of
everything there, this change in her was quick and startling; and now,
while the eyes of Florence rested on her face, she sat as though she
would have shrunk and hidden from her, rather than as one about to
love and cherish her, in right of such a near connexion.

She gave Florence her ready promise, about her new room, and said
she would give directions about it herself. She then asked some
questions concerning poor Paul; and when they had sat in conversation
for some time, told Florence she had come to take her to her own home.

'We have come to London now, my mother and I,' said Edith, 'and you
shall stay with us until I am married. I wish that we should know and
trust each other, Florence.'

'You are very kind to me,' said Florence, 'dear Mama. How much I
thank you!'

'Let me say now, for it may be the best opportunity,' continued
Edith, looking round to see that they were quite alone, and speaking
in a lower voice, 'that when I am married, and have gone away for some
weeks, I shall be easier at heart if you will come home here. No
matter who invites you to stay elsewhere. Come home here. It is better
to be alone than - what I would say is,' she added, checking herself,
'that I know well you are best at home, dear Florence.'

'I will come home on the very day, Mama'

'Do so. I rely on that promise. Now, prepare to come with me, dear
girl. You will find me downstairs when you are ready.'

Slowly and thoughtfully did Edith wander alone through the mansion
of which she was so soon to be the lady: and little heed took she of
all the elegance and splendour it began to display. The same
indomitable haughtiness of soul, the same proud scorn expressed in eye
and lip, the same fierce beauty, only tamed by a sense of its own
little worth, and of the little worth of everything around it, went
through the grand saloons and halls, that had got loose among the
shady trees, and raged and rent themselves. The mimic roses on the
walls and floors were set round with sharp thorns, that tore her
breast; in every scrap of gold so dazzling to the eye, she saw some
hateful atom of her purchase-money; the broad high mirrors showed her,
at full length, a woman with a noble quality yet dwelling in her
nature, who was too false to her better self, and too debased and
lost, to save herself. She believed that all this was so plain, more
or less, to all eyes, that she had no resource or power of
self-assertion but in pride: and with this pride, which tortured her
own heart night and day, she fought her fate out, braved it, and
defied it.

Was this the woman whom Florence - an innocent girl, strong only in
her earnestness and simple truth - could so impress and quell, that by
her side she was another creature, with her tempest of passion hushed,
and her very pride itself subdued? Was this the woman who now sat
beside her in a carriage, with her arms entwined, and who, while she
courted and entreated her to love and trust her, drew her fair head to
nestle on her breast, and would have laid down life to shield it from
wrong or harm?

Oh, Edith! it were well to die, indeed, at such a time! Better and
happier far, perhaps, to die so, Edith, than to live on to the end!

The Honourable Mrs Skewton, who was thinking of anything rather
than of such sentiments - for, like many genteel persons who have
existed at various times, she set her face against death altogether,
and objected to the mention of any such low and levelling upstart -
had borrowed a house in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, from a stately
relative (one of the Feenix brood), who was out of town, and who did
not object to lending it, in the handsomest manner, for nuptial
purposes, as the loan implied his final release and acquittance from
all further loans and gifts to Mrs Skewton and her daughter. It being
necessary for the credit of the family to make a handsome appearance
at such a time, Mrs Skewton, with the assistance of an accommodating
tradesman resident In the parish of Mary-le-bone, who lent out all
sorts of articles to the nobility and gentry, from a service of plate
to an army of footmen, clapped into this house a silver-headed butler
(who was charged extra on that account, as having the appearnce of an
ancient family retainer), two very tall young men in livery, and a
select staff of kitchen-servants; so that a legend arose, downstairs,
that Withers the page, released at once from his numerous household
duties, and from the propulsion of the wheeled-chair (inconsistent
with the metropolis), had been several times observed to rub his eyes
and pinch his limbs, as if he misdoubted his having overslept himself
at the Leamington milkman's, and being still in a celestial dream. A
variety of requisites in plate and china being also conveyed to the
same establishment from the same convenient source, with several
miscellaneous articles, including a neat chariot and a pair of bays,
Mrs Skewton cushioned herself on the principal sofa, in the Cleopatra
attitude, and held her court in fair state.

'And how,' said Mrs Skewton, on the entrance of her daughter and
her charge, 'is my charming Florence? You must come and kiss me,
Florence, if you please, my love.'

Florence was timidly stooping to pick out a place In the white part
of Mrs Skewton's face, when that lady presented her ear, and relieved
her of her difficulty.

'Edith, my dear,' said Mrs Skewton, 'positively, I - stand a little
more in the light, my sweetest Florence, for a moment.

Florence blushingly complied.

'You don't remember, dearest Edith,' said her mother, 'what you
were when you were about the same age as our exceedingly precious
Florence, or a few years younger?'

'I have long forgotten, mother.'

'For positively, my dear,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I do think that I see
a decided resemblance to what you were then, in our extremely
fascinating young friend. And it shows,' said Mrs Skewton, in a lower
voice, which conveyed her opinion that Florence was in a very
unfinished state, 'what cultivation will do.'

'It does, indeed,' was Edith's stern reply.

Her mother eyed her sharply for a moment, and feeling herself on
unsafe ground, said, as a diversion:

'My charming Florence, you must come and kiss me once more, if you
please, my love.'

Florence complied, of course, and again imprinted her lips on Mrs
Skewton's ear.

'And you have heard, no doubt, my darling pet,' said Mrs Skewton,
detaining her hand, 'that your Papa, whom we all perfectly adore and
dote upon, is to be married to my dearest Edith this day week.'

'I knew it would be very soon,' returned Florence, 'but not exactly
when.'

'My darling Edith,' urged her mother, gaily, 'is it possible you
have not told Florence?'

'Why should I tell Florence?' she returned, so suddenly and
harshly, that Florence could scarcely believe it was the same voice.

Mrs Skewton then told Florence, as another and safer diversion,
that her father was coming to dinner, and that he would no doubt be
charmingly surprised to see her; as he had spoken last night of
dressing in the City, and had known nothing of Edith's design, the
execution of which, according to Mrs Skewton's expectation, would
throw him into a perfect ecstasy. Florence was troubled to hear this;
and her distress became so keen, as the dinner-hour approached, that
if she had known how to frame an entreaty to be suffered to return
home, without involving her father in her explanation, she would have
hurried back on foot, bareheaded, breathless, and alone, rather than
incur the risk of meeting his displeasure.

As the time drew nearer, she could hardly breathe. She dared not
approach a window, lest he should see her from the street. She dared
not go upstairs to hide her emotion, lest, in passing out at the door,
she should meet him unexpectedly; besides which dread, she felt as
though she never could come back again if she were summoned to his
presence. In this conflict of fears; she was sitting by Cleopatra's
couch, endeavouring to understand and to reply to the bald discourse
of that lady, when she heard his foot upon the stair.

'I hear him now!' cried Florence, starting. 'He is coming!'

Cleopatra, who in her juvenility was always playfully disposed, and
who in her self-engrossment did not trouble herself about the nature
of this agitation, pushed Florence behind her couch, and dropped a
shawl over her, preparatory to giving Mr Dombey a rapture of surprise.
It was so quickly done, that in a moment Florence heard his awful step
in the room.

He saluted his intended mother-in-law, and his intended bride. The
strange sound of his voice thrilled through the whole frame of his
child.

'My dear Dombey,' said Cleopatra, 'come here and tell me how your
pretty Florence is.'

'Florence is very well,' said Mr Dombey, advancing towards the
couch.

'At home?'

'At home,' said Mr Dombey.

'My dear Dombey,' returned Cleopatra, with bewitching vivacity;
'now are you sure you are not deceiving me? I don't know what my
dearest Edith will say to me when I make such a declaration, but upon
my honour I am afraid you are the falsest of men, my dear Dombey.'

Though he had been; and had been detected on the spot, in the most
enormous falsehood that was ever said or done; he could hardly have
been more disconcerted than he was, when Mrs Skewton plucked the shawl
away, and Florence, pale and trembling, rose before him like a ghost.
He had not yet recovered his presence of mind, when Florence had run
up to him, clasped her hands round his neck, kissed his face, and
hurried out of the room. He looked round as if to refer the matter to
somebody else, but Edith had gone after Florence, instantly.

'Now, confess, my dear Dombey,' said Mrs Skewton, giving him her
hand, 'that you never were more surprised and pleased in your life.'

'I never was more surprised,' said Mr Dombey.

'Nor pleased, my dearest Dombey?' returned Mrs Skewton, holding up
her fan.

'I - yes, I am exceedingly glad to meet Florence here,' said Mr
Dombey. He appeared to consider gravely about it for a moment, and
then said, more decidedly, 'Yes, I really am very glad indeed to meet
Florence here.'

'You wonder how she comes here?' said Mrs Skewton, 'don't you?'

'Edith, perhaps - ' suggested Mr Dombey.

'Ah! wicked guesser!' replied Cleopatra, shaking her head. 'Ah!
cunning, cunning man! One shouldn't tell these things; your sex, my
dear Dombey, are so vain, and so apt to abuse our weakness; but you
know my open soul - very well; immediately.'

This was addressed to one of the very tall young men who announced
dinner.

'But Edith, my dear Dombey,' she continued in a whisper, when she
cannot have you near her - and as I tell her, she cannot expect that
always - will at least have near her something or somebody belonging
to you. Well, how extremely natural that is! And in this spirit,
nothing would keep her from riding off to-day to fetch our darling
Florence. Well, how excessively charming that is!'

As she waited for an answer, Mr Dombey answered, 'Eminently so.

'Bless you, my dear Dombey, for that proof of heart!' cried
Cleopatra, squeezing his hand. 'But I am growing too serious! Take me
downstairs, like an angel, and let us see what these people intend to
give us for dinner. Bless you, dear Dombey!'

Cleopatra skipping off her couch with tolerable briskness, after
the last benediction, Mr Dombey took her arm in his and led her
ceremoniously downstairs; one of the very tall young men on hire,
whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his
tongue into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall
young man on hire, as the couple turned into the dining-room.

Florence and Edith were already there, and sitting side by side.
Florence would have risen when her father entered, to resign her chair
to him; but Edith openly put her hand upon her arm, and Mr Dombey took
an opposite place at the round table.

The conversation was almost entirely sustained by Mrs Skewton.
Florence hardly dared to raise her eyes, lest they should reveal the
traces of tears; far less dared to speak; and Edith never uttered one
word, unless in answer to a question. Verily, Cleopatra worked hard,
for the establishment that was so nearly clutched; and verily it
should have been a rich one to reward her!

And so your preparations are nearly finished at last, my dear
Dombey?' said Cleopatra, when the dessert was put upon the table, and
the silver-headed butler had withdrawn. 'Even the lawyers'
preparations!'

'Yes, madam,' replied Mr Dombey; 'the deed of settlement, the
professional gentlemen inform me, is now ready, and as I was
mentioning to you, Edith has only to do us the favour to suggest her
own time for its execution.'

Edith sat like a handsome statue; as cold, as silent, and as still.

'My dearest love,' said Cleopatra, 'do you hear what Mr Dombey
says? Ah, my dear Dombey!' aside to that gentleman, 'how her absence,
as the time approaches, reminds me of the days, when that most
agreeable of creatures, her Papa, was in your situation!'

'I have nothing to suggest. It shall be when you please,' said
Edith, scarcely looking over the table at Mr Dombey.

'To-morrow?' suggested Mr Dombey.

'If you please.'

'Or would next day,' said Mr Dombey, 'suit your engagements
better?'

'I have no engagements. I am always at your disposal. Let it be
when you like.'

'No engagements, my dear Edith!' remonstrated her mother, 'when you
are in a most terrible state of flurry all day long, and have a
thousand and one appointments with all sorts of trades-people!'

'They are of your making,' returned Edith, turning on her with a
slight contraction of her brow. 'You and Mr Dombey can arrange between
you.'

'Very true indeed, my love, and most considerate of you!' said
Cleopatra. 'My darling Florence, you must really come and kiss me once
more, if you please, my dear!'

Singular coincidence, that these gushes of interest In Florence
hurried Cleopatra away from almost every dialogue in which Edith had a
share, however trifling! Florence had certainly never undergone so
much embracing, and perhaps had never been, unconsciously, so useful
in her life.

Mr Dombey was far from quarrelling, in his own breast, with the
manner of his beautiful betrothed. He had that good reason for
sympathy with haughtiness and coldness, which is found In a
fellow-feeling. It flattered him to think how these deferred to him,
in Edith's case, and seemed to have no will apart from his. It
flattered him to picture to himself, this proud and stately woman
doing the honours of his house, and chilling his guests after his own
manner. The dignity of Dombey and Son would be heightened and
maintained, indeed, in such hands.

So thought Mr Dombey, when he was left alone at the dining-table,
and mused upon his past and future fortunes: finding no uncongeniality
in an air of scant and gloomy state that pervaded the room, in colour
a dark brown, with black hatchments of pictures blotching the walls,
and twenty-four black chairs, with almost as many nails in them as so
many coffins, waiting like mutes, upon the threshold of the Turkey
carpet; and two exhausted negroes holding up two withered branches of
candelabra on the sideboard, and a musty smell prevailing as if the
ashes of ten thousand dinners were entombed in the sarcophagus below
it. The owner of the house lived much abroad; the air of England
seldom agreed long with a member of the Feenix family; and the room
had gradually put itself into deeper and still deeper mourning for
him, until it was become so funereal as to want nothing but a body in
it to be quite complete.

No bad representation of the body, for the nonce, in his unbending
form, if not in his attitude, Mr Dombey looked down into the cold
depths of the dead sea of mahogany on which the fruit dishes and
decanters lay at anchor: as if the subjects of his thoughts were
rising towards the surface one by one, and plunging down again. Edith
was there In all her majesty of brow and figure; and close to her came
Florence, with her timid head turned to him, as it had been, for an
instant, when she left the room; and Edith's eyes upon her, and
Edith's hand put out protectingly. A little figure in a low arm-chair
came springing next into the light, and looked upon him wonderingly,
with its bright eyes and its old-young face, gleaming as in the
flickering of an evening fire. Again came Florence close upon it, and
absorbed his whole attention. Whether as a fore-doomed difficulty and
disappointment to him; whether as a rival who had crossed him in his
way, and might again; whether as his child, of whom, in his successful
wooing, he could stoop to think as claiming, at such a time, to be no
more estranged; or whether as a hint to him that the mere appearance
of caring for his own blood should be maintained in his new relations;
he best knew. Indifferently well, perhaps, at best; for marriage
comp