the lady in the chair, 'Major Bagstock!'
     The Major no sooner  heard the voice, than  he relinquished Mr Dombey's
arm, darted  forward, took the  hand of the lady in the chair and pressed it
to  his lips. With no less gallantry, the Major folded both his gloves  upon
his  heart,  and  bowed low  to the  other lady.  And now, the  chair having
stopped,  the motive power  became  visible in the  shape of a  flushed page
pushing behind, who seemed to have in part outgrown  and in  part out-pushed
his strength, for when he stood upright he was  tall, and wan, and thin, and
his plight appeared  the more forlorn from his  having injured the  shape of
his hat, by butting at the carriage with his head to urge it forward, as  is
sometimes done by elephants in Oriental countries.
     'Joe Bagstock,' said  the  Major to both ladies,  'is a proud and happy
man for the rest of his life.'
     'You false creature!  said the old lady in the chair, insipidly. 'Where
do you come from? I can't bear you.'
     'Then  suffer old Joe  to  present  a friend, Ma'am,'  said the  Major,
promptly,  'as a reason for  being  tolerated.  Mr Dombey, Mrs Skewton.' The
lady  in the chair was gracious. 'Mr Dombey, Mrs Granger.' The lady with the
parasol was faintly conscious of Mr Dombey's taking off  his hat, and bowing
low. 'I am delighted, Sir,' said the Major, 'to have this opportunity.'
     The Major seemed in earnest, for he looked at all the three, and leered
in his ugliest manner.
     'Mrs Skewton, Dombey,' said the Major, 'makes havoc in the heart of old
Josh.'
     Mr Dombey signified that he didn't wonder at it.
     'You perfidious goblin,' said the lady in  the  chair, 'have done!  How
long have you been here, bad man?'
     'One day,' replied the Major.
     'And can you  be a day, or even a minute,' returned the  lady, slightly
settling  her false curls  and false eyebrows with her fan,  and showing her
false  teeth,  set  off  by  her  false  complexion,  'in  the   garden   of
what's-its-name
     'Eden, I suppose, Mama,' interrupted the younger lady, scornfully.
     'My  dear  Edith,'  said the  other,  'I cannot  help  it. I never  can
remember those  frightful names - without having your whole  Soul and  Being
inspired by the sight of Nature; by the perfume,' said Mrs Skewton, rustling
a handkerchief  that was  faint  and sickly with  essences, 'of her  artless
breath, you creature!'
     The  discrepancy between  Mrs Skewton's  fresh enthusiasm of words, and
forlornly faded manner, was  hardly less  observable than  that  between her
age, which was about seventy, and her dress, which  would have been youthful
for twenty-seven. Her attitude in the wheeled chair (which she never varied)
was one in which she had  been taken in a barouche, some fifty years before,
by a  then fashionable artist who had  appended  to his published sketch the
name of Cleopatra: in consequence of a discovery made by  the critics of the
time, that it bore an exact resemblance to that Princess as  she reclined on
board  her  galley.  Mrs   Skewton  was  a  beauty  then,  and  bucks  threw
wine-glasses over their  heads by dozens  in  her honour. The beauty and the
barouche had both passed away, but she still preserved the attitude, and for
this reason expressly, maintained  the wheeled  chair and the  butting page:
there being  nothing  whatever, except  the  attitude, to prevent  her  from
walking.
     'Mr Dombey is  devoted to Nature, I trust?' said  Mrs Skewton, settling
her diamond brooch. And by the way, she chiefly lived upon the reputation of
some diamonds, and her family connexions.
     'My friend Dombey,  Ma'am,'  returned the Major, 'may be devoted to her
in secret, but a man who is paramount in the greatest city in the universe -
     'No one  can be a stranger,' said  Mrs Skewton, 'to Mr Dombey's immense
influence.'
     As Mr Dombey acknowledged the  compliment with a bend of his  head, the
younger lady glancing at him, met his eyes.
     'You reside here, Madam?' said Mr Dombey, addressing her.
     'No, we have been to a great many places. To Harrogate and Scarborough,
and into Devonshire. We have been visiting, and resting here and there. Mama
likes change.'
     'Edith of course does not,' said Mrs Skewton, with a ghastly archness.
     'I have not found that  there is any  change in  such  places,' was the
answer, delivered with supreme indifference.
     'They libel  me.  There  is only  one change, Mr  Dombey,' observed Mrs
Skewton, with a mincing  sigh, 'for  which I really care, and that I fear  I
shall never  be permitted to enjoy.  People cannot spare  one. But seclusion
and contemplation are my what-his-name - '
     'If you mean Paradise,  Mama, you had better say so, to render yourself
intelligible,' said the younger lady.
     'My dearest  Edith,'  returned Mrs Skewton, 'you know  that I am wholly
dependent upon you for those odious  names. I  assure you, Mr Dombey, Nature
intended  me  for  an Arcadian. I  am  thrown  away in society. Cows  are my
passion.  What I have ever sighed for,  has been to retreat to a Swiss farm,
and live entirely surrounded by cows - and china.'
     This  curious association of objects, suggesting a remembrance  of  the
celebrated bull who got  by  mistake into a crockery shop, was received with
perfect gravity by Mr  Dombey, who intimated his opinion that Nature was, no
doubt, a very respectable institution.
     'What I want,' drawled Mrs Skewton, pinching her shrivelled throat, 'is
heart.' It was frightfully  true in one  sense, if not in  that in which she
used   the   phrase.   'What  I  want,   is  frankness,   confidence,   less
conventionality, and freer play of soul. We are so dreadfully artificial.'
     We were, indeed.
     'In short,' said Mrs Skewton, 'I want Nature everywhere. It would be so
extremely charming.'
     'Nature  is inviting  us away now, Mama,  if  you are  ready,' said the
younger lady, curling her handsome lip. At this hint, the  wan page, who had
been surveying  the party over the top of the  chair, vanished behind it, as
if the ground had swallowed him up.
     'Stop a moment, Withers!' said Mrs Skewton, as the chair began to move;
calling to the page with all  the languid dignity with  which she had called
in  days of yore  to  a coachman  with a wig, cauliflower  nosegay, and silk
stockings. 'Where are  you staying,  abomination?' The Major  was staying at
the Royal Hotel, with his friend Dombey.
     'You may come and see  us any evening  when  you are good,'  lisped Mrs
Skewton. 'If Mr Dombey will honour us, we shall be happy. Withers, go on!'
     The  Major again pressed to  his blue lips the tips of the fingers that
were disposed  on the ledge  of the wheeled chair with careful carelessness,
after the Cleopatra model: and Mr Dombey bowed. The elder lady honoured them
both with a very gracious smile and a girlish wave  of her hand; the younger
lady with  the  very slightest  inclination of her head that common courtesy
allowed.
     The  last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the mother, with that patched
colour on  it which the sun made infinitely more haggard and dismal than any
want of colour could have been, and of the proud beauty of the daughter with
her  graceful  figure  and erect deportment, engendered such  an involuntary
disposition on the part of both  the Major and Mr Dombey to look after them,
that they both turned at the same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as
his  own  shadow,  was  toiling   after  the  chair,  uphill,  like  a  slow
battering-ram;  the top of Cleopatra's bonnet was fluttering  in exactly the
same corner to the inch as before; and  the Beauty, loitering by  herself  a
little in advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the
same supreme disregard of everything and everybody.
     'I tell  you  what, Sir,'  said the  Major,  as they resumed their walk
again. 'If Joe Bagstock were a younger man, there's not a woman in the world
whom he'd prefer for Mrs  Bagstock to that woman. By George, Sir!'  said the
Major, 'she's superb!'
     'Do you mean the daughter?' inquired Mr Dombey.
     'Is Joey B. a turnip, Dombey,' said the Major, 'that he should mean the
mother?'
     'You were complimentary to the mother,' returned Mr Dombey.
     'An ancient flame, Sir,' chuckled Major Bagstock. 'Devilish ancient.  I
humour her.'
     'She impresses me as being perfectly genteel,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Genteel, Sir,'  said the Major, stopping short,  and  staring  in  his
companion's  face. 'The Honourable Mrs  Skewton, Sir, is  sister to the late
Lord  Feenix,  and aunt to  the  present  Lord. The family are not wealthy -
they're poor, indeed - and she lives  upon a small jointure; but if you come
to  blood,  Sir!'  The Major  gave  a flourish  with his stick and walked on
again,  in despair  of being able to say  what  you came to, if you  came to
that.
     'You addressed the daughter, I observed,' said Mr Dombey, after a short
pause, 'as Mrs Granger.'
     'Edith Skewton,  Sir,' returned the  Major, stopping  short again,  and
punching a mark in the ground  with his cane, to represent her, 'married (at
eighteen)  Granger  of  Ours;'  whom the  Major indicated  by another punch.
'Granger, Sir,' said the Major, tapping the last ideal portrait, and rolling
his  head emphatically,  'was Colonel of Ours; a de-vilish  handsome fellow,
Sir, of forty-one. He died,  Sir, in the second  year of his marriage.'  The
Major ran the representative of the deceased Granger through and through the
body  with his walking-stick, and went on again, carrying his stick over his
shoulder.
     'How long is this ago?' asked Mr Dombey, making another halt.
     'Edith Granger, Sir,' replied the Major, shutting one eye, putting  his
head on one side, passing  his cane into his  left  hand, and smoothing  his
shirt-frill with his right, 'is, at this present time, not quite thirty. And
damme, Sir,' said the Major, shouldering his stick once more, and walking on
again, 'she's a peerless woman!'
     'Was there any family?' asked Mr Dombey presently.
     'Yes, Sir,' said the Major. 'There was a boy.'
     Mr Dombey's eyes sought the ground, and a shade came over his face.
     'Who was drowned, Sir,'  pursued  the Major. 'When a  child  of four or
five years old.'
     'Indeed?' said Mr Dombey, raising his head.
     'By the upsetting of a boat in which his nurse had  no business to have
put  him,' said  the  Major. 'That's  his  history.  Edith  Granger is Edith
Granger  still; but if tough old Joey B., Sir,  were a little younger  and a
little richer, the name of that immortal paragon should be Bagstock.'
     The  Major heaved his shoulders,  and his cheeks, and laughed more like
an over-fed Mephistopheles than ever, as he said the words.
     'Provided  the  lady made no  objection,  I  suppose?' said  Mr  Dombey
coldly.
     'By  Gad, Sir,' said the Major, 'the Bagstock breed are not  accustomed
to that  sort  of  obstacle. Though it's true enough that Edith  might  have
married twenty times, but for being proud, Sir, proud.'
     Mr Dombey seemed, by his face, to think no worse of her for that.
     'It's  a great quality after all,' said the Major. 'By the Lord, it's a
high quality! Dombey! You are  proud  yourself, and  your friend,  Old  Joe,
respects you for it, Sir.'
     With  this tribute  to the character of  his  ally, which seemed  to be
wrung from him  by the force of circumstances and the  irresistible tendency
of their conversation,  the  Major closed  the  subject,  and  glided into a
general exposition of the extent  to which he  had been beloved and doted on
by splendid women and brilliant creatures.
     On the next  day  but  one,  Mr  Dombey and the  Major encountered  the
Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter in  the Pump-room; on the day after,
they met them again very near the place where they had met them first. After
meeting  them thus, three or four times in  all, it became a  point  of mere
civility to old acquaintances that the Major should go there one evening. Mr
Dombey  had not  originally  intended  to  pay  visits,  but  on  the  Major
announcing  this  intention,  he  said  he  would  have   the   pleasure  of
accompanying him. So the Major told  the Native to  go  round before dinner,
and say, with his  and Mr Dombey's  compliments,  that  they  would have the
honour of visiting the ladies that same evening, if  the ladies were  alone.
In answer to which message, the Native brought back a very small note with a
very large quantity of scent about it, indited by the Honourable Mrs Skewton
to Major Bagstock, and briefly saying, 'You are a shocking bear and I have a
great  mind  not to forgive you, but if you are very good indeed,' which was
underlined,  'you  may  come. Compliments (in  which  Edith  unites)  to  Mr
Dombey.'
     The Honourable  Mrs  Skewton and her daughter,  Mrs  Granger,  resided,
while  at  Leamington,  in lodgings that  were fashionable enough  and  dear
enough, but rather limited in  point of space and conveniences;  so that the
Honourable  Mrs  Skewton, being in bed,  had her feet in the window  and her
head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid was quartered
in  a  closet within  the drawing-room,  so extremely small, that, to  avoid
developing the whole of its accommodations, she was obliged to writhe in and
out  of the door like a beautiful  serpent. Withers, the wan page, slept out
of  the house immediately under the tiles  at a neighbouring milk-shop;  and
the  wheeled chair, which was the  stone of  that young Sisyphus, passed the
night  in  a shed belonging  to the  same dairy,  where  new-laid eggs  were
produced  by the poultry connected with  the establishment, who roosted on a
broken donkey-cart, persuaded, to  all appearance, that  it grew  there, and
was a species of tree.
     Mr Dombey and the Major found Mrs Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra, among
the cushions of  a sofa: very  airily dressed; and certainly  not resembling
Shakespeare's  Cleopatra,  whom age could not wither. On  their way upstairs
they  had heard the  sound of a  harp,  but  it had  ceased  on  their being
announced, and Edith now stood beside it  handsomer and haughtier than ever.
It was a remarkable characteristic of this lady's beauty that it appeared to
vaunt and assert itself without her aid, and against her will. She knew that
she was beautiful:  it  was impossible that  it could  be otherwise: but she
seemed with her own pride to defy her very self.
     Whether   she  held  cheap  attractions  that  could  only  call  forth
admiration that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to render them
more  precious to admirers by  this usage of them,  those to  whom they were
precious seldom paused to consider.
     'I  hope, Mrs Granger,' said Mr Dombey, advancing  a step towards  her,
'we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?'
     'You! oh no!'
     'Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra.
     'I left off as I began - of my own fancy.'
     The  exquisite   indifference  of  her  manner  in  saying   this:   an
indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility, for it was pointed
with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with which she drew
her hand across the strings, and came from that part of the room.
     'Do you know, Mr Dombey,'  said her languishing mother,  playing with a
hand-screen, 'that occasionally my  dearest Edith and myself actually almost
differ - '
     'Not quite, sometimes, Mama?' said Edith.
     'Oh  never  quite,  my  darling!  Fie,  fie, it would  break my heart,'
returned  her mother, making  a  faint attempt to  pat  her with the screen,
which Edith made  no movement to meet, ' - about these old conventionalities
of manner that are observed  in little things? Why are  we not more natural?
Dear  me! With all those yearnings, and  gushings,  and impulsive throbbings
that we have implanted in our souls, and which are so very charming, why are
we not more natural?'
     Mr Dombey said it was very true, very true.
     'We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs Skewton.
     Mr Dombey thought it possible.
     'Devil  a bit, Ma'am,' said  the Major. 'We  couldn't afford it. Unless
the world was  peopled with J.B.'s -  tough and blunt old Joes, Ma'am, plain
red herrings with hard roes, Sir - we couldn't afford it. It wouldn't do.'
     'You naughty Infidel,' said Mrs Skewton, 'be mute.'
     'Cleopatra commands,' returned the Major, kissing his hand, 'and Antony
Bagstock obeys.'
     'The man has  no  sensitiveness,' said  Mrs Skewton, cruelly holding up
the hand-screen  so as to shut the Major out.  'No sympathy. And  what do we
live for but sympathy!  What else  is  so extremely charming!  Without  that
gleam of sunshine on our cold  cold earth,' said Mrs  Skewton, arranging her
lace  tucker, and  complacently observing the  effect  of her bare lean arm,
looking  upward from the  wrist, 'how could we possibly  bear it?  In short,
obdurate  man!'  glancing at the  Major, round the screen, 'I would have  my
world all heart;  and Faith is so  excessively charming, that I  won't allow
you to disturb it, do you hear?'
     The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the world to
be all heart, and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of all the world;
which obliged Cleopatra to  remind  him that flattery  was insupportable  to
her, and that if he had the boldness to address her in that strain any more,
she would positively send him home.
     Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr Dombey again
addressed himself to Edith.
     'There is not much company here, it would seem?' said Mr Dombey, in his
own portentous gentlemanly way.
     'I believe not. We see none.'
     'Why really,' observed Mrs Skewton fom her couch,  'there are no people
here just now with whom we care to associate.'
     'They  have  not  enough  heart,' said  Edith, with  a smile.  The very
twilight of a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness blended.
     'My dearest Edith rallies me, you see!' said  her mother,  shaking  her
head: which shook a  little of itself sometimes, as if the palsy Bed now and
then in opposition to the diamonds. 'Wicked one!'
     'You have  been  here before,  if I am not  mistaken?' said  Mr Dombey.
Still to Edith.
     'Oh, several times. I think we have been everywhere.'
     'A beautiful country!'
     'I suppose it is. Everybody says so.'
     'Your cousin Feenix raves about it, Edith,' interposed her  mother from
her couch.
     The  daughter  slightly  turned  her  graceful head,  and  raising  her
eyebrows by a hair's-breadth, as if her cousin Feenix were of all the mortal
world the least to be regarded, turned her eyes again towards Mr Dombey.
     'I  hope,  for  the credit of  my good  taste, that I  am tired  of the
neighbourhood,' she said.
     'You  have almost reason to  be,  Madam,'  he replied,  glancing  at  a
variety of landscape drawings, of which he had already recognised several as
representing neighbouring  points of view, and  which were strewn abundantly
about the room, 'if these beautiful productions are from your hand.'
     She gave him no reply, but sat in a disdainful beauty, quite amazing.
     'Have they that interest?' said Mr Dombey. 'Are they yours?'
     'Yes.'
     'And you play, I already know.'
     'Yes.'
     'And sing?'
     'Yes.'
     She  answered  all these questions with a  strange reluctance; and with
that remarkable air of opposition to herself, already  noticed as  belonging
to  her  beauty.  Yet  she  was not  embarrassed, but wholly self-possessed.
Neither did she  seem to  wish to avoid the conversation, for  she addressed
her face, and - so far as she could - her manner also, to him; and continued
to do so, when he was silent.
     'You have many resources against weariness at least,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Whatever  their efficiency may be,' she returned,  'you know  them all
now. I have no more.
     'May I hope  to prove them all?' said Mr Dombey, with solemn gallantry,
laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards the harp.
     'Oh certainly] If you desire it!'
     She  rose  as  she  spoke,  and crossing by  her  mother's  couch,  and
directing  a  stately  look towards  her,  which  was  instantaneous in  its
duration,  but  inclusive  (if  anyone  had  seen  it)  of  a  multitude  of
expressions,  among  which that  of  the twilight  smile,  without the smile
itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room.
     The Major,  who was quite forgiven  by this time, had wheeled a  little
table up  to Cleopatra,  and was sitting down to play picquet  with  her. Mr
Dombey, not knowing the  game, sat down  to watch  them  for his edification
until Edith should return.
     'We are going to have some music, Mr Dombey, I hope?' said Cleopatra.
     'Mrs Granger has been kind enough to promise so,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?'
     'No, Ma'am,' said the Major. 'Couldn't do it.'
     'You're a barbarous being,' replied the lady, 'and my hand's destroyed.
You are fond of music, Mr Dombey?'
     'Eminently so,' was Mr Dombey's answer.
     'Yes. It's very nice,'  said Cleopatra, looking at her cards. 'So  much
heart in it - undeveloped recollections  of a previous state of existence' -
and all that - which is so truly charming. Do you know,' simpered Cleopatra,
reversing  the knave of clubs, who had come  into  her  game  with his heels
uppermost, 'that if anything could tempt  me to put a period to  my life, it
would be curiosity to find out what it's all about, and what it means; there
are so many provoking mysteries, really, that are hidden from us. Major, you
to play.'
     The Major played; and  Mr Dombey, looking on for his instruction, would
soon have been in a state  of  dire confusion, but that he gave no attention
to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith would come back.
     She  came  at  last, and  sat down to her harp,  and Mr Dombey rose and
stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no knowledge
of the  strain  she  played, but he saw  her bending over it, and perhaps he
heard among the sounding strings some distant music of  his own, that  tamed
the monster of the iron road, and made it less inexorable.
     Cleopatra  had a sharp  eye,  verily, at picquet. It  glistened like  a
bird's, and did not  fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room from end
to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.
     When the  haughty beauty had  concluded, she  arose,  and receiving  Mr
Dombey's thanks and  compliments in exactly the same manner  as before, went
with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there.
     Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very handsome,
and your  touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is deep and rich;
but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son]
     Alas, he knows it not; and if  he did, what air of hers would stir him,
rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams,  although the
night  has turned  dark,  and  the  clouds  are  gathering, and threaten  to
discharge themselves in hail!

        CHAPTER 22.
     A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager

     Mr  Carker  the Manager  sat  at his  desk, smooth and  soft as  usual,
reading those  letters  which  were  reserved for him to open, backing  them
occasionally  with  such memoranda and references as their  business purport
required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for distribution through
the  several  departments  of  the  House. The post had come  in heavy  that
morning, and Mr Carker the Manager had a good deal to do.
     The general action of a man so engaged -  pausing to look over a bundle
of  papers in his hand,  dealing them round in  various portions,  taking up
another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows and  pursed-out
lips  - dealing, and sorting,  and pondering by turns - would easily suggest
some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards.  The  face of Mr Carker the
Manager  was in good keeping with such a fancy. It was the face of a man who
studied his play, warily: who made himself master of all the strong and weak
points of  the game: who registered the cards in his mind as they fell about
him, knew exactly what was on  them, what they missed, and what  they  made:
who  was  crafty  to  find  out what the  other  players held, and who never
betrayed his own hand.
     The letters were in various  languages, but Mr Carker the  Manager read
them all. If  there had been  anything in the offices of Dombey and Son that
he  could  read, there would have been a card wanting in  the pack.  He read
almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter with another and one
business with another as he went on, adding new matter to the  heaps -  much
as a man would  know the cards at sight, and work  out their combinations in
his mind after they were turned. Something  too deep for a partner, and much
too deep  for an adversary, Mr Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun
that came down slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone.
     And although it is not among the instincts wild or  domestic of the cat
tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker the Manager,
as  he basked in the  strip  of summer-light and warmth that shone  upon his
table and the ground as  if they  were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the
only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour  at all times,
but feebler than common  in  the rich sunshine, and  more like the coat of a
sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened;  with
a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and
watch the falling motes of dust,  and rub them off his  smooth white hand or
glossy linen: Mr Carker the Manager, sly  of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of
foot, watchful of eye, oily  of tongue, cruel  of  heart, nice of habit, sat
with a dainty steadfastness and patience  at his work, as if he were waiting
at a mouse's hole.
     At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he reserved
for   a   particular  audience.  Having   locked   the   more   confidential
correspondence in a drawer, Mr Carker the Manager rang his bell.
     'Why do you answer it?' was his reception of his brother.
     'The messenger is out, and I am the next,' was the submissive reply.
     'You are the  next?'  muttered  the Manager. 'Yes!  Creditable  to  me!
There!'
     Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned  disdainfully  away,
in  his  elbow-chair, and broke the seal  of that one  which he held in  his
hand.
     'I am  sorry to trouble  you, James,' said the brother, gathering  them
up, 'but - '
     'Oh! you have something to say. I knew that. Well?'
     Mr Carker  the  Manager  did  not raise  his eyes  or turn  them on his
brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it.
     'Well?' he repeated sharply.
     'I am uneasy about Harriet.'
     'Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name.'
     'She is not well, and has changed very much of late.'
     'She  changed very much, a great many years  ago,' replied the Manager;
'and that is all I have to say.
     'I think if you would hear me -
     'Why should  I hear you, Brother John?' returned the Manager, laying  a
sarcastic emphasis  on those two words,  and  throwing up  his head, but not
lifting his eyes. 'I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many years ago
between her two brothers. She may repent it, but she must abide by it.'
     'Don't  mistake me. I do not say she does  repent it. It would be black
ingratitude in  me to hint at  such a  thing,' returned  the other.  'Though
believe me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you.'
     'As I?' exclaimed the Manager. 'As I?'
     'As  sorry for her  choice - for what you call her choice -  as you are
angry at it,' said the Junior.
     'Angry?' repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth.
     'Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning. There is
no offence in my intention.'
     'There is offence in  everything you do,' replied his brother, glancing
at him with  a sudden scowl, which in a  moment  gave place to a wider smile
than the last. 'Carry those papers away, if you please. I am busy.
     His politeness was so much more cutting than his wrath, that the Junior
went to the door. But stopping at it, and looking round, he said:
     'When Harriet tried in vain  to  plead  for me with you,  on your first
just indignation,  and my first disgrace; and when she left  you, James,  to
follow my broken fortunes, and devote herself, in her mistaken affection, to
a ruined brother, because without her  he had no  one, and was lost; she was
young and pretty. I think if you could see her now - if you would go and see
her - she would move your admiration and compassion.'
     The Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, as who should say,
in answer to some careless small-talk, 'Dear me! Is that the case?' but said
never a word.
     'We thought in those days: you and I both: that she  would marry young,
and lead a happy and light-hearted life,' pursued the other. 'Oh if you knew
how cheerfully  she  cast  those  hopes away;  how cheerfully  she  has gone
forward on the  path she  took, and never once  looked back; you never could
say again that her name was strange in your ears. Never!'
     Again the Manager inclined his head and showed his teeth, and seemed to
say, 'Remarkable indeed! You quite surprise me!' And again  he uttered never
a word.
     'May I go on?' said John Carker, mildly.
     'On your way?'  replied  his smiling  brother. 'If  you will  have  the
goodness.
     John Carker, with a sigh, was passing slowly out at  the door, when his
brother's voice detained him for a moment on the threshold.
     'If she has gone, and goes, her own way  cheerfully,' he said, throwing
the still unfolded letter on his  desk, and putting his hands firmly in  his
pockets, 'you may tell her that I go as cheerfully on mine. If she has never
once looked  back,  you may tell her  that  I have, sometimes, to recall her
taking part with you,  and that my resolution is no easier to wear away;' he
smiled very sweetly here; 'than marble.'
     'I tell her nothing  of you. We never speak about you. Once a  year, on
your birthday, Harriet says always, "Let us remember James by name, and wish
him happy," but we say no more'
     'Tell it then, if  you  please,' returned the other, 'to  yourself. You
can't repeat  it too  often,  as  a lesson to  you to  avoid the  subject in
speaking to me. I know  no Harriet Carker.  There is no such person. You may
have a sister; make much of her. I have none.'
     Mr  Carker the  Manager took up the letter  again, and waved it with  a
smile  of  mock  courtesy  towards  the  door. Unfolding it  as his  brother
withdrew,  and  looking  darkly aiter him  as he left the room, he once more
turned round  in his elbow-chair, and applied himself  to a diligent perusal
of its contents.
     It was in the  writing of  his great  chief, Mr Dombey,  and dated from
Leamington. Though he was  a quick  reader  of all other letters,  Mr Carker
read this slowly; weighing the words as he went, and bringing every tooth in
his head  to bear upon them. When he had read it  through once, he turned it
over  again, and picked out  these passages. 'I find myself benefited by the
change, and am not yet inclined to name  any  time for my return.' 'I  wish,
Carker, you would arrange to come down once and see me here, and let me know
how things are going on,  in person.' 'I omitted to speak to you about young
Gay. If not  gone  per Son  and Heir, or if Son and  Heir still lying in the
Docks,  appoint some  other  young man  and keep  him  in the City  for  the
present. I am not decided.'  'Now that's unfortunate!'  said Mr  Carker  the
Manager, expanding his  mouth, as if it were made of India-rubber: 'for he's
far away.'
     Still  that passage, which was in a postscript, attracted his attention
and his teeth, once more.
     'I think,' he said, 'my good friend Captain Cuttle  mentioned something
about  being  towed along in the wake  of that day.  What a pity he's so far
away!'
     He  refolded the letter, and  was sitting trifling with it, standing it
long-wise and broad-wise on his table,  and  turning it over and over on all
sides - doing pretty much the same thing, perhaps, by its contents - when Mr
Perch  the  messenger  knocked softly at the door, and coming  in on tiptoe,
bending his body at every step as if it were the delight of his life to bow,
laid some papers on the table.
     'Would you please  to  be engaged, Sir?' asked  Mr Perch,  rubbing  his
hands, and deferentially putting  his head on one side, like a man who  felt
he had no  business to hold it up in  such  a presence, and would keep it as
much out of the way as possible.
     'Who wants me?'
     'Why,  Sir,' said Mr  Perch, in a soft  voice, 'really nobody,  Sir, to
speak of at present. Mr Gills  the Ship's Instrument-maker, Sir, has  looked
in, about a little  matter of payment, he says: but I mentioned to him, Sir,
that you was engaged several deep; several deep.'
     Mr Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further orders.
     'Anybody else?'
     'Well, Sir,' said Mr Perch, 'I wouldn't of my own self take the liberty
of mentioning, Sir,  that there was anybody else;  but that same  young  lad
that was here yesterday, Sir,  and  last week,  has  been hanging  about the
place;  and  it looks, Sir,'  added  Mr Perch,  stopping to  shut  the door,
'dreadful unbusiness-like to see him  whistling  to  the  sparrows  down the
court, and making of 'em answer him.'
     'You said  he wanted something to  do,  didn't  you,  Perch?' asked  Mr
Carker, leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer.
     'Why,  Sir,'  said  Mr  Perch,  coughing  behind  his  hand again, 'his
expression certainly  were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and that he
considered  something might be done for  him about the Docks, being  used to
fishing  with a rod and line: but - ' Mr Perch shook his head very dubiously
indeed.
     'What does he say when he comes?' asked Mr Carker.
     'Indeed, Sir,' said  Mr Perch, coughing another cough behind  his hand,
which was always his resource as an expression of humility when nothing else
occurred to him, 'his observation generally air that he would humbly wish to
see one of the  gentlemen, and that he wants to earn a living. But  you see,
Sir,'  added Perch,  dropping  his voice  to a whisper, and turning, in  the
inviolable nature of his confidence, to give the door a thrust with his hand
and knee, as  if that would shut it any more when it was shut already, 'it's
hardly  to be bore, Sir, that a common lad like  that should come a prowling
here, and saying  that his  mother  nursed our House's young gentleman,  and
that  he hopes our House will give him a chance on that account.  I am sure,
Sir,' observed Mr Perch, 'that although Mrs Perch  was at that  time nursing
as thriving a little girl, Sir, as we've ever took the liberty of  adding to
our family, I wouldn't have made so free as drop a hint of her being capable
of imparting nourishment, not if it was never so!'
     Mr Carker grinned at  him like a shark, but  in  an absent,  thoughtful
manner.
     'Whether,'  submitted  Mr Perch,  after  a  short silence,  and another
cough, 'it mightn't be best for me to tell him, that if he was seen here any
more  he would be  given  into custody; and  to keep to it! With  respect to
bodily fear,'  said Mr Perch, 'I'm so timid,  myself, by nature, Sir, and my
nerves is so unstrung by Mrs Perch's state, that  I could  take my affidavit
easy.'
     'Let me see this fellow, Perch,' said Mr Carker. 'Bring him in!'
     'Yes, Sir.  Begging your pardon, Sir,' said Mr Perch, hesitating at the
door, 'he's rough, Sir, in appearance.'
     'Never mind.  If he's there, bring him  in. I'll see Mr Gills directly.
Ask him to wait.'
     Mr Perch bowed; and shutting the door, as precisely and carefully as if
he were not coming back  for a week, went on his quest among the sparrows in
the  court. While he was  gone,  Mr Carker  assumed his  favourite  attitude
before the  fire-place, and stood looking at the door; presenting, with  his
under lip tucked into the smile that showed his  whole row of upper teeth, a
singularly crouching apace.
     The messenger was not  long in  returning, followed by a pair  of heavy
boots that came bumping along the passage like boxes. With the unceremonious
words 'Come along with you!' - a very  unusual form of introduction from his
lips  - Mr  Perch  then  ushered  into  the presence a strong-built  lad  of
fifteen, with a round red face, a round sleek head, round  black eyes, round
limbs,  and  round  body, who,  to  carry out the  general rotundity  of his
appearance, had a round hat in his hand, without a particle of brim to it.
     Obedient to a nod from Mr Carker,  Perch had no  sooner  confronted the
visitor  with that  gentleman than he withdrew. The moment they were face to
face  alone,  Mr Carker, without  a word  of  preparation, took  him  by the
throat, and shook him until his head seemed loose upon his shoulders.
     The boy, who in the  midst of his  astonishment could  not help staring
wildly at the gentleman with so many white teeth who was choking him, and at
the office walls, as  though determined, if  he were  choked, that his  last
look should  be at the mysteries for his intrusion into which he was  paying
such a severe penalty, at last contrived to utter -
     'Come, Sir! You let me alone, will you!'
     'Let you alone!' said Mr Carker. 'What! I  have got you, have I?' There
was  no doubt of that, and tightly too. 'You dog,' said Mr  Carker,  through
his set jaws, 'I'll strangle you!'
     Biler whimpered, would he  though? oh no he wouldn't - and what was  he
doing of  - and why didn't he strangle some-  body of  his  own size and not
him: but Biler  was quelled  by the  extraordinary nature of his  reception,
and, as his head became stationary, and he looked the gentleman in the face,
or rather in the teeth, and  saw him snarling  at him, he  so far forgot his
manhood as to cry.
     'I  haven't  done  nothing to  you,  Sir,'  said  Biler, otherwise Rob,
otherwise Grinder, and always Toodle.
     'You  young scoundrel!' replied Mr  Carker,  slowly releasing  him, and
moving back a  step into his favourite position. 'What do you mean by daring
to come here?'
     'I  didn't mean  no  harm, Sir,' whimpered Rob, putting one hand to his
throat, and the knuckles  of the  other to his eyes. 'I'll never come again,
Sir. I only wanted work.'
     'Work,  young  Cain  that  you  are!' repeated  Mr  Carker, eyeing  him
narrowly. 'Ain't you the idlest vagabond in London?'
     The  impeachment,  while it much affected Mr Toodle Junior, attached to
his character so justly, that he  could not  say a  word in denial. He stood
looking at the gentleman, therefore,  with a frightened, self-convicted, and
remorseful  air. As to his looking at him,  it may be observed that  he  was
fascinated  by Mr  Carker,  and never took his  round  eyes off him  for  an
instant.
     'Ain't you a thief?' said Mr Carker,  with  his hands behind him in his
pockets.
     'No, sir,' pleaded Rob.
     'You are!' said Mr Carker.
     'I  ain't indeed,  Sir,' whimpered Rob. 'I  never did such  a thing  as
thieve, Sir, if you'll believe me. I know I've been a going wrong, Sir, ever
since I took  to bird-catching' and walking-matching.  I'm sure a cove might
think,'  said  Mr Toodle Junior,  with  a burst of penitence,  'that singing
birds  was innocent  company,  but nobody knows what harm is  in them little
creeturs and what they brings you down to.'
     They seemed to have brought him down to a velveteen jacket and trousers
very  much the  worse  for wear, a particularly small  red waistcoat like  a
gorget, an interval of blue check, and the hat before mentioned.
     'I ain't been home twenty times since them birds got their will of me,'
said  Rob,  'and that's  ten months.  How can  I  go home  when  everybody's
miserable  to  see  me! I  wonder,'  said  Biler,  blubbering outright,  and
smearing  his  eyes with his coat-cuff,  'that I haven't  been and  drownded
myself over and over again.'
     All  of  which, including  his expression  of  surprise  at not  having
achieved this last scarce performance, the boy said, just as if the teeth of
Mr Carker drew it out ofhim, and he had no power of concealing anything with
that battery of attraction in full play.
     'You're  a  nice  young gentleman!' said Mr Carker, shaking his head at
him. 'There's hemp-seed sown for you, my fine fellow!'
     'I'm sure, Sir,' returned  the  wretched  Biler, blubbering  again, and
again having recourse to his coat-cuff: 'I shouldn't care, sometimes,  if it
was growed too. My misfortunes  all began in wagging, Sir; but what could  I
do, exceptin' wag?'
     'Excepting what?' said Mr Carker.
     'Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.'
     'Do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?' said Mr Carker.
     'Yes, Sir, that's  wagging, Sir,' returned  the  quondam  Grinder, much
affected. 'I was chivied through  the  streets, Sir, when I  went there, and
pounded when I got there. So I wagged, and hid myself, and that began it.'
     'And you  mean to tell me,' said Mr  Carker,  taking  him by the throat
again,  holding him  out at  arm's-length, and surveying him  in silence for
some moments, 'that you want a place, do you?'
     'I should be thankful  to  be  tried,  Sir,'  returned  Toodle  Junior,
faintly.
     Mr Carker  the  Manager pushed him backward  into a  corner  -  the boy
submitting quietly, hardly venturing to breathe, and never once removing his
eyes from his face - and rang the bell.
     'Tell Mr Gills to come here.'
     Mr Perch was too deferential to express surprise  or recognition of the
figure in the corner: and Uncle Sol appeared immediately.
     'Mr  Gills!' said Carker, with a  smile, 'sit down. How do you do?  You
continue to enjoy your health, I hope?'
     'Thank  you, Sir,' returned Uncle Sol, taking out his  pocket-book, and
handing over some notes as he  spoke. 'Nothing ails me in body but  old age.
Twenty-five, Sir.'
     'You are as punctual and exact, Mr Gills,' replied the smiling Manager,
taking a paper from one  of  his many  drawers, and making an endorsement on
it, while Uncle Sol looked over him, 'as one of your own chronometers. Quite
right.'
     'The Son and Heir has  not been spoken, I find by the list,  Sir,' said
Uncle Sol, with a slight addition to the usual tremor in his voice.
     'The Son and Heir has not been  spoken,' returned Carker. 'There  seems
to have been tempestuous weather, Mr Gills, and she has probably been driven
out of her course.'
     'She is safe, I trust in Heaven!' said old Sol.
     'She is safe,  I trust in Heaven!' assented Mr Carker in that voiceless
manner  of his: which  made  the observant young Toodle trernble again.  'Mr
Gills,'  he added aloud, throwing himself back in  his chair, 'you must miss
your nephew very much?'
     Uncle Sol, standing by him, shook his head and heaved a deep sigh.
     'Mr Gills,' said  Carker, with his soft hand  playing  round his mouth,
and looking up into the Instrument-maker's face, 'it would be company to you
to have a young fellow in your shop just now, and it would be obliging me if
you  would  give one house-room for the present.  No,  to be sure,' he added
quickly, in anticipation of what the old man was going to say,  'there's not
much business doing there, I know; but you can make him clean the place out,
polish up the instruments; drudge, Mr Gills. That's the lad!'
     Sol Gills pulled down his spectacles from his forehead to his eyes, and
looked at Toodle Junior standing upright in the  corner: his head presenting
the  appearance  (which  it always did) of having been newly drawn out of  a
bucket of cold water; his small waistcoat rising and  falling quickly in the
play of his emotions; and his  eyes intently fixed on Mr Carker, without the
least reference to his proposed master.
     'Will you give him house-room, Mr Gills?' said the Manager.
     Old Sol, without being quite enthusiastic on the subject, replied  that
he was glad of any opportunity,  however slight, to oblige Mr Carker,  whose
wish  on such a  point was  a command: and that the wooden  Midshipman would
consider himself happy to receive in  his berth  any visitor of  Mr Carker's
selecting.
     Mr Carker bared himself to the tops and bottoms of his gums: making the
watchful  Toodle  Junior  tremble  more  and  more:  and  acknowledged   the
Instrument-maker's politeness in his most affable manner.
     'I'll  dispose  of him so,  then, Mr Gills,' he  answered, rising,  and
shaking  the old man by  the hand, 'until I make up  my mind what to do with
him,  and what he deserves.  As I  consider myself responsible  for him,  Mr
Gills,' here he smiled a wide smile at Rob, who shook before it: 'I shall be
glad if you'll look sharply after him, and report his behaviour to me.  I'll
ask  a  question or two  of his  parents as I  ride home  this  afternoon  -
respectable people  - to  confirm  some particulars in  his own  account  of
himself;  and  that  done, Mr  Gills, I'll send him  round to  you to-morrow
morning. Goodbye!'
     His smile  at parting was  so full of teeth, that it confused old  Sol,
and made him  vaguely uncomfortable. He went  home, thinking of raging seas,
foundering ships,  drowning men, an ancient  bottle of Madeira never brought
to light, and other dismal matters.
     'Now,  boy!'  said  Mr Carker,  putting  his  hand  on  young  Toodle's
shoulder, and bringing him out into the middle of the room. 'You  have heard
me?'
     Rob said, 'Yes, Sir.'
     'Perhaps you understand,' pursued his patron, 'that if you ever deceive
or play tricks with me, you had better have  drowned yourself, indeed,  once
for all, before you came here?'
     There was nothing in any  branch of mental acquisition that Rob  seemed
to understand better than that.
     'If  you have lied to me,' said Mr Carker, 'in  anything, never come in
my way again.  If not, you may let me find you waiting for me somewhere near
your mother's house this afternoon. I shall leave this at five o'clock,  and
ride there on horseback. Now, give me the address.'
     Rob repeated it slowly, as Mr Carker  wrote it down.  Rob even spelt it
over a second time, letter by letter, as  if he thought that the omission of
a  dot or scratch would lead  to his  destruction. Mr Carker then handed him
out  of the room; and Rob, keeping  his round eyes fixed upon his patron  to
the last, vanished for the time being.
     Mr Carker the Manager did a great deal of business in the course of the
day, and stowed  his teeth  upon a great many  people. In the office, in the
court, in  the  street,  and on 'Change, they  glistened  and bristled  to a
terrible extent. Five o'clock arriving, and with it  Mr Carker's bay  horse,
they got on horseback, and went gleaming up Cheapside.
     As no one  can easily ride fast, even if inclined to do so, through the
press  and  throng of  the  City  at  that hour, and  as Mr Carker  was  not
inclined,  he  went leisurely  along, picking  his way  among the carts  and
carriages,  avoiding whenever  he could the wetter  and more dirty places in
the over-watered  road, and taking infinite pains to  keep himself  and  his
steed clean. Glancing at the passersby while he was thus ambling on his way,
he  suddenly  encountered the round  eyes  of the sleek-headed Rob  intently
fixed  upon  his face as if  they had  never been taken  off,  while the boy
himself,  with  a  pocket-handkerchief  twisted up  like a speckled  eel and
girded round  his  waist,  made  a  very  conspicuous demonstration of being
prepared to attend upon him, at whatever pace he might think proper to go.
     This attention,  however flattering, being one of  an unusual kind, and
attracting some notice from the  other  passengers, Mr Carker took advantage
of  a clearer thoroughfare and a cleaner road, and  broke  into a  trot. Rob
immediately did the same. Mr Carker presently tried a canter; Rob Was  still
in attendance. Then a  short gallop; it Was all one  to the boy. Whenever Mr
Carker turned his eyes to that side of the  road, he still saw Toodle Junior
holding  his course,  apparently without distress, and working himself along
by the  elbows after the most  approved manner of professional gentlemen who
get over the ground for wagers.
     Ridiculous as  this  attendance was,  it was  a  sign  of  an influence
established over the boy,  and therefore Mr Carker, affecting  not to notice
it, rode away into the neighbourhood of Mr Toodle's house. On his slackening
his pace  here, Rob appeared before him to point out the  turnings; and when
he called to a man at a neighbouring gateway  to hold his horse, pending his
visit to  the  buildings that  had succeeded Staggs's Gardens, Rob dutifully
held the stirrup, while the Manager dismounted.
     'Now, Sir,' said Mr Carker, taking him by the shoulder, 'come along!'
     The prodigal son  was evidently nervous of visiting the parental abode;
but Mr Carker pushing him on  before,  he had nothing for it but to open the
right door, and  suffer himself to be walked into the midst of his  brothers
and  sisters, mustered  in overwhelming force round the family tea-table. At
sight of  the  prodigal in the  grasp of  a stranger, these tender relations
united in a general howl, which  smote upon the prodigal's breast so sharply
when he saw  his mother  stand up among them, pale and  trembling,  with the
baby in her arms, that he lent his own voice to the chorus.
     Nothing doubting now that the stranger, if not Mr Ketch' in person, was
one of  that company, the whole of the young family wailed the louder, while
its  more infantine  members, unable to  control the  transports of  emotion
appertaining to their time  of life, threw themselves  on  their  backs like
young birds when terrified by a hawk, and kicked violently.  At length, poor
Polly making herself audible,  said,  with quivering lips, 'Oh Rob, my  poor
boy, what have you done at last!'
     'Nothing, mother,' cried Rob, in a piteous voice, 'ask the gentleman!'
     'Don't be alarmed,' said Mr Carker, 'I want to do him good.'
     At this announcement, Polly, who had not cried yet, began to do so. The
elder  Toodles,  who appeared to have been meditating  a rescue,  unclenched
their fists.  The younger  Toodles clustered round their  mother's gown, and
peeped from under their own chubby arms  at their desperado brother and  his
unknown friend. Everybody blessed  the gentleman with  the  beautiful teeth,
who wanted to do good.
     'This fellow,'  said Mr Carker to Polly, giving him a gentle shake, 'is
your son, eh, Ma'am?'
     'Yes, Sir,' sobbed Polly, with a curtsey; 'yes, Sir.'
     'A bad son, I am afraid?' said Mr Carker.
     'Never a bad son to me, Sir,' returned Polly.
     'To whom then?' demanded Mr Carker.
     'He has been a little  wild, Sir,'  returned Polly, checking the  baby,
who was making convulsive  efforts with his  arms and legs to launch himself
on Biler, through the ambient air,  'and has gone with wrong companions: but
I hope he has seen the misery of that, Sir, and will do well again.'
     Mr  Carker looked at Polly, and the clean room, and the clean children,
and  the  simple  Toodle  face,  combined  of father  and mother,  that  was
reflected and repeated  everywhere about  him - and seemed to have  achieved
the real purpose of his visit.
     'Your husband, I take it, is not at home?' he said.
     'No, Sir,' replied Polly. 'He's down the line at present.'
     The prodigal Rob  seemed very much relieved to hear it: though still in
the absorption of  all his faculties in his  patron, he hardly took his eyes
from Mr Carker's face,  unless for  a moment at  a time to steal a sorrowful
glance at his mother.
     'Then,' said Mr  Carker, 'I'll tell you how I have stumbled on this boy
of yours, and who I am, and what I am going to do for him.'
     This Mr Carker did, in his own way; saying that he at first intended to
have  accumulated  nameless terrors  on his presumptuous head, for coming to
the whereabout of  Dombey and Son. That he had relented, in consideration of
his youth, his professed contrition, and his friends.  That he was afraid he
took a rash step in doing  anything for the boy, and  one that  might expose
him to  the  censure of the prudent;  but that he did it of himself and  for
himself, and risked  the consequences single-handed;  and  that his mother's
past connexion with Mr Dombey's family  had nothing to do with  it, and that
Mr Dombey had nothing to do with it, but that he, Mr Carker, was the  be-all
and the  end-all of  this business.  Taking great credit to  himself for his
goodness, and receiving no less from all the family then present,  Mr Carker
signified,  indirectly  but  still  pretty   plainly,  that  Rob's  implicit
fidelity, attachment, and devotion, were for evermore his due, and the least
homage he could receive.  And  with  this  great  truth  Rob himself was  so
impressed, that, standing gazing on  his patron with tears rolling down  his
cheeks,  he nodded his shiny head until it seemed almost as loose as  it had
done under the same patron's hands that morning.
     Polly, who had passed Heaven knows how many sleepless nights on account
of this her  dissipated firstborn, and had not seen him for weeks and weeks,
could have almost kneeled to Mr Carker the Manager, as to a Good Spirit - in
spite of his teeth. But Mr  Carker  rising to depart, she  only  thanked him
with her mother's prayers and blessings; thanks so rich when paid out of the
Heart's mint,  especially for any service  Mr Carker  had rendered, that  he
might have given back a large amount of change, and yet been overpaid.
     As that gentleman made his way among the crowding children to the door,
Rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the same repentant
hug.
     'I'll try hard, dear mother, now. Upon my soul I will!' said Rob.
     'Oh do, my dear  boy! I am sure you will, for our sakes and your  own!'
cried  Polly, kissing him. 'But you're coming  back to speak to me, when you
have seen the gentleman away?'
     'I don't  know, mother.'  Rob  hesitated,  and looked  down. 'Father  -
when's he coming home?'
     'Not till two o'clock to-morrow morning.'
     'I'll  come back,  mother  dear!'  cried Rob. And  passing through  the
shrill  cry of  his brothers  and sisters  in reception of this promise,  he
followed Mr Carker out.
     'What!' said  Mr Carker, who  had heard this. 'You have a  bad  father,
have you?'
     'No, Sir!' returned Rob,  amazed. 'There ain't  a better  nor a  kinder
father going, than mine is.'
     'Why don't you want to see him then?' inquired his patron.
     'There's such a difference between a father  and  a mother,  Sir,' said
Rob,  after faltering for a moment. 'He couldn't  hardly believe yet that  I
was doing to do better - though I know he'd try to but a mother - she always
believes what's,' good, Sir; at least I know my mother does, God bless her!'
     Mr Carker's mouth expanded, but he said no more until he was mounted on
his horse,  and had dismissed  the man who held it,  when, looking down from
the saddle steadily  into  the attentive  and watchful  face  of the boy, he
said:
     'You'll come to me tomorrow morning, and  you shall be shown where that
old gentleman lives; that old gentleman who was  with me this morning; where
you are going, as you heard me say.'
     'Yes, Sir,' returned Rob.
     'I have a great interest in that old gentleman, and in serving him, you
serve me, boy, do you understand? Well,' he added, interrupting  him, for he
saw his round face  brighten when he was told that: 'I see you do. I want to
know  all about that old gentleman, and how he goes on from day to day - for
I am anxious to be of service to him - and especially who comes there to see
him. Do you understand?'
     Rob nodded his steadfast face, and said 'Yes, Sir,' again.
     'I should like  to know that  he has  friends who are attentive to him,
and  that they don't desert him -  for  he  lives  very much alone now, poor
fellow;  but  that  they  are fond of  him, and  of his nephew who has  gone
abroad. There is a  very young lady who may perhaps come to see  him. I want
particularly to know all about her.'
     'I'll take care, Sir,' said the boy.
     'And  take care,'  returned his patron,  bending forward to advance his
grinning  face closer to the  boy's, and pat  him on the shoulder  with  the
handle of his whip: 'take care you talk about  affairs of mine to nobody but
me.'
     'To nobody in the world, Sir,' replied Rob, shaking his head.
     'Neither there,'  said Mr CarHer, pointing to the  place they  had just
left,  'nor anywhere else. I'll try how  true and grateful  you can be. I'll
prove  you!' Making this, by his display of teeth  and by  the action of his
head, as much a threat as a promise, he  turned from  Rob's eyes, which were
nailed upon him as if he had won the boy by a charm, body and soul, and rode
away. But again  becoming conscious,  after trotting a  short distance, that
his devoted henchman, girt  as before, was yielding him the same attendance,
to the great amusement of sundry spectators,  he reined up, and  ordered him
off. To ensure his  obedience, he turned in the saddle and watched him as he
retired.  It was curious to see  that  even then Rob could not keep his eyes
wholly averted from his patron's face,  but, constantly turning and  turning
again  to look after him'  involved himself in a tempest  of buffetings  and
jostlings from the other  passengers in the street: of which, in the pursuit
of the one paramount idea, he was perfectly heedless.
     Mr Carker the Manager rode on at a foot-pace, with the easy air of  one
who had performed all the business of the day  in a satisfactory manner, and
got it  comfortably off his mind. Complacent and affable as man could be, Mr
Carker picked his way along the streets and hummed a soft tune as he went He
seemed to purr, he was so glad.
     And in some  sort,  Mr  Carker, in his fancy, basked upon a hearth too.
Coiled  up snugly at certain feet, he was ready for a spring, Or for a tear,
or for a scratch, or for a velvet touch, as the humour took him and occasion
served. Was  there any  bird in  a  cage,  that came in  for  a share  ofhis
regards?
     'A very young lady!' thought Mr  Carker the Manager, through his  song.
'Ay! when I saw her last, she was a little child. With dark eyes and hair, I
recollect, and a good face; a very good face! I daresay she's pretty.'
     More affable and pleasant  yet, and humming  his song  until  his  many
teeth vibrated to it, Mr Carker  picked  his way  along, and  turned at last
into the shady  street where Mr  Dombey's house stood. He had been so  busy,
winding  webs  round  good  faces, and  obscuring them with  meshes, that he
hardly thought of  being at this point of his ride, until, glancing down the
cold perspective of tall houses, he reined in his horse quickly within a few
yards of the door. But to explain why Mr Carker reined in his horse quickly,
and what he  looked at  in  no  small  surprise,  a few digressive words are
necessary.
     Mr  Toots, emancipated from the  Blimber  thraldom and coming  into the
possession of  a certain portion of his  wordly  wealth, 'which,' as  he had
been  wont, during his  last half-year's  probation,  to  communicate to  Mr
Feeder  every  evening as a new discovery, 'the executors couldn't  keep him
out of'  had applied himself with great  diligence, to the science of  Life.
Fired with a noble emulation to pursue a brilliant and distinguished career,
Mr Toots had furnished  a  choice  set  of apartments; had established among
them a sporting bower, embellished with the portraits of  winning horses, in
which he took no particle of interest; and a divan, which made  him  poorly.
In this delicious  abode,  Mr Toots  devoted himself to the  cultivation  of
those gentle arts which refine  and humanise existence, his chief instructor
in  which  was an  interesting  character called the  Game Chicken,  who was
always to be  heard of at the bar of the Black Badger,  wore a shaggy  white
great-coat in the warmest weather, and knocked Mr Toots about the head three
times a week, for the small consideration of ten and six per visit.
     The Game Chicken, who was quite the Apollo  of Mr Toots's Pantheon, had
introduced  to  him a marker  who taught billiards, a  Life Guard who taught
fencing, a jobmaster  who taught riding, a Cornish  gentleman who was  up to
anything in the athletic  line, and two or three other  friends connected no
less intimately  with the fine arts.  Under  whose auspices  Mr  Toots could
hardly fail to improve apace, and under whose tuition he went to work.
     But however it came about, it came  to pass, even while these gentlemen
had the gloss of novelty upon them, that Mr Toots felt, he  didn't know how,
unsettled  and uneasy. There were husks in his corn, that even Game Chickens
couldn't peck up;  gloomy  giants  in  his leisure, that even Game  Chickens
couldn't  knock down.  Nothing  seemed to  do  Mr  Toots  so  much  good  as
incessantly leaving cards at Mr Dombey's door. No taxgatherer in the British
Dominions -  that  wide-spread  territory on  which the sun never  sets, and
where the tax-gatherer never goes to bed - was more regular  and persevering
in his calls than Mr Toots.
     Mr Toots never went upstairs; and always performed the same ceremonies,
richly dressed for the purpose, at the hall door.
     'Oh! Good morning!'  would  be Mr Toots's first remark to  the servant.
'For Mr Dombey,' would be Mr  Toots's next remark,  as  he handed in a card.
'For Miss Dombey,' would be his next, as he handed in another.
     Mr Toots would then turn round as  if to go away; but the man  knew him
by this time, and knew he wouldn't.
     'Oh,  I  beg your  pardon,' Mr Toots would say,  as  if  a  thought had
suddenly descended on him. 'Is the young woman at home?'
     The man would rather think she was;, but wouldn't  quite know.  Then he
would ring  a bell that rang upstairs, and would look  up the staircase, and
would say, yes, she was at home, and was coming down. Then Miss Nipper would
appear, and the man would retire.
     'Oh! How de do?' Mr Toots would say, with a chuckle and a blush.
     Susan would thank him, and say she was very well.
     'How's Diogenes going on?' would be Mr Toots's second interrogation.
     Very well indeed. Miss Florence was fonder and fonder of him every day.
Mr Toots was sure to hail this with a burst of chuckles, like the opening of
a bottle of some effervescent beverage.
     'Miss Florence is quite well, Sir,' Susan would add.
     Oh, it's of no consequence,  thank'ee,' was the invariable reply  of Mr
Toots; and when he had said so, he always went away very fast.
     Now it  is  certain that Mr Toots had  a  filmy something  in his mind,
which  led  him  to conclude that  if he  could aspire successfully  in  the
fulness of  time, to the hand of Florence, he  would be fortunate and blest.
It is certain that Mr Toots, by some remote and roundabout road, had  got to
that point, and that there he made a  stand.  His heart was wounded;  he was
touched; he was in love. He had made a desperate attempt, one night, and had
sat up all night for the purpose, to  write an acrostic  on Florence,  which
affected  him to  tears in  the conception.  But he never proceeded  in  the
execution  further  than  the  words  'For when  I  gaze,'  -  the  flow  of
imagination in which he had previously written  down the initial  letters of
the other seven lines, deserting him at that point.
     Beyond devising  that very artful and politic measure of leaving a card
for Mr Dombey daily, the  brain of Mr Toots had not worked much in reference
to the  subject that  held his feelings prisoner. But deep  consideration at
length  assured   Mr  Toots  that  an  important  step  to  gain,  was,  the
conciliation of Miss Susan Nipper, preparatory to giving her some inkling of
his state of mind.
     A little light and playful gallantry towards this lady seemed the means
to employ  in  that early  chapter  of the history, for  winning her to  his
interests. Not being able quite to make up his mind  about it,  he consulted
the Chicken  - without  taking that  gentleman  into his confidence;  merely
informing  him that a friend in Yorkshire had written to him  (Mr Toots) for
his opinion on such a question. The Chicken replying that his opinion always
was, 'Go in and win,' and further, 'When your man's before you and your work
cut out, go in  and do it,' Mr  Toots  considered this  a  figurative way of
supporting  his own view of the case,  and  heroically resolved to kiss Miss
Nipper next day.
     Upon  the next day, therefore, Mr Toots, putting into  requisition some
of the greatest marvels that Burgess and Co.  had ever  turned out, went off
to  Mr Dotnbey's upon this design.  But his heart failed him so  much  as he
approached the scene of action, that,  although  he arrived on the ground at
three o'clock in the afternoon, it was six before he knocked at the door.
     Everything happened  as usual, down to  the point where Susan  said her
young mistress was well, and Mr  Toots said it  was ofno consequence. To her
amazement, Mr Toots,  instead  of  going  off,  like a  rocket,  after  that
observation, lingered and chuckled.
     'Perhaps you'd like to walk upstairs, Sir!' said Susan.
     'Well, I think I will come in!' said Mr Toots.
     But instead of walking upstairs, the bold Toots  made an awkward plunge
at Susan  when the door was shut, and embracing that  fair  creature, kissed
her on the cheek
     'Go along with you!~ cried Susan, 'or Ill tear your eyes out.'
     'Just another!' said Mr Toots.
     'Go along with you!' exclaimed Susan, giving him a push 'Innocents like
you, too! Who'll begin next? Go along, Sir!'
     Susan  was not in  any serious  strait, for she  could hardly speak for
laughing; but  Diogenes, on  the staircase,  hearing a  rustling against the
wall, and a shuffling of feet, and seeing  through the  banisters that there
was  some  contention  going on, and foreign invasion in the house, formed a
different opinion, dashed down to the rescue, and in the twinkling of an eye
had Mr Toots by the leg.
     Susan screamed, laughed,  opened the street-door,  and ran  downstairs;
the bold Toots tumbled staggering out into the street, with Diogenes holding
on to one leg of his pantaioons, as if  Burgess and Co. were his cooks,  and
had provided  that  dainty morsel  for his  holiday  entertainment; Diogenes
shaken  off, rolled over and over in the dust, got up' again,  whirled round
the giddy Toots and snapped at him: and all this turmoil Mr Carker, reigning
up his horse and sitting a little at a distance, saw to his amazement, issue
from the stately house of Mr Dombey.
     Mr  Carker remained watching the discomfited Toots,  when Diogenes  was
called in, and the door shut: and while that  gentleman, taking refuge  in a
doorway near at hand, bound up the torn  leg of his pantaloons with a costly
silk  handkerchief that had formed  part  of  his expensive  outfit for  the
advent
     'I beg your pardon,  Sir,'  said  Mr Carker, riding  up, with his  most
propitiatory smile. 'I hope you are not hurt?'
     'Oh no, thank you,' replied Mr Toots,  raising  his flushed face, 'it's
of no consequence' Mr Toots would have signified, if he could, that he liked
it very much.
     'If the dog's  teeth have entered the leg, Sir - ' began Carker, with a
display of his own'
     'No,  thank  you,'  said Mr Toots, 'it's all  quite  right.  It's  very
comfortable, thank you.'
     'I have the pleasure of knowing Mr Dombey,' observed Carker.
     'Have you though?' rejoined the blushing Took
     'And you will allow me, perhaps, to apologise, in his absence,' said Mr
Carker, taking off his hat,  'for such a misadventure, and to  wonder how it
can possibly have happened.'
     Mr  Toots is so much gratified by this politeness, and the lucky chance
of making frends with a friend of Mr Dombey, that he pulls out his card-case
which he never loses an opportunity of using, and hands his name and address
to Mr  Carker: who responds to that courtesy by giving him his own, and with
that they part.
     As Mr Carker picks  his way so softly past the house, looking up at the
windows, and trying to make  out the pensive face behind the curtain looking
at the children  opposite, the rough head  of  Diogenes  came  clambering up
close by it,  and the dog, regardless of all soothing, barks and growls, and
makes at him from that  height, as ifhe would  spring down and tear him limb
from limb.
     Well  spoken, Di, so near your Mistress! Another, and another with your
head up, your eyes flashing,  and your vexed mouth worrying itself, for want
of  him! Another,  as he picks  his  way along! You have a good scent, Di, -
cats, boy, cats!

        CHAPTER 23.
     Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious

     Florence lived alone in the great  dreary house, and day succeeded day,
and still she lived  alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with  a
vacant  stare,  as if  they had a Gorgon-like  mind to stare  her youth  and
beauty into stone.
     No magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick
wood,  was  ever  more solitary  and  deserted  to  the fancy,  than was her
father's  mansion in its grim reality, as it stood  lowering on  the street:
always by night,  when lights were shining from neighbouring windows, a blot
upon  its scanty brightness; always by  day, a frown upon  its never-smiling
face.
     There were not two dragon sentries keeping ward before the gate of this
above, as  in  magic  legend are usually found  on  duty  over  the  wronged
innocence imprisoned;  but  besides a glowering visage, with  its thin  lips
parted wickedly, that surveyed  all  comers  from above the archway  of  the
door, there was a monstrous fantasy of rusty iron, curling and twisting like
a petrifaction of an arbour over threshold, budding in spikes  and corkscrew
points,  and bearing, one on either side,  two  ominous  extinguishers, that
seemed  to  say,  'Who  enter  here,  leave light  behind!'  There  were  no
talismanic  characters  engraven  on the portal,  but  the house was  now so
neglected in appearance,  that boys chalked the railings and the  pavement -
particularly round the corner  where the side  wall was - and drew ghosts on
the  stable  door; and  being  sometimes driven  off  by Mr Towlinson,  made
portraits  of him, in  return, with his ears  growing  out horizontally from
under his hat. Noise ceased to be,  within the shadow of the roof. The brass
band that came into the street  once a week, in the  morning, never brayed a
note in at those windows; but all such company, down to a poor little piping
organ  of weak intellect,  with  an  imbecile  party of  automaton  dancers,
waltzing in and out at folding-doors, fell off from it  with one accord, and
shunned it as a hopeless place.
     The spell upon it was more  wasting  than  the  spell  that used to set
enchanted houses sleeping  once upon a time, but left their waking freshness
unimpaired.  The  passive  desolation  of  disuse  was  everywhere  silently
manifest about it.  Within doors, curtains, drooping heavily, lost their old
folds and shapes,  and  hung like  cumbrous palls.  Hecatombs  of furniture,
still piled  and covered up, shrunk like imprisoned and forgotten  men,  and
changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim  as with the breath of years.  Patterns
of carpets  faded and  became perplexed and faint,  like the memory of those
years'  trifling incidents. Boards,  starting at unwonted footsteps, creaked
and shook. Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls, and
as the stains came out, the pictures seemed to go in and secrete themselves.
Mildew and mould  began to lurk  in closets. Fungus trees grew in corners of
the  cellars. Dust  accumulated, nobody knew whence nor how; spiders, moths,
and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory blackbeetle  now  and then
was found immovable upon  the stairs, or in an upper room, as wondering  how
he  got there.  Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the  night time, through
dark galleries they mined behind the panelling.
     The dreary magnificence  of the  state  rooms,  seen imperfectly by the
doubtful light  admitted  through closed shutters, would  have answered well
enough for an  enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of  gilded lions,
stealthily  put out from beneath  their wrappers;  the marble  lineaments of
busts on pedestals, fearfully revealing themselves through veils; the clocks
that never told the time, or, if  wound up by any chance, told it wrong, and
struck  unearthly  numbers, which are  not upon  the  dial;  the  accidental
tinklings among the pendant lustres,  more startling than  alarm-bells;  the
softened sounds and laggard air that made their way among these objects, and
a phantom crowd of others,  shrouded and hooded, and made spectral of shape.
But, besides, there was the great staircase,  where the lord of the place so
rarely  set his foot, and by which his little  child had gone  up to Heaven.
There  were other staircases  and  passages  where  no  one  went for  weeks
together; there  were  two closed  rooms associated with dead members of the
family, and with  whispered recollections  of them; and to all the house but
Florence, there was a gentle figure moving through  the solitude and  gloom,
that  gave  to every lifeless  thing a  touch of  present human interest and
wonder,
     For Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and  day succeeded day,
and still  she lived alone,  and the cold  walls looked down upon her with a
vacant  stare,  as  if they had a  Gorgon-like mind  to stare  her youth and
beauty into stone
     The  grass  began  to grow  upon the roof,  and in  the crevices of the
basement   paving.  A  scaly   crumbling   vegetation  sprouted  round   the
window-sills.  Fragments of mortar lost  their hold upon the insides  of the
unused chimneys, and came dropping down. The two trees with the smoky trunks
were  blighted  high  up,  and the withered  branches  domineered above  the
leaves,  Through the whole building  white had  turned yellow, yellow nearly
black; and since the time when  the poor  lady died,  it had slowly become a
dark gap in the long monotonous street.
     But Florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the story.
Her books, her music, and her daily teachers, were her only real companions,
Susan Nipper and Diogenes excepted: of whom the former, in her attendance on
the  studies  of  her  young mistress, began  to grow quite learned herself,
while the latter, softened  possibly by the same  influences, would  lay his
head upon  the window-ledge, and  placidly open and shut his eyes  upon  the
street, all through a summer morning; sometimes pricking up his head to look
with great significance after some noisy dog in a cart, who was barking  his
way along, and sometimes, with an exasperated and unaccountable recollection
of  his  supposed enemy  in  the neighbourhood, rushing to the door, whence,
after a deafening disturbance, he would come jogging back  with a ridiculous
complacency  that  belonged  to him, and lay his  jaw  upon the window-ledge
again, with the air of a dog who had done a public service.
     So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home, within the circle of her
innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. She could go down to
her father's rooms now, and think of him, and suffer her loving heart humbly
to  approach him, without fear of repulse. She could look upon  the  objects
that had surrounded him in his sorrow, and could nestle near his chair,  and
not dread the glance that she so well remembered. She could  render him such
little tokens of  her  duty and  service' as putting everything in order for
him with her own hands, binding little nosegays for table, changing them  as
one by one they withered  and he did  not come back, preparing something for
him  every' day,  and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual
seat. To-day, it  was a little painted  stand  for his  watch; tomorrow  she
would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute  some  other trifle of her
making not so likely to attract his eye. Waking in the  night, perhaps,  she
would tremble  at the thought of his coming home and  angrily  rejecting it,
and would hurry  down with  slippered feet  and  quickly beating heart,  and
bring it away.  At  another time, she would only lay her face upon his desk,
and leave a kiss there, and a tear.
     Still no  one knew  of this. Unless the household found it out when she
was not there - and they all held Mr Dombey's rooms  in awe - it was as deep
a secret in her breast as what had gone before it. Florence stole into those
rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and at times when meals were served
downstairs. And although they were in every nook the better and the brighter
for her  care, she entered and passed out as quietly  as any sunbeam, opting
that she left her light behind.
     Shadowy company attended Florence  up and down the  echoing house,  and
sat with  her  in  the dismantled  rooms. As if her life  were an  enchanted
vision,  there arose out of  her solitude ministering thoughts, that made it
fanciful  and unreal. She imagined so often what her life would have been if
her  father  could  have loved  her and she had been a favourite child, that
sometimes,  for the moment, she almost believed it was so, and, borne on  by
the current of that pensive fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched
her  brother  in  his grave together;  how they had  freely shared his heart
between  them; how they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they
often spoke about him yet;  and her kind father, looking at her gently, told
her  of their  common hope and trust in God. At other times  she pictured to
herself her  mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling  on her neck,
and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her soul! And oh the
desolation of the solitary  house again,  with evening coming on, and no one
there!
     But there was one thought, scarcely shaped  out to herself, yet fervent
and strong within her, that upheld  Florence when  she strove and filled her
true young heart, so sorely tried, with constancy of purpose. Into her mind,
as  'into  all others contending with  the great affliction  of  our  mortal
nature,  there had stolen solemn wonderings  and  hopes,  arising in the dim
world  beyond  the  present  life,  and  murmuring,  like  faint  music,  of
recognition in the far-off land between her brother and her mother:  of some
present  consciousness in both  of her: some love and commiseration for her:
and some knowledge  of  her as she went her  way upon  the earth. It  was  a
soothing consolation to Florence to  give shelter  to  these thoughts, until
one day - it was soon after  she had  last seen her father in  his own room,
late at night  - the fancy came upon her, that, in weeping for his alienated
heart,  she  might stir the  spirits of the  dead  against him' Wild,  weak,
childish, as it may have been to think so, and to tremble at the half-formed
thought,  it  was the  impulse  of her loving nature;  and  from  that  hour
Florence strove against the cruel wound in her breast, and tried to think of
him whose hand had made it, only with hope.
     Her father did not know - she held to it from  that time - how much she
loved him. She was very young, and had no  mother, and had never learned, by
some fault  or  misfortune,  how to  express to him  that she loved him. She
would  be patient, and would try to gain that art  in time, and win him to a
better knowledge of his only child.
     This became the  purpose of her life. The  morning  sun shone down upon
the faded house, and found the resolution bright and fresh within  the bosom
of  its solitary mistress,  Through all the duties  of the day, it  animated
her; for Florence  hoped  that the  more she knew, and the more accomplished
she became,  the more glad he would  be when  he came to know  and like her.
Sometimes  she wondered, with a swelling heart and rising tear,  whether she
was  proficient enough in anything to surprise him when  they  should become
companions. Sometimes she tried to think if there were any kind of knowledge
that would  bespeak his interest  more readily than another. Always: at  her
books, her  music,  and her  work: in her morning walks, and in  her nightly
prayers: she  had her  engrossing aim in view. Strange study for a child, to
learn the road to a hard parent's heart!
     There  were many careless  loungers through the street,  as the  summer
evening  deepened into night,  who glanced  across the road  at  the  sombre
house, and saw the youthful figure at  the  window, such  a contrast to  it,
looking upward at the stars as they began to shine, who would have slept the
worse if they had  known on what design she mused so steady.  The reputation
of the mansion as  a haunted  house, would not have been the gayer with some
humble dwellers elsewhere, who were struck by its external gloom in  passing
and repassing on their daily avocations, and so named it, if they could have
read its story in  the darkening face. But Florence held her sacred purpose,
unsuspected and unaided:  and studied only  how  to bring her father  to the
understanding that she loved him,  and  made no appeal  against  him  in any
wandering thought.
     Thus Florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day,
and  still she lived alone,  and the monotonous  walls looked down upon  her
with a  stare, as  if  they had  a Gorgon-like intent to stare her youth and
beauty into stone.
     Susan Nipper  stood opposite to her young mistress one morning, as  she
folded  and sealed a note  she had been  writing: and showed in her looks an
approving knowledge of its contents.
     'Better late than never, dear Miss  Floy,'  said Susan, 'and  I do say,
that even a visit to them old Skettleses will be a Godsend.'
     'It  is very good of  Sir Barnet  and  Lady Skettles,  Susan,' returned
Florence, with a mild correction of that  young  lady's  familiar mention of
the family in question, 'to repeat their invitation so kindly.'
     Miss  Nipper,  who  was perhaps the most thoroughgoing partisan on  the
face of the  earth, and  who carried her partisanship into all matters great
or  small, and perpetually waged war with it against society, screwed up her
lips  and  shook  her   head,  as  a  protest  against  any  recognition  of
disinterestedness in the Skettleses, and a plea in bar that they  would have
valuable consideration for their kindness, in the company of Florence.
     'They  know  what they're about, if  ever people  did,'  murmured  Miss
Nipper, drawing in her breath 'oh! trust them Skettleses for that!'
     'I  am  not  very  anxious to go  to  Fulham, Susan, I  confess,'  said
Florence thoughtfully:  'but it  will  be  right to  go. I think it  will be
better.'
     'Much  better,' interposed  Susan,  with another  emphatic shake of her
head.
     'And so,' said Florence, 'though I would prefer to have gone when there
was no one there, instead of in this vacation time, when it  seems there are
some young people staying in the house, I have thankfully said yes.'
     'For which I say, Miss Floy, Oh be joyful!' returned Susan, 'Ah!
     This last ejaculation,  with which  Miss  Nipper frequently wound up  a
sentence,  at about that  epoch of time, was supposed below the level of the
hall to have a  general reference  to Mr Dombey,  and  to be expressive of a
yearning in  Miss  Nipper to favour that gentleman with a piece of her mind.
But  she  never  explained it; and it  had, in  consequence,  the  charm  of
mystery, in addition to the advantage of the sharpest expression.
     'How  long it is before we  have any news of  Walter, Susan!'  observed
Florence, after a moment's silence.
     'Long  indeed,  Miss Floy!' replied her maid.  'And Perch said, when he
came  just  now  to  see  for  letters - but what signifies  what he  says!'
exclaimed Susan, reddening and breaking off. 'Much he knows about it!'
     Florence raised her eyes quickly, and a flush overspread her face.
     'If I hadn't,' said Susan Nipper, evidently struggling with some latent
anxiety  and  alarm,  and  looking   full  at  her   young  mistress,  while
endeavouring to work herself into a state of resentment with the unoffending
Mr Perch's image, 'if I hadn't more manliness than that  insipidest  of  his
sex, I'd never take pride in my hair again, but  turn  it up behind my ears,
and wear coarse caps, without a bit of border,  until death released me from
my insignificance. I may not be a Amazon, Miss Floy,  and wouldn't so demean
myself by such disfigurement, but anyways I'm not a giver up, I hope'
     'Give up! What?' cried Florence, with a face of terror.
     'Why, nothing,  Miss,' said  Susan.  'Good gracious, nothing! It's only
that  wet curl-paper of  a man, Perch,  that anyone might  almost make  away
with, with a  touch, and  really it would be a blessed event for all parties
if someone would take pity on him, and would have the goodness!'
     'Does he give up the ship, Susan?' inquired Florence, very pale.
     'No, Miss,' returned Susan, 'I should like to see' him make so  bold as
do it to my face! No, Miss, but he goes 'on about some bothering ginger that
Mr Walter was to send to Mrs Perch, and  shakes his dismal head, and says he
hopes it  may be coming; anyhow, he  says, it can't come now in time for the
intended occasion, but  may do  for next, which  really,' said Miss  Nipper,
with aggravated scorn,  'puts me out of patience with the man, for  though I
can bear a great deal, I am not a camel, neither am I,' added Susan, after a
moment's consideration, 'if I know myself, a dromedary neither.'
     'What  else  does he say, Susan?'  inquired Florence, earnestly. 'Won't
you tell me?'
     'As if I wouldn't tell  you anything, Miss Floy, and everything!'  said
Susan. 'Why, nothing Miss,  he says that there begins to  be  a general talk
about the  ship, and that they have never had a  ship on that voyage half so
long unheard  of, and that  the Captain's wife was  at the office yesterday,
and seemed a  little put  out about it,  but anyone  could say that, we knew
nearly that before.'
     'I  must  visit  Walter's uncle,' said Florence,  hurriedly, 'before  I
leave home. I will go and see him this morning. Let us walk there, directly,
Susan.
     Miss  Nipper having  nothing to urge against  the  proposal,  but being
perfectly acquiescent, they were soon equipped,  and  in the streets, and on
their way towards the little Midshipman.
     The state of mind in which poor Walter had gone to Captain Cuttle's, on
the day  when Brogley the broker came into possession, and when there seemed
to him to  be an execution in the very steeples, was pretty much the same as
that  in  which  Florence  now  took  her way  to  Uncle  Sol's;  with  this
difference, that Florence suffered the  added pain of  thinking that she had
been, perhaps,  the innocent occasion  of involving Walter in peril, and all
to  whom he was  dear, herself included, in an agony of  suspense.  For  the
rest,   uncertainty   and   danger  seemed   written  upon  everything.  The
weathercocks on  spires and housetops  were mysterious  with hints of stormy
wind,  and pointed,  like so many  ghostly  fingers, out to  dangerous seas,
where fragments of  great  wrecks were drifting,  perhaps, and  helpless men
were rocked upon them into a sleep as deep as the unfathomable waters.  When
Florence came into the City, and passed gentlemen who were talking together,
she dreaded  to  hear  them speaking of the ship,  an'd saying  it was lost.
Pictures  and prints  of vessels  fighting with the rolling waves filled her
with alarm. The smoke and clouds, though moving gently, moved too  fast  for
her  apprehensions,  and made  her fear there  was a tempest blowing at that
moment on the ocean.
     Susan Nipper may or  may not have  been affected similarly, but  having
her attention  much engaged in  struggles with boys, whenever there was  any
press of people -  for, between that grade of  human kind and herself, there
was  some natural animosity  that  invariably broke out,  whenever they came
together  -  it  would  seem that  she had not  much leisure on the road for
intellectual operations,
     Arriving in  good time abreast of the wooden Midshipman on the opposite
side of the way, and waiting  for an  opportunity to cross the  street, they
were a little  surprised at first to see, at  the Instrument-maker's door, a
round-headed  lad, with his chubby face  addressed towards  the sky, who, as
they  looked at him, suddenly thrust into his capacious mouth two fingers of
each  hand,  and  with  the  assistance  of  that machinery  whistled,  with
astonishing shrillness, to some pigeons at  a  considerable elevation in the
air.
     'Mrs  Richards's eldest,  Miss!'  said  Susan,  'and  the worrit of Mrs
Richards's life!'
     As Polly had been to tell Florence of the resuscitated prospects of her
son and heir, Florence was prepared for the meeting: so, a favourable moment
presenting   itself,   they  both  hastened   across,  without  any  further
contemplation  of Mrs Richards's  bane' That sporting character, unconscious
of their approach, again  whistled with his utmost might, and then yelled in
a rapture of excitement, 'Strays!  Whip! Strays!' which  identification  had
such an effect upon  the conscience-stricken pigeons, that instead of  going
direct to some  town in the North of England, as appeared to have been their
original intention, they began to wheel and falter; whereupon Mrs Richards's
first born  pierced them with another whistle, and  again yelled, in a voice
that rose above the turmoil of the street, 'Strays! Who~oop! Strays!'
     From this transport, he was  abruptly recalled  to terrestrial objects,
by a poke from Miss Nipper, which sent him into the shop,
     'Is  this the way you show your penitence,  when Mrs Richards has  been
fretting  for  you  months  and  months?' said  Susan,  following  the poke.
'Where's Mr Gills?'
     Rob, who smoothed his  first  rebellious glance at Miss Nipper when  he
saw Florence  following,  put  his knuckles to his hair, in  honour  of  the
latter, and said to the former, that Mr Gills was out'
     Fetch him  home,' said Miss  Nipper, with authority, 'and say  that  my
young lady's here.'
     'I don't know where he's gone,' said Rob.
     'Is that your penitence?' cried Susan, with stinging sharpness.
     'Why how  can I  go and  fetch  him when I  don't  know  where to  go?'
whimpered the baited Rob. 'How can you be so unreasonable?'
     'Did Mr Gills say when he should be home?' asked Florence.
     'Yes, Miss,' replied  Rob, with another application of his  knuckles to
his  hair.  'He  said he should be home early in the  afternoon;  in about a
couple of hours from now, Miss.'
     'Is he very anxious about his nephew?' inquired Susan.
     'Yes,  Miss,' returned Rob, preferring  to address  himself to Florence
and slighting  Nipper; 'I should say he was, very much so. He ain't indoors,
Miss, not a quarter  of an hour together. He can't  settle in one place five
minutes. He  goes about, like a - just like a  stray,' said Rob, stooping to
get a glimpse of the pigeons through the window,  and checking himself, with
his fingers half-way to his mouth, on the verge of another whistle.
     'Do  you  know  a friend of  Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?' inquired
Florence, after a moment's reflection.
     'Him with  a hook, Miss?' rejoined Rob, with  an illustrative  twist of
his left hand. Yes, Miss. He was here the day before yesterday.'
     'Has he not been here since?' asked Susan.
     'No, Miss,' returned Rob, still addressing his reply to Florence.
     'Perhaps  Walter's  Uncle has  gone there,  Susan,' observed  Florence,
turning to her.
     'To Captain Cuttle's, Miss?' interposed Rob; 'no, he's  not gone there,
Miss. Because  he  left  particular  word that  if Captain Cuttle called,  I
should tell him  how  surprised he was, not to have seen  him yesterday, and
should make him stop till he came back'
     'Do you know where Captain Cuttle lives?' asked Florence.
     Rob replied in the affirmative, and turning  to a greasy parchment book
on the shop desk, read the address aloud.
     Florence again turned to her maid  and took counsel  with her in  a low
voice,  while Rob  the  round-eyed,  mindful of  his patron's secret charge,
looked on and  listened. Florence  proposed that  they kould go  to  Captain
Cuttle's  house; hear from his own lips, what  he thought  of the absence of
any  tidings ofthe Son  and  Heir; and bring  him, if they could, to comfort
Uncle Sol. Susan at first objected slightly, on the score of distance; but a
hackney-coach being mentioned by her mistress, withdrew that opposition, and
gave  in her  assent.  There were  some  minutes  of discussion between them
before they came to this conclusion, during which the staring Rob paid close
attention  to both speakers, and inclined his ear to each by turns, as if he
were appointed arbitrator of the argument.
     In time, Rob  was  despatched  for  a coach, the  visitors keeping shop
meanwhile; and when he brought it, they got into it,  leaving word for Uncle
Sol that they would be sure to call  again,  on their way  back.  Rob having
stared after  the  coach  until  it was as  invisible as the pigeons had now
become,  sat  down  behind the desk with a most assiduous  demeanour; and in
order that he  might forget nothing of what had transpired, made notes of it
on various small  scraps of paper, with a vast expenditure of ink. There was
no  danger of these documents betraying  anything, if accidentally lost; for
long before a word was dry, it became as profound a mystery to Rob, as if he
had had no part whatever in its production.
     While he  was yet  busy  with  these labours, the hackney-coach,  after
encountering  unheard-of  difficulties  from  swivel-bridges,   soft  roads,
impassable  canals,  caravans  of  casks,  settlements of  scarlet-beans and
little  wash-houses,  and many such  obstacles  abounding in  that  country,
stopped at the  corner  of Brig  Place.  Alighting here, Florence and  Susan
Nipper walked down the street, and sought out the abode of Captain Cuttle.
     It happened by evil chance to be one of Mrs MacStinger's great cleaning
days. On these occasions, Mrs MacStinger was knocked up  by the policeman at
a quarter before three in the morning, and rarely such before twelve o'clock
next night.  The chief  object  of this institution appeared to be, that Mrs
MacStinger should move all the furniture into the back garden at early dawn,
walk about the house in pattens all day,  and move the  furniture back again
after  dark.  These  ceremonies  greatly  fluttered  those doves  the  young
MacStingers,  who  were  not   only  unable  at  such  times  to  find   any
resting-place for the soles of their feet, but generally came in  for a good
deal  of  pecking  from  the  maternal  bird  during  the  progress  of  the
solemnities.
     At the moment  when Florence and  Susan Nipper  presented themselves at
Mrs MacStinger's door,  that worthy but redoubtable female was in the act of
conveying Alexander MacStinger, aged two years and three  months,  along the
passage, for  forcible  deposition  in  a  sitting  posture  on  the  street
pavement:  Alexander being  black in the face with holding his breath  after
punishment, and a cool paving-stone being usually found to act as a powerful
restorative in such cases.
     The feelings of Mrs MacStinger, as a woman  and a mother, were outraged
by  the  look of pity for Alexander  which she observed  on Florence's face.
Therefore, Mrs MacStinger asserting those  finest emotions of our nature, in
preference to weakly gratifying her curiosity, shook and buffeted  Alexander
both  before  and during the application  of the paving-stone,  and took  no
further notice of the strangers.
     'I beg your pardon, Ma'am,' said Florence, when the child had found his
breath again, and was using it. 'Is this Captain Cuttle's house?'
     'No,' said Mrs MacStinger.
     'Not Number Nine?' asked Florence, hesitating.
     'Who said it wasn't Number Nine?' said Mrs MacStinger.
     Susan  Nipper  instantly struck  in,  and  begged to  inquire  what Mrs
MacStinger meant by that, and if she knew whom she was talking to.
     Mrs MacStinger in retort,  looked  at her  all over. 'What  do you want
with Captain Cuttle, I should wish to know?' said Mrs MacStinger.
     'Should you? Then I'm sorry that you won't be satisfied,' returned Miss
Nipper.
     'Hush, Susan! If you please!' said Florence.  'Perhaps you can have the
goodness  to tell us where Captain  Cutlle lives, Ma'am  as  he  don't  live
here.'
     'Who  says he don't live  here?' retorted the implacable MacStinger. 'I
said  it wasn't Cap'en Cuttle's house - and  it ain't his  house -and forbid
it, that  it ever should be his house - for Cap'en Cuttle  don't know how to
keep a house - and don't deserve to have  a house - it's my house - and when
I let the upper floor to Cap'en  Cuttle, oh I do a thankless thing, and cast
pearls before swine!'
     Mrs  MacStinger pitched  her voice for the  upper  windows in  offering
these remarks, and cracked off each  clause sharply by  itself  as if from a
rifle possessing an infinity of  barrels. After the last shot, the Captain's
voice was heard to say, in  feeble remonstrance from his  own  room, 'Steady
below!'
     'Since  you want Cap'en Cuttle, there he is!' said Mrs MacStinger, with
an angry motion of her hand. On Florence  making  bold to enter, without any
more  parley,  and  on  Susan  following,  Mrs  MacStinger  recommenced  her
pedestrian  exercise in pattens,  and  Alexander  MacStinger  (still on  the
paving-stone), who had stopped in his crying to attend to  the conversation,
began to  wail  again, entertaining himself  during that dismal performance,
which  was  quite  mechanical,  with  a  general  survey  of  the  prospect,
terminating in the hackney-coach.
     The  Captain in his  own apartment was sitting  with  his hands in  his
pockets  and his legs  drawn  up under his chair, on a  very  small desolate
island,  lying  about  midway in an ocean of soap and water.  The  Captain's
windows had  been  cleaned, the walls  had been  cleaned, the stove had been
cleaned, and everything  the stove  excepted, was wet, and shining with soft
soap and  sand: the smell of which  dry-saltery impregnated  the air. In the
midst of the dreary scene,  the  Captain, cast away upon his island,  looked
round on  the waste of waters with a  rueful countenance, and seemed waiting
for some friendly bark to come that way, and take him off.
     But  when  the Captain, directing  his forlorn visage towards the door,
saw Florence  appear with her  maid, no words can describe his astonishment.
Mrs MacStinger's eloquence having rendered all other sounds but  imperfectly
distinguishable, he had  looked for no rarer visitor than the potboy  or the
milkman; wherefore, when  Florence  appeared, and coming to  the confines of
the island,  put  her hand in his,  the  Captain stood  up, aghast, as if he
supposed  her,  for  the  moment, to be  some  young  member  of  the Flying
Dutchman's family.'
     Instantly recovering his self-possession, however, the Captain's  first
care was to place her on  dry land, which he  happily accomplished, with one
motion  of his arm. Issuing forth,  then, upon the main, Captain Cuttle took
Miss Nipper round the  waist,  and bore  her  to  the island  also.  Captain
Cuttle, then, with great respect and admiration, raised the hand of Florence
to his lips, and standing off a little(for the island  was not  large enough
for three), beamed on her from the soap and water like a new description  of
Triton.
     'You are amazed to see us, I am sure,'said Florence, with a smile.
     The  inexpressibly gratified  Captain  kissed  his  hook in reply,  and
growled, as if a choice and delicate compliment were included  in the words,
'Stand by! Stand by!'
     'But I  couldn't rest,' said Florence, 'without coming to ask you  what
you think  about  dear  Walter - who is my brother now- and whether there is
anything  to fear,  and whether you will  not go and  console his poor Uncle
every day, until we have some intelligence of him?'
     At these  words Captain  Cuttle, as by an involuntary gesture,  clapped
his hand  to his head, on  which the  hard glazed  hat  was not, and  looked
discomfited.
     'Have you any fears for Walter's safety?' inquired Florence, from whose
face the Captain (so  enraptured he was with  it) could not  take  his eyes:
while she,  in her turn,  looked  earnestly  at him, to  be assured  of  the
sincerity of his reply.
     'No, Heart's-delight,' said Captain Cuttle, 'I am not afeard. Wal'r  is
a lad as'll go through a deal o' hard weather. Wal'r is a lad as'll bring as
muc