sion, 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