sion, on the part of
the neglected child, to the affectionate concern  so  often expressed by her
dead  brother - or a love  that sought to twine itself about the  heart that
had  loved him,  and that could  not  bear to be shut out from sympathy with
such a sorrow, in such sad community of love and grief - or whether the only
recognised  the earnest  and devoted spirit  which, although  discarded  and
repulsed, was wrung with tenderness  long unreturned, and  in the waste  and
solitude of this  bereavement cried to him to seek a comfort  in it, and  to
give some, by some small response - whatever may have been her understanding
of it, it  moved Miss  Tox.  For  the moment she forgot the  majesty  of Mrs
Chick, and, patting Florence hastily on the cheek, turned aside and suffered
the tears to  gush from her eyes,  without waiting for a lead from that wise
matron.
     Mrs Chick herself lost, for a moment, the presence of mind on which she
so much prided herself;  and remained mute, looking  on  the beautiful young
face that had so long, so steadily,  and patiently,  been turned towards the
little bed.  But recovering  her  voice  -  which was  synonymous  with  her
presence of mind, indeed they were one and the same thing - she replied with
dignity:
     'Florence,  my dear  child, your poor Papa is peculiar at times; and to
question  me about him,  is to question me  upon a subject which I really do
not pretend to understand. I believe I have as much influence with your Papa
as anybody has. Still, all I can say is, that he has said very little to me;
and  that I have only  seen him once or twice for a minute at  a  time,  and
indeed have hardly seen him then, for his room has been dark. I have said to
your Papa, "Paul!" - that is the exact expression I used - "Paul! why do you
not take something stimulating?" Your Papa's reply has always been, "Louisa,
have the  goodness to leave me. I want nothing. I am better by myself." If I
was to be put  upon my oath to-morrow, Lucretia, before  a magistrate,' said
Mrs  Chick, 'I have  no doubt I  could venture  to  swear to those identical
words.'
     Miss  Tox  expressed  her  admiration  by  saying, 'My Louisa  is  ever
methodical!'
     'In short, Florence,' resumed her aunt,  'literally nothing has  passed
between your  poor  Papa and myself, until  to-day; when I mentioned to your
Papa that Sir Barnet  and Lady Skettles had written exceedingly kind notes -
our  sweet  boy!  Lady  Skettles  loved  him like  a  -  where's  my  pocket
handkerchief?'
     Miss Tox produced one.
     'Exceedingly  kind notes,  proposing  that  you should  visit them  for
change of scene. Mentioning to your Papa  that I thought Miss Tox and myself
might  now  go  home (in which he  quite agreed), I inquired  if  he had any
objection to your  accepting this invitation.  He said, "No, Louisa, not the
least!"' Florence raised her tearful eye
     'At  the same time,  if you  would prefer  staying  here, Florence,  to
paying this visit at present, or to going home with me - '
     'I should much prefer it, aunt,' was the faint rejoinder.
     'Why then, child,'said  Mrs  Chick, 'you  can. It's a strange choice, I
must say. But you always were strange. Anybody else  at your  time of  life,
and  after  what has  passed  - my dear  Miss  Tox, I have  lost  my  pocket
handkerchief again - would be glad to leave here, one would suppose.
     'I should  not like  to feel,'  said  Florence,  'as  if the house  was
avoided. I should not like to think that the - his - the rooms upstairs were
quite empty and dreary, aunt. I would rather  stay here, for the present. Oh
my brother! oh my brother!'
     It was a  natural emotion, not to  be suppressed; and it would make way
even  between the fingers of  the hands with which  she covered up her face.
The  overcharged  and heavy-laden breast  must some times have that vent, or
the poor  wounded solitary heart within  it would have fluttered like a bird
with broken wings, and sunk down in the dust'
     'Well, child!' said Mrs Chick, after a pause 'I wouldn't on any account
say anything unkind to  you, and  that  I'm sure  you know. You will  remain
here, then,  and do  exactly as you like.  No one  will  interfere with you,
Florence, or wish to interfere with you, I'm sure.
     Florence shook her head in sad assent'
     'I had no sooner begun to advise your poor Papa that he really ought to
seek some  distraction  and restoration in  a temporary  change,'  said  Mrs
Chick,  'than he told me he  had  already formed the intention of going into
the country for a short time. I'm  sure  I hope he'll go very soon. He can't
go too soon. But  I suppose  there  are some arrangements connected with his
private papers and so  forth, consequent on the affliction that has tried us
all so much - I can't think what's become  of mine: Lucretia, lend me yours,
my dear - that may occupy him for one or two evenings in his own  room. Your
Papa's a Dombey, child, if ever there  was one,' said Mrs Chick, drying both
her  eyes  at  once  with  great care on  opposite  corners  of  Miss  Tox's
handkerchief 'He'll make an effort. There's no fear of him.'
     'Is there nothing, aunt,' said Florence, trembling, 'I might do to -
     'Lord,  my dear  child,' interposed  Mrs Chick, hastily, 'what are  you
talking about? If your  Papa said to Me - I have given  you his exact words,
"Louisa, I want nothing; I am better by myself" - what do you think he'd say
to  you?  You mustn't show  yourself to him, child. Don't  dream  of  such a
thing.'
     'Aunt,' said Florence, 'I will go and lie down on my bed.'
     Mrs Chick approved  of this resolution, and  dismissed her with a kiss.
But Miss Tox, on a faint pretence of looking  for the mislaid  handkerchief,
went upstairs after her; and tried in a few stolen minutes to  comfort  her,
in spite  of great discouragement from Susan Nipper. For Miss Nipper, in her
burning zeal, disparaged Miss  Tox  as a crocodile; yet her  sympathy seemed
genuine,  and  had at least the vantage-ground of  disinterestedness - there
was little favour to be won by it.
     And  was there  no one  nearer  and  dearer  than  Susan, to uphold the
striving heart in its  anguish? Was  there no other neck to  clasp; no other
face to turn to? no one else to say a soothing word to such deep sorrow? Was
Florence so  alone in the  bleak  world that  nothing else remained  to her?
Nothing. Stricken  motherless  and brotherless at once  - for in the loss of
little Paul, that first and greatest loss fell heavily upon  her  - this was
the only help she had. Oh, who can tell how much she needed help at first!
     At  first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course, and they
had all gone away, except the  servants, and her  father  shut up in his own
rooms, Florence  could do nothing  but weep,  and  wander up and  down,  and
sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her own chamber,
wring  her  hands, lay  her face down on  her bed, and know  no consolation:
nothing but the  bitterness and cruelty of grief. This commonly  ensued upon
the recognition of some spot  or object very tenderly dated with him; and it
made the ale house, at first, a place of agony.
     But  it is  not in  the  nature  of  pure love to burn so  fiercely and
unkindly  long. The flame that  in its grosser composition has the  taint of
earth may  prey upon the breast  that gives  it shelter; but  the fire  from
heaven is  as  gentle in the heart,  as when  it rested on the  heads of the
assembled  twelve,  and showed each  man his brother, brightened and unhurt.
The image conjured  up,  there soon  returned the placid  face, the softened
voice,  the  loving looks, the quiet trustfulness  and  peace; and Florence,
though she wept still, wept more tranquilly, and courted the remembrance.
     It was not very long before the golden  water, dancing  on the wall, in
the old place, at the  old serene time, had her calm eye fixed upon it as it
ebbed  away. It was not very long before that  room  again knew her,  often;
sitting there  alone, as patient and as  mild as when she had watched beside
the little bed. When any  sharp sense of its being empty smote upon her, she
could kneel beside it,  and pray GOD -  it was the  pouring out of her  full
heart - to let one angel love her and remember her.
     It was not  very long before, in the midst of  the dismal house so wide
and dreary, her low voice  in the  twilight, slowly and  stopping sometimes,
touched the old air  to which  he had so often listened,  with  his drooping
head upon her arm. And after  that,  and  when it was quite  dark, a  little
strain of music trembled in the room: so softly played and sung, that it was
more lIke the mournful recollection of what she had done  at  his request on
that last  night, than the reality repeated. But it  was  repeated, often  -
very often,  in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still
trembled on the keys, when the sweet voice was hushed in tears.
     Thus she gained heart to look  upon the work with which her fingers had
been busy by his side on the sea-shore; and thus it was not very long before
she took to it again - with something  of a human love for it, as if it  had
been sentient and had known him; and, sitting in a window, near her mother's
picture,  in the unused  room  so long deserted,  wore away  the  thoughtful
hours.
     Why did the  dark eyes turn so  often  from this work to where the rosy
children  lived? They were  not immediate!y suggestive of her loss; for they
were all girls: four little sisters. But they were motherless like her - and
had a father.
     It was easy to know when he had gone out and was expected home, for the
elder child  was  always dressed and  waiting  for him  at  the drawing-room
window, or n the balcony; and when he  appeared, her expectant  face lighted
up with joy, while the others at  the  high window,  and always on the watch
too, clapped their hands, and drummed  them on the sill, and called  to him.
The elder child would come down to the  hall,  and put her hand in  his, and
lead him up the stairs; and Florence would see her afterwards sitting by his
side, or  on his  knee, or hanging coaxingly about  his  neck and talking to
him: and though they were always gay together, he would often watch her face
as if he thought her like her mother that was dead. Florence would sometimes
look no more  at this, and bursting into tears would hide behind the curtain
as if she were frightened, or would hurry from the window. Yet she could not
help returning; and her work would soon fall unheeded from her hands again.
     It was the house that had been empty, years ago. It had remained so for
a long time. At last, and while she had been away from home, this family had
taken it;  and it was  repaired and newly painted; and there  were birds and
flowers about it; and it  looked very  different from its old  self. But she
never thought of the house. The children and their father were all in all.
     When he  had dined,  she could see  them, through  the open windows, go
down  with their governess or nurse, and cluster round the table; and in the
still summer weather, the sound  of their childish voices and clear laughter
would come ringing across the  street, into the drooping  air of the room in
which she sat. Then they would climb and clamber upstairs with him, and romp
about him on the sofa, or group themselves  at his knee,  a very nosegay  of
little faces,  while he seemed to  tell  them some story. Or they would come
running out into the balcony; and then Florence would  hide herself quickly,
lest  it  should check  them in their joy, to see her  in  her  black dress,
sitting there alone.
     The elder  child remained with her father when the rest  had gone away,
and made his tea for him - happy little house-keeper she was then! - and sat
conversing with him, sometimes at the window, sometimes in the  room,  until
the  candles  came.  He made  her his  companion, though she  was some years
younger than Florence; and she could be as staid and pleasantly demure, with
her little  book or work-box, as a  woman.  When they had candles,  Florence
from her own dark room was not afraid to  look again. But when the time came
for the child to say 'Good-night, Papa,'  and go to bed, Florence would  sob
and tremble as she raised her face to him, and could look no more.
     Though still  she  would  turn,  again  and again, before  going to bed
herself  from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long ago,
and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back  to that house. But
that she ever thought of  it,  or  watched it, was a secret  which she  kept
within her own young breast.
     And did that breast of Florence - Florence, so  ingenuous and true - so
worthy of the love that he  had  borne  her, and had  whispered  in his last
faint words - whose guileless heart was mirrored in the beauty of  her face,
and  breathed  in every accent of her gentle voice - did  that  young breast
hold any other secret? Yes. One more.
     When  no  one  in the house  was  stirring,  and  the lights  were  all
extinguished, she would softly leave her own  room, and with noiseless  feet
descend the staircase, and approach  her father's door. Against it, scarcely
breathing, she  would rest her  face  and head, and  press her lips, in  the
yearning  of  her love. She crouched  upon the cold stone  floor outside it,
every night, to listen even for his breath; and in her one absorbing wish to
be allowed to show him some affection,  to be a consolation  to him,  to win
him over to  the endurance of some tenderness from  her, his solitary child,
she would  have  knelt  down  at  his  feet,  if  she had dared,  in  humble
supplication.
     No one knew it' No one thought of it. The door was ever  closed, and he
shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the house that
he was very soon  going on his country journey; but he lived in those rooms,
and lived alone, and never saw her, or inquired for her. Perhaps he  did not
even know that she was in the house.
     One  day, about a week after the  funeral, Florence was  sitting at her
work,  when Susan appeared,  with a face half laughing and  half crying,  to
announce a visitor.
     'A visitor! To me, Susan!' said Florence, looking up in astonishment.
     'Well, it is  a  wonder,  ain't  it now, Miss Floy?' said Susan; 'but I
wish  you had a many visitors, I do, indeed, for you'd be all the better for
it,  and it's  my opinion that the sooner you and  me goes even to  them old
Skettleses, Miss,  the better for both,  I  may not  wish to live in crowds,
Miss Floy, but still I'm not a oyster.'
     To  do Miss Nipper  justice, she spoke more for her young mistress than
herself; and her face showed it.
     'But the visitor, Susan,' said Florence.
     Susan, with an hysterical explosion  that was as much a laugh as a sob,
and as much a sob as a laugh, answered,
     'Mr Toots!'
     The smile that appeared on  Florence's face passed from it in a moment,
and  her eyes  filled with tears.  But at any rate it was  a smile, and that
gave great satisfaction to Miss Nipper.
     'My own feelings exactly, Miss Floy,' said Susan, putting  her apron to
her  eyes,  and  shaking her head. 'Immediately  I see that Innocent  in the
Hall, Miss Floy, I burst out laughing first, and then I choked.'
     Susan Nipper involuntarily proceeded to do the like  again on the spot.
In the  meantime Mr Toots, who had come upstairs after  her, all unconscious
of the effect he  produced, announced himself with his knuckles on the door,
and walked in very brisKly.
     'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank you;
how are you?'
     Mr Toots - than whom there were few better fellows in the world, though
there may have been one  or two brighter spirits - had  laboriously invented
this long burst of discourse with the view of relieving the feelings both of
Florence and himself. But  finding that he had run  through his property, as
it were, in an injudicious manner, by squandering the whole  before taking a
chair, or before Florence had  uttered a word, or before  he had well got in
at the door, he deemed it advisable to begin again.
     'How d'ye do, Miss Dombey?' said Mr Toots. 'I'm very well, I thank you;
how are you?'
     Florence gave him her hand, and said she was very well.
     'I'm  very  well  indeed,' said Mr  Toots, taking  a chair. 'Very  well
indeed, I am.  I don't remember,' said  Mr Toots, after reflecting a little,
'that I was ever better, thank you.'
     'It's  very kind of you to come,' said Florence, taking up her work, 'I
am very glad to see you.'
     Mr  Toots responded  with a chuckle. Thinking that might be too lively,
he  corrected  it  with  a sigh. Thinking that might be too  melancholy,  he
corrected it with  a chuckle.  Not  thoroughly pleasing himself  with either
mode of reply, he breathed hard.
     'You were very kind to my dear brother,' said Florence, obeying her own
natural impulse to relieve  him by saying  so.  'He often talked to me about
you.'
     'Oh it's of no consequence,' said Mr Toots hastily. 'Warm, ain't it?'
     'It is beautiful weather,' replied Florence.
     'It agrees with me!'  said Mr Toots.  'I don't think I ever was so well
as I find myself at present, I'm obliged to you.
     After stating  this curious and unexpected fact, Mr Toots fell  into  a
deep well of silence.
     'You have  left Dr  Blimber's, I think?'  said Florence, trying to help
him out.
     'I should hope so,' returned Mr Toots. And tumbled in again.
     He  remained  at  the bottom,  apparently  drowned,  for  at  least ten
minutes. At the expiration of that period, he suddenly floated, and said,
     'Well! Good morning, Miss Dombey.'
     'Are you going?' asked Florence, rising.
     'I don't know, though. No, not just at present,' said Mr Toots, sitting
down again, most unexpectedly. 'The fact is - I say, Miss Dombey!'
     'Don't be afraid to speak to me,' said Florence, with a quiet smile, 'I
should he very glad if you would talk about my brother.'
     'Would you, though?' retorted Mr Toots, with sympathy in every fibre of
his otherwise  expressionless face. 'Poor  Dombey! I'm sure I  never thought
that Burgess and Co. - fashionable tailors (but very dear), that we used  to
talk about - would make  this suit of clothes for such a purpose.'  Mr Toots
was dressed in mourning. 'Poor Dombey! I say! Miss Dombey!' blubbered Toots.
     'Yes,' said Florence.
     'There's a friend he took to very much at last. I thought you'd lIke to
have him, perhaps,  as  a  sort  of  keepsake. You remember  his remembering
Diogenes?'
     'Oh yes! oh yes' cried Florence.
     'Poor Dombey! So do I,' said Mr Toots.
     Mr  Toots, seeing  Florence in tears, had great difficulty  in  getting
beyond this point, and had nearly tumbled into the well again. But a chucKle
saved him on the brink.
     'I say,'  he proceeded, 'Miss  Dombey!  I could have had him stolen for
ten shillings, if they hadn't given him up:  and I would: but they were glad
to get rid of  him, I think. If  you'd like to have him, he's at the door. I
brought him on purpose for you. He  ain't  a lady's dog, you know,'  said Mr
Toots, 'but you won't mind that, will you?'
     In  fact, Diogenes was  at that moment,  as they presently  ascertained
from looking down into  the street, staring through the window  of a hackney
cabriolet, into which, for conveyance to that spot, he had been ensnared, on
a false pretence of rats among  the straw. Sooth to say, he was  as unlike a
lady's  dog as might be; and  in his gruff anxiety to get out,  presented an
appearance sufficiently unpromising, as he gave short yelps out  of one side
of  his  mouth, and overbalancing  himself by the intensity of every one  of
those  efforts,  tumbled  down into the  straw, and  then sprung panting  up
again, putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to  a Dispensary to
be examined for his health.
     But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a
summer's  day;   a  blundering,  ill-favoured,  clumsy,  bullet-headed  dog,
continually  acting on  a  wrong  idea  that  there  was  an  enemy  in  the
neighbourhood,  whom it was meritorious to bark  at; and though  he  was far
from  good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his
eyes, and a comic nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice; he  was
dearer to Florence, in virtue of that parting remembrance of  him,  and that
request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful
of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to
her,  that  she  took the  jewelled hand of  Mr  Toots and kissed it in  her
gratitude.  And when  Diogenes, released, came  tearing up  the  stairs  and
bouncing  into the room (such a business as there was, first, to get him out
of the  cabriolet!), dived  under all the  furniture, and wound a long  iron
chain, that dangled from his neck, round legs of chairs and tables, and then
tugged  at  it until his eyes became  unnaturally visible, in consequence of
their nearly starting out  of his head; and when he growled at Mr Toots, who
affected  familiarity; and  went pell-mell at Towlinson,  morally  convinced
that  he  was the enemy whom  he had barked at round the corner all his life
and had never seen yet; Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a
miracle of discretion.
     Mr  Toots was  so overjoyed by the success of  his present, and was  so
delighted to  see  Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his coarse
back with her little delicate hand - Diogenes  graciously  allowing it  from
the first moment of their  acquaintance  - that he felt it difficult to take
leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer  time in  making  up his
mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly
took it  into his head to bay Mr Toots, and to make short  runs at him  with
his  mouth  open.  Not  exactly   seeing  his  way  to  the  end   of  these
demonstrations, and  sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by
the art of Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr Toots, with chuckles,  lapsed out
at the door: by which, after  looking  in again two  or three times, without
any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a  fresh run from
Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away.
     'Come, then, Di! Dear Di!  Make friends with  your new mistress. Let us
love  each other,  Di!'said Florence, fondling his shaggy head.  And Di, the
rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear that dropped
upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put his nose up to her face,
and swore fidelity.
     Diogenes the man did not speak  plainer  to Alexander  the  Great  than
Diogenes the  dog  spoke to  Florence.'  He subscribed to  the offer  of his
little mistress  cheerfully, and devoted himself  to her  service. A banquet
was immediately provided  for him  in a corner;  and  when he had eaten  and
drunk his fill, he went to  the window  where Florence  was sitting, looking
on, rose up on his hind  legs, with his  awkward fore paws on her shoulders,
licked  her  face and  hands, nestled  his great head against her heart, and
wagged his  tail  till he was tired. Finally, Diogenes  coiled himself up at
her feet and went to sleep.
     Although  Miss  Nipper was nervous  in regard  of  dogs,  and  felt  it
necessary  to  come into the room with her  skirts carefully collected about
her, as  if she were crossing a brook  on  stepping-stones;  also  to  utter
little screams and  stand up on chairs  when Diogenes stretched himself, she
was in her own manner  affected by the  kindness  of Mr Toots, and could not
see Florence so  alive to the attachment and society of this  rude friend of
little Paul's, without some mental comments thereupon that brought the water
to her eyes. Mr Dombey, as a part of her reflections, may have been, in  the
association of  ideas,  connected with  the  dog; but,  at  any  rate, after
observing  Diogenes and  his  mistress  all the  evening, and after exerting
herself with  much  good-will to provide Diogenes a bed in  an  ante-chamber
outside his  mistress's door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving
her for the night:
     'Your Pa's a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.'
     'To-morrow morning, Susan?'
     'Yes, Miss; that's the orders. Early.'
     'Do  you know,' asked Florence, without looking  at her, 'where Papa is
going, Susan?'
     'Not exactly, Miss. He's going to meet that precious Major first, and I
must say if  I was  acquainted with any Major myself (which Heavens forbid),
it shouldn't be a blue one!'
     'Hush, Susan!' urged Florence gently.
     'Well, Miss  Floy,'  returned  Miss Nipper,  who  was  full of  burning
indignation, and minded her  stops even less than usual.  'I  can't help it,
blue  he  is, and while  I was  a Christian, although humble, I  would  have
natural-coloured friends, or none.'
     It appeared  from  what she added  and had gleaned downstairs, that Mrs
Chick had proposed the Major for Mr  Dombey's companion, and that Mr Dombey,
after some hesitation, had invited him.
     'Talk of him being a  change, indeed!' observed Miss Nipper  to herself
with boundless contempt. 'If he's a change, give me a constancy.
     'Good-night, Susan,' said Florence.
     'Good-night, my darling dear Miss Floy.'
     Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, but
never listened  to while she or anyone  looked on. Florence left alone, laid
her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her swelling heart, held
free communication with her sorrows.
     It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and dropping
with a  weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went moaning round the
house, as if it were in pain or grief.  A shrill  noise quivered through the
trees. While she  sat  weeping, it grew late, and dreary midnight tolled out
from the steeples.
     Florence was little more than a child in years - not yet  fourteen- and
the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great  house where Death had
lately made  its own  tremendous devastation, might have set an older  fancy
brooding on vague  terrors. But her innocent imagination was too full of one
theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but love - a wandering
love, indeed, and castaway  -  but  turning always to  her father. There was
nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering
of  the trees,  the striking  of  the solemn clocks,  that  shook  this  one
thought, or diminished its interest' Her recollections of  the dear dead boy
-  and they were never absent  - were itself, the same  thing. And oh, to be
shut out: to be so  lost: never to  have  looked  into her  father's face or
touched him, since that hour!
     She  could not go to bed, poor child, and  never had  gone  yet,  since
then, without making her  nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have been
a  strange sad sight,  to see her' now,  stealing  lightly down  the  stairs
through the thick gloom, and  stopping  at  it  with a  beating  heart,  and
blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought of; and touching
it outside with her wet cheek. But the night covered it, and no one knew.
     The moment that she touched the door on this night, Florence found that
it  was   open.  For  the  first  time  it  stood  open,  though  by  but  a
hair's-breadth: and there was a light within. The first impulse of the timid
child - and she yielded to it - was to retire swiftly. Her next, to go back,
and  to enter; and this  second  impulse held her  in  irresolution  on  the
staircase.
     In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to be
hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within, stealing
through the dark  stern  doorway, and  falling in  a thread upon  the marble
floor. She turned back, hardly  knowing  what  she did, but urged  on by the
love within her, and the trial they had undergone together, but  not shared:
and with her hands a little raised and trembling, glided in.
     Her  father  sat at his old table  in  the  middle  room. He  had  been
arranging some papers, and destroying others, and the latter  lay in fragile
ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes in the outer
room,  where  he had  so  often  watched poor  Paul,  a baby;  and  the  low
complainings of the wind were heard without.
     But not by him. He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so immersed in
thought,  that a far heavier tread  than the light foot of  his  child could
make, might have failed to rouse  him. His face was  turned  towards her. By
the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn  and dejected; and
in  the utter loneliness  surrounding him,  there  was an appeal to Florence
that struck home.
     'Papa! Papa! speak to me, dear Papa!'
     He started at her voice,  and leaped  up from his seat.  She  was close
before him' with extended arms, but he fell back.
     'What is the matter?' he said, sternly. 'Why do you come here? What has
frightened you?'
     If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. The
glowing love  within  the breast of his young  daughter froze before it, and
she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone.
     There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it.  There was not one
gleam  of  interest, parental recognition,  or relenting in  it. There was a
change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and cold constraint
had  given place to something: what, she never thought and did  not dare  to
think,  and  yet she felt it in its force, and knew it well without  a name:
that as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a shadow on her head.
     Did he  see before him the successful  rival of his son,  in health and
life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's affection? Did
a  mad jealousy and  withered  pride, poison  sweet remembrances that should
have endeared and made her precious to him? Could it be possible that it was
gall to him to look upon her in her beauty  and her promise: thinking of his
infant boy!
     Florence  had no such thoughts. But love  is  quick  to know when it is
spurned and hopeless: and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking in her
father's face.
     'I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the matter,
that you come here?'
     'I came, Papa - '
     'Against my wishes. Why?'
     She  saw he knew why:  it was written broadly on his face: and  dropped
her head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry.
     Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has  faded from the
air, before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his brain, as
he believes, but it  is  there. Let him remember it  in that room,  years to
come!
     He took  her  by  the arm. His hand was cold,  and loose,  and scarcely
closed upon her.
     'You are tired, I  daresay,' he said, taking up the light, and  leading
her towards the door, 'and want  rest. We all  want  rest. Go, Florence. You
have been dreaming.'
     The dream she  had had, was over then,  God help her! and she felt that
it could never more come back
     'I will  remain here to light you up the  stairs.  The  whole  house is
yours  above  there,' said her  father,  slowly. 'You are  its mistress now.
Good-night!'
     Still  covering  her face, she sobbed,  and answered  'Good-night, dear
Papa,'  and  silently ascended. Once she  looked back as if  she  would have
returned  to him, but for fear. It was a mommentary thought, too hopeless to
encourage; and her father  stood  there with the light - hard, unresponsive,
motionless - until  the fluttering dress of his fair  child was  lost in the
darkness.
     Let him remember  it  in that room,  years to come. The rain that falls
upon the roof: the wind that mourns outside the door: may have foreknowledge
in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that room, years to come!
     The last time he had watched her, from the same place, winding up those
stairs, she  had  had her brother in  her arms. It  did  not move  his heart
towards  her now, it steeled it: but he went into  his room,  and locked his
door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost boy.
     Diogenes  was  broad  awake  upon  his post, and waiting for his little
mistress.
     'Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!'
     Diogenes already  loved  her for her own, and didn't care how  much  he
showed  it. So he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing  a variety of
uncouth bounces in the ante-chamber, and concluded,  when poor  Florence was
at last asleep, and dreaming  of the rosy children  opposite, by  scratching
open her bedroom door: rolling up his bed into a pillow: lying  down on  the
boards,  at the  full  length of his tether, with his  head towards her: and
looking lazily at her, upside down, out  of the tops of his eyes, until from
winking and winking he fell  asleep himself,  and dreamed, with gruff barks,
of his enemy.

        CHAPTER 19.
     Walter goes away

     The  wooden  Midshipman  at  the  Instrument-maker's  door,   like  the
hard-hearted little  Midshipman he  was,  remained  supremely indifferent to
Walter's going away, even when the very last day of his sojourn  in the back
parlour was on the decline. With his quadrant at his round black  knob of an
eye, and  his figure  in  its old  attitude  of  indomitable  alacrity,  the
Midshipman displayed his  elfin  small-clothes  to  the best advantage, and,
absorbed in scientific pursuits, had  no sympathy with worldly concerns.  He
was so far the  creature of circumstances, that  a  dry day covered him with
dust, and a misty day peppered him with little  bits of soot, and a wet  day
brightened up  his tarnished uniform  for the moment,  and  a very  hot  day
blistered  him;  but  otherwise  he  was   a  callous,  obdurate,  conceited
Midshipman,  intent  on his own discoveries, and caring  as  little for what
went on about him, terrestrially, as Archimedes at the taking of Syracuse.
     Such a  Midshipman he seemed to be, at least, in  the then  position of
domestic affairs. Walter eyed him kindly many a time in passing in and  out;
and poor old Sol, when Walter was not there, would come and lean against the
doorpost,  resting his weary  wig as near the  shoe-buckles  of the guardian
genius of his trade  and shop  as he could. But no  fierce idol with a mouth
from ear to ear, and a murderous  visage made of parrot's feathers, was ever
more  indifferent  to the appeals  of  its savage  votaries,  than  was  the
Midshipman to these marks of attachment.
     Walter's heart felt heavy  as he looked round his old bedroom, up among
the  parapets and chimney-pots,  and thought  that  one  more  night already
darkening would close his acquaintance with it, perhaps for ever. Dismantled
of  his  little  stock  of  books  and  pictures,  it   looked  coldly   and
reproachfully on him for his desertion, and had already a foreshadowing upon
it of  its coming strangeness. 'A few hours more,'  thought Walter,  'and no
dream I ever had  here when I was a schoolboy will be so little mine as this
old room.  The dream may come back in my sleep, and  I may  return waking to
this place, it may be: but  the dream at least will  serve no  other master,
and the room  may have  a score, and  every one of them may change, neglect,
misuse it.'
     But his  Uncle was not to be  left  alone in  the little  back parlour,
where he was then sitting by himself; for Captain Cuttle, considerate in his
roughness,  stayed  away against his will,  purposely that they  should have
some talk together unobserved: so Walter, newly returned home from his  last
day's bustle, descended briskly, to bear him company.
     'Uncle,'  he said gaily,  laying his  hand upon the old man's shoulder,
'what shall I send you home from Barbados?'
     'Hope, my dear Wally. Hope that  we shall  meet  again, on this side of
the grave. Send me as much of that as you can.'
     'So I will, Uncle: I have enough and to spare, and I'll not be chary of
it!  And  as  to lively  turtles, and limes  for Captain Cuttle's punch, and
preserves for you on Sundays, and all that sort of thing, why  I'll send you
ship-loads, Uncle: when I'm rich enough.'
     Old Sol wiped his spectacles, and faintly smiled.
     'That's right, Uncle!' cried Walter, merrily, and clapping him  half  a
dozen  times more upon  the  shoulder. 'You  cheer up me! I'll cheer up you!
We'll be as gay as larks to-morrow morning, Uncle, and we'll fly as high! As
to my anticipations, they are singing out of sight now.
     'Wally, my dear boy,' returned the old man, 'I'll  do my  best, I'll do
my best.'
     'And your best, Uncle,' said  Walter, with his pleasant laugh, 'is  the
best best that I know. You'll not forget what you're to send me, Uncle?'
     'No, Wally,  no,' replied the  old  man; 'everything I  hear about Miss
Dombey, now that she is left alone, poor lamb, I'll write.  I  fear it won't
be much though, Wally.'
     'Why,  I'll  tell  you  what, Uncle,'  said  Walter, after  a  moment's
hesitation, 'I have just been up there.'
     'Ay,  ay, ay?'  murmured  the old man, raising  his  eyebrows, and  his
spectacles with them.
     'Not to  see  her,' said  Walter,  'though  I  could  have seen her,  I
daresay, if I had asked, Mr Dombey being  out of town: but to say  a parting
word  to Susan. I  thought  I might venture to do that, you know, under  the
circumstances, and remembering when I saw Miss Dombey last.'
     'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, rousing himself from a temporary
abstraction.
     'So I saw her,'  pursued  Walter, 'Susan, I mean: and  I told her I was
off  and  away to-morrow. And I said, Uncle,  that  you had  always  had  an
interest in  Miss  Dombey since  that night  when  she  was here, and always
wished her well and  happy, and always  would be proud and glad to serve her
in the least: I thought I might say that, you know, under the circumstances.
Don't you think so ?'
     'Yes, my boy, yes,' replied his Uncle, in the tone as before.
     'And I added,' pursued Walter, 'that  if  she - Susan, I mean  -  could
ever let you know, either through herself, or  Mrs Richards, or anybody else
who might be coming this way, that Miss Dombey was well and happy, you would
take it very  kindly,  and would write so much  to me,  and I should take it
very kindly too. There! Upon my word, Uncle,' said Walter, 'I scarcely slept
all last night through thinking of doing this; and could not make up my mind
when I was out, whether  to  do it or not; and yet I am sure  it is the true
feeling of my heart,  and I should have been quite miserable afterwards if I
had not relieved it.'
     His honest voice  and  manner  corroborated  what  he said,  and  quite
established its ingenuousness.
     'So, if you ever see her,  Uncle,' said Walter, 'I mean Miss Dombey now
- and perhaps  you may, who knows! - tell her  how  much I felt for her; how
much I used to think of her  when  I was  here; how I spoke of her, with the
tears in my  eyes, Uncle, on this  last night before  I went away. Tell  her
that I said I never could forget her gentle manner,  or her beautiful  face,
or her sweet kind disposition that was better than all. And as I didn't take
them  from a  woman's  feet,  or  a  young lady's: only  a  little  innocent
child's,'  said Walter:  'tell  her, if you don't  mind, Uncle, that I  kept
those shoes - she'll remember how often they fell off, that night - and took
them away with me as a remembrance!'
     They were at that very moment going out at the  door in one of Walter's
trunks. A porter  carrying off  his baggage on a  truck  for shipment at the
docks  on board  the Son  and  Heir, had got possession of them; and wheeled
them away under the very eye of the insensible Midshipman before their owner
had well finished speaking.
     But that ancient  mariner might have  been excused his insensibility to
the  treasure  as  it rolled away. For, under  his eye at the  same  moment,
accurately  within his range of observation,  coming full into the sphere of
his  startled and intensely  wide-awake  look-out,  were Florence  and Susan
Nipper: Florence looking up  into his face  half timidly,  and receiving the
whole shock of his wooden ogling!
     More than this, they passed into the shop, and passed in at the parlour
door  before they were observed by anybody but the  Midshipman.  And Wa