er, for the second time, there have been years for me
as  well as you,' said Alice. 'Come back harder? Of  course I have come back
harder. What else did you expect?'
     'Harder to me! To her own dear mother!' cried the old woman
     'I don't know  who  began to harden me, if my own dear mother  didn't,'
she  returned,  sitting  with  her  folded  arms,  and  knitted  brows,  and
compressed lips as if she  were bent  on  excluding, by force,  every softer
feeling from her breast. 'Listen, mother, to a word or two. If we understand
each other now, we shall not fall out any more, perhaps. I went away a girl,
and have come back a woman. I went away undutiful enough, and have come back
no better, you may swear. But have you been very dutiful to me?'
     'I!'  cried the old  woman.  'To  my  gal!  A mother dutiful to her own
child!'
     'It sounds  unnatural, don't it?' returned the daughter, looking coldly
on  her  with her stern,  regardless, hardy,  beautiful  face; 'but  I  have
thought of it sometimes,  in the course of  my lone  years, till I have  got
used to it.  I have  heard some  talk about duty first and  last; but it has
always been of  my duty to other people. I have wondered  now and then  - to
pass away the time - whether no one ever owed any duty to me.
     Her mother sat mowing, and mumbling, and shaking her head, but  whether
angrily or remorsefully,  or in  denial, or only in her  physical infirmity,
did not appear.
     'There was a  child called Alice  Marwood,' said  the daughter, with  a
laugh, and looking down at herself in terrible derision  of  herself, 'born,
among  poverty  and  neglect, and  nursed  in it. Nobody taught  her, nobody
stepped forward to help her, nobody cared for her.'
     'Nobody!'  echoed  the  mother,  pointing to  herself, and striking her
breast.
     'The only care she knew,' returned the daughter, 'was to be beaten, and
stinted, and abused sometimes; and she might have done  better without that.
She lived in homes  like this, and in  the streets, with a  crowd of  little
wretches like herself; and yet she brought good looks out of this childhood.
So  much the worse for  her. She had better have been  hunted and worried to
death for ugliness.'
     'Go on! go on!' exclaimed the mother.
     'I am going on,' returned the daughter. 'There  was a girl called Alice
Marwood. She was handsome.  She was taught too late,  and  taught all wrong.
She was too well cared  for, too well trained, too well helped  on, too much
looked after. You were very fond  of her  - you  were better off  then. What
came to that girl comes to  thousands every year.  It was only ruin, and she
was born to it.'
     'After  all  these years!' whined the  old woman. 'My  gal begins  with
this.'
     'She'll soon have  ended,'  said the daughter.  'There  was  a criminal
called Alice Marwood -  a girl still, but  deserted and an outcast.  And she
was tried, and she was sentenced. And  lord, how the gentlemen in the  Court
talked about it! and how grave the judge was on her  duty, and on her having
perverted  the  gifts of nature - as if he  didn't know better than  anybody
there,  that  they had been made curses to her!  - and how he preached about
the strong arm  of the  Law - so very strong to  save her, when she  was  an
innocent and helpless little wretch! -  and how solemn and religious it  all
was! I have thought of that, many times since, to be sure!'
     She  folded her arms tightly on her breast, and laughed in  a tone that
made the howl of the old woman musical.
     'So Alice Marwood  was transported, mother,' she pursued, 'and was sent
to  learn  her  duty,  where  there was  twenty  times  less duty, and  more
wickedness, and wrong, and infamy, than here. And Alice Marwood is come back
a woman. Such  a woman  as she  ought  to be, after all this. In good  time,
there will be more solemnity, and more fine  talk, and more strong arm, most
likely, and there will be an end of her; but the gentlemen needn't be afraid
of  being thrown  out of  work.  There's crowds of little  wretches, boy and
girl, growing up in any of the streets they live in, that'll keep them to it
till they've made their fortunes.'
     The old woman leaned her elbows on the table, and resting her face upon
her  two  hands,  made a  show  of being in great distress - or really  was,
perhaps.
     'There! I have  done, mother,' said the daughter, with a motion  of her
head, as if in dismissal of the  subject. 'I have said enough. Don't let you
and I talk of being dutiful, whatever we do. Your childhood was like mine, I
suppose. So much the worse for both of us. I don't want to blame you, or  to
defend myself; why should I? That's all over long ago. But I  am a  woman  -
not a girl, now - and you and I needn't make a show of our history, like the
gentlemen in the Court. We know all about it, well enough.'
     Lost and degraded as  she was, there  was a beauty in her, both of face
and form, which, even in  its  worst expression, could not but be recognised
as  such by anyone regarding her with the  least attention. As she  subsided
into silence, and her  face which had  been harshly  agitated, quieted down;
while  her dark eyes, fixed upon the fire, exchanged the reckless light that
had animated them, for one that was softened by something like sorrow; there
shone  through  all her wayworn misery and  fatigue,  a  ray of the departed
radiance of the fallen angel.'
     Her mother, after watching her for some time without speaking, ventured
to steal  her withered hand a little  nearer to her  across  the  table; and
finding that  she  permitted this,  to touch her face,  and smooth her hair.
With  the feeling, as it seemed, that the old woman was at least sincere  in
this show of interest, Alice made no movement to check her; so, advancing by
degrees, she bound up her daughter's hair afresh, took off her wet shoes, if
they deserved the name, spread something dry upon her shoulders, and hovered
humbly  about her, muttering to herself, as  she recognised her old features
and expression more and more.
     'You are very poor, mother, I see,' said Alice, looking round, when she
had sat thus for some time.
     'Bitter poor, my deary,' replied the old woman.
     She  admired  her  daughter,  and  was   afraid  of  her.  Perhaps  her
admiration, such  as it  was, had originated  long ago, when she first found
anything  that was beautiful appearing  in the midst of the squalid fight of
her  existence. Perhaps  her  fear was  referable,  in  some  sort,  to  the
retrospect  she had so  lately heard.  Be  this  as  it  might,  she  stood,
submissively and deferentially, before her child, and inclined her  head, as
if in a pitiful entreaty to be spared any further reproach.
     'How have you lived?'
     'By begging, my deary.
     'And pilfering, mother?'
     'Sometimes, Ally  - in a very  small  way. I am old and  timid.  I have
taken trifles from children now  and then, my deary, but not  often.  I have
tramped about the country, pet, and I know what I know. I have watched.'
     'Watched?' returned the daughter, looking at her.
     'I  have  hung about  a family, my deary,'  said the  mother, even more
humbly and submissively than before.
     'What family?'
     'Hush, darling. Don't be angry  with me. I did it for the love of  you.
In  memory of my poor gal beyond seas.'  She put out her hand deprecatingly,
and drawing it back again, laid it on her lips.
     'Years ago, my deary,' she  pursued, glancing timidly  at the attentive
and stem face opposed to her, 'I came across his little child, by chance.'
     'Whose child?'
     'Not  his, Alice deary; don't look at  me like that; not his. How could
it be his? You know he has none.'
     'Whose then?' returned the daughter. 'You said his.'
     'Hush, Ally;  you  frighten me, deary. Mr Dombey's -  only Mr Dombey's.
Since then, darling, I have seen them often. I have seen him.'
     In uttering this last word, the old  woman  shrunk and  recoiled, as if
with  sudden  fear  that  her daughter  would  strike  her. But  though  the
daughter's face was fixed upon her, and expressed the most vehement passion,
she  remained  still:  except that she clenched her arms tighter and tighter
within  each other, on her bosom, as if to restrain them by that  means from
doing an injury to herself, or someone  else, in the blind fury of the wrath
that suddenly possessed her.
     'Little he thought who I was!' said the old woman, shaking her clenched
hand.
     'And little he cared!' muttered her daughter, between her teeth.
     'But there we were, said the  old woman, 'face to face. I spoke to him,
and he spoke to me. I sat and watched him as he went away down a long  grove
of trees: and at every step he took, I cursed him soul and body.'
     'He will thrive in spite of that,' returned the daughter disdainfully.
     'Ay, he is thriving,' said the mother.
     She held her peace; for the  face and form before her were  unshaped by
rage. It seemed as if the bosom would  burst  with  the emotions that strove
within it. The  effort that  constrained  and held it  pent up, was  no less
formidable  than  the  rage  itself:  no  less  bespeaking  the  violent and
dangerous  character  of  the woman who made it.  But  it succeeded, and she
asked, after a silence:
     'Is he married?'
     'No, deary,' said the mother.
     'Going to be?'
     'Not that I  know of, deary.  But his master and friend is married. Oh,
we may give him joy! We may  give 'em all joy!' cried the old woman, hugging
herself with her lean arms  in  her  exultation. 'Nothing but joy to us will
come of that marriage. Mind met'
     The daughter looked at her for an explanation.
     'But  you are wet and tired; hungry and  thirsty,' said  the old woman,
hobbling to  the cupboard; 'and  there's  little  here, and little' - diving
down into her pocket, and jingling a few half- pence on the table -  'little
here. Have you any money, Alice, deary?'
     The covetous, sharp, eager face, with which she 'asked the question and
looked  on, as her daughter took out of her bosom the little gift she had so
lately received, told almost as much of the history of this parent and child
as the child herself had told in words.
     'Is that all?' said the mother.
     'I have no more. I should not have this, but for charity.'
     'But for charity, eh, deary?' said the old woman, bending greedily over
the  table to look  at the money,  which  she appeared  distrustful  of  her
daughter's still retaining in her  hand, and gazing on. 'Humph! six  and six
is twelve, and six eighteen -  so - we must make the most of it. I'll go buy
something to eat and drink.'
     With greater alacrity than  might  have been  expected  in  one of  her
appearance - for  age and misery seemed to have made her as decrepit as ugly
- she began  to occupy her trembling hands in  tying an  old  bonnet on  her
head, and folding a torn  shawl about herself: still eyeing the money in her
daughter's hand, with the same sharp desire.
     'What  joy  is to  come to  us of this  marriage,  mother?'  asked  the
daughter. 'You have not told me that.'
     'The joy,' she replied, attiring herself, with fumbling fingers, 'of no
love at all, and much pride  and  hate, my deary. The  joy  of confusion and
strife among 'em, proud as they are, and of danger - danger, Alice!'
     'What danger?'
     'I  have  seen  what I  have seen. I  know  what I  know!' chuckled the
mother. 'Let some look to it. Let  some be upon their guard. My gal may keep
good company yet!'
     Then, seeing that in the wondering  earnestness with which her daughter
regarded her, her hand  involuntarily  closed upon the money,  the old woman
made  more  speed  to  secure  it,  and  hurriedly added,  'but I'll  go buy
something; I'll go buy something.'
     As  she  stood  with her hand stretched out before  her  daughter,  her
daughter, glancing again at  the money, put  it  to her lips  before parting
with it.
     'What, Ally! Do you kiss it?' chuckled the old woman. 'That's like me -
I often do. Oh, it's so good  to us!' squeezing her own tarnished  halfpence
up to  her bag of a throat, 'so  good to us in everything but not coming  in
heaps!'
     'I kiss it, mother,' said the daughter,  'or I did then -  I don't know
that I ever did before - for the giver's sake.'
     'The  giver, eh, deary?'  retorted the  old woman,  whose  dimmed  eyes
glistened  as she took it. 'Ay! I'll kiss it for the giver's sake, too, when
the giver can make it go  farther. But I'll go spend it, deary. I'll be back
directly.'
     'You  seem to say you know  a  great deal, mother,'  said the daughter,
following her to the door with her eyes. 'You have grown  very wise since we
parted.'
     'Know!'  croaked the old woman, coming back a step or two, 'I know more
than you  think I know more than  he thinks, deary, as I'll tell you  by and
bye. I know all'
     The daughter smiled incredulously.
     'I know of his brother, Alice,' said the old woman,  stretching out her
neck with a leer of malice absolutely frightful, 'who might  have been where
you have  been - for  stealing money -  and who lives  with his sister, over
yonder, by the north road out of London.'
     'Where?'
     'By the north road out of London, deary. You shall see the house if you
like. It  ain't much to boast of, genteel as his own is. No, no, no,'  cried
the old woman, shaking her head and laughing; for her  daughter had  started
up, 'not now; it's too  far off; it's by the milestone, where the stones are
heaped; - to-morrow, deary, if it's fine,  and you are  in  the humour.  But
I'll go spend - '
     'Stop!'  and  the daughter  flung  herself  upon her, with  her  former
passion raging like a fire.  'The  sister is a fair-faced Devil,  with brown
hair?'
     The old woman, amazed and terrified, nodded her head.
     'I see  the  shadow  of him in her face!  It's a red house standing  by
itself. Before the door there is a small green porch.'
     Again the old woman nodded.
     'In which I sat to-day! Give me back the money.'
     'Alice! Deary!'
     'Give me back the money, or you'll be hurt.'
     She  forced it  from  the old  woman's  hand  as she spoke, and utterly
indifferent to  her complainings and  entreaties, threw on the garments  she
had taken off, and hurried out, with headlong speed.
     The mother followed, limping after her as she  could, and expostulating
with  no more effect upon her than upon the wind and rain  and darkness that
encompassed them. Obdurate and fierce in her own purpose, and indifferent to
all besides, the daughter defied the weather and the distance, as if she had
known  no travel  or  fatigue, and  made for  the  house where she  had been
relieved. After some quarter of an hour's walking, the old  woman, spent and
out of breath, ventured to hold by her skirts; but she ventured no more, and
they travelled on in silence through the wet  and gloom. If  the mother  now
and  then uttered a  word of  complaint,  she stifled  it  lest her daughter
should break away from her and leave her behind; and the daughter was dumb.
     It was within  an  hour or so of midnight, when  they  left the regular
streets  behind them, and entered on the deeper gloom of that neutral ground
where  the  house  was situated. The  town lay in the  distance,  lurid  and
lowering; the bleak wind howled over the open  space; all around was  black,
wild, desolate.
     'This is a fit place for me!' said the daughter, stopping to look back.
'I thought so, when I was here before, to-day.'
     'Alice, my deary,' cried the mother, pulling  her  gently by the skirt.
'Alice!'
     'What now, mother?'
     'Don't give  the money back, my darling; please  don't. We can't afford
it. We  want  supper, deary.  Money is money, whoever gives it. Say what you
will, but keep the money.'
     'See there!' was all the daughter's answer. 'That is the house I  mean.
Is that it?'
     The old  woman nodded in the affirmative; and  a few more paces brought
them to the threshold. There was the  light of  fire and candle  in the room
where  Alice had sat to dry her clothes; and on her  knocking  at  the door,
John Carker appeared from that room.
     He was surprised to see such visitors at such an  hour, and asked Alice
what she wanted.
     'I want your sister,' she said. 'The woman who gave me money to-day.'
     At the sound of her raised voice, Harriet came out.
     'Oh!' said Alice. 'You are here! Do you remember me?'
     'Yes,' she answered, wondering.
     The  face that had humbled  itself  before  her, looked on her now with
such invincible  hatred  and defiance; and the  hand that had gently touched
her arm,  was  clenched  with such  a show  of evil purpose, as if  it would
gladly strangle her; that she drew close to her brother for protection.
     'That I  could speak with you, and not know you! That I could come near
you, and  not feel what blood was running in your  veins, by the tingling of
my own!' said Alice, with a menacing gesture.
     'What do you mean? What have I done?'
     'Done!'  returned the other.  'You  have sat me by your fire;  you have
given me food and money; you have bestowed your compassion on me! You! whose
name I spit upon!'
     The old woman, with a malevolence  that made her uglIness  quite awful,
shook her withered  hand at  the brother and sister in  confirmation of  her
daughter, but  plucked her by the skirts  again, nevertheless, imploring her
to keep the money.
     'If I dropped a tear upon your hand, may it wither it up!  If I spoke a
gentle word  in  your hearing, may it deafen  you! If I touched you with  my
lips, may the  touch be poison  to you! A curse  upon this roof that gave me
shelter! Sorrow and shame upon your head! Ruin upon all belonging to you!'
     As she said  the words, she threw  the money down upon the  ground, and
spurned it with her foot.
     'I  tread it  in the  dust: I wouldn't  take  it  if it paved my way to
Heaven! I would the bleeding  foot  that brought  me here to-day, had rotted
off, before it led me to your house!'
     Harriet, pale and trembling, restrained  her brother, and  suffered her
to go on uninterrupted.
     'It was well that  I should be pitied and forgiven by you, or anyone of
your  name, in the first hour  of my return! It was well that you should act
the kind good lady to me! I'll thank  you when I die; I'll pray for you, and
all your race, you may be sure!'
     With a fierce  action  of her hand, as if she sprinkled  hatred  on the
ground, and with it  devoted those who were  standing there to  destruction,
she looked up once at the black sky, and strode out into the wild night.
     The mother, who had plucked at her skirts again and  again in vain, and
had eyed  the money  lying on the  threshold  with an  absorbing  greed that
seemed to concentrate her faculties upon it, would have prowled about, until
the  house  was  dark,  and  then  groped  in  the  mire on  the  chance  of
repossessing  herself of  it. But the daughter drew her away,  and  they set
forth, straight, on their return to their dwelling; the old woman whimpering
and bemoaning  their loss upon  the road, and fretfully bewailing, as openly
as she dared, the undutiful conduct of her handsome girl in depriving her of
a supper, on the very first night of their reunion.
     Supperless to bed she  went,  saving for a  few  coarse  fragments; and
those she sat  mumbling and  munching  over a scrap of fire,  long after her
undutiful daughter lay asleep.
     Were this  miserable mother,  and  this  miserable daughter,  only  the
reduction  to  their  lowest  grade,  of  certain   social  vices  sometimes
prevailing higher up? In this round world of many circles within circles, do
we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low, to find at last that
they lie close together, that the two extremes touch, and that our journey's
end is  but our starting-place? Allowing for  great difference  of stuff and
texture, was the pattern of this woof repeated among gentle blood at all?
     Say,  Edith Dombey!  And Cleopatra, best of mothers,  let us  have your
testimony!

        CHAPTER 35.
     The Happy Pair

     The dark blot on  the street is gone. Mr  Dombey's  mansion, if it be a
gap among the other houses any longer, is only  so because it is not  to  be
vied  with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them off.  The  saying is,
that home is home,  be it never so homely.  If it hold good  in the opposite
contingency, and home is home be it never so stately, what  an altar  to the
Household Gods is raised up here!
     Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy glow of
fires is warm and  bright upon the hangings and soft carpets, and the dinner
waits  to  be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely  set forth,  though
only for four persons, and the side board is cumbrous with  plate. It is the
first  time that the  house has been  arranged for occupation since its late
changes, and the happy pair are looked for every minute.
     Only  second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation it
engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home. Mrs Perch
is in  the kitchen taking tea; and  has made the  tour of the establishment,
and  priced  the  silks  and  damasks  by  the  yard,  and  exhausted  every
interjection in the dictionary  and out  of it expressive of admiration  and
wonder.  The  upholsterer's  foreman,   who  has  left   his  hat,  with   a
pocket-handkerchief in it, both smelling strongly  of varnish, under a chair
in the hall, lurks about  the  house,  gazing  upwards at the  cornices, and
downward  at  the  carpets,  and  occasionally,  in  a  silent  transport of
enjoyment, taking  a  rule  out  of  his pocket, and skirmishingly measuring
expensive objects,  with  unutterable feelings. Cook is in high spirits, and
says  give her a place where  there's plenty  of  company (as she'll bet you
sixpence  there will  be now), for  she is  of a lively disposition, and she
always was from a child,  and she  don't mind who knows it;  which sentiment
elicits from  the  breast  of Mrs Perch a  responsive murmur of  support and
approbation. All the housemaid hopes is, happiness for 'em - but marriage is
a lottery,  and  the more  she  thinks  about it,  the more  she  feels  the
independence and the  safety of a single life. Mr Towlinson is saturnine and
grim'  and says that's his  opinion too, and give  him War besides, and down
with  the French - for this young  man has  a general impression  that every
foreigner is a Frenchman, and must be by the laws of nature.
     At each  new sound of wheels,  they all stop> whatever they are saying,
and listen; and more  than once there is  a general starting up and a cry of
'Here they are!'  But here they are not  yet; and Cook  begins to mourn over
the  dinner, which has  been put back  twice, and  the upholsterer's foreman
still goes lurking about the rooms, undisturbed in his blissful reverie!
     Florence is ready  to receive her father and  her new  Mama Whether the
emotions that are throbbing in her  breast originate In pleasure or in pain,
she hardly knows. But the fluttering heart sends added colour to her cheeks,
and  brightness to her  eyes; and they  say  downstairs, drawing their heads
together  -  for they  always speak  softly  when they speak  of  her  - how
beautiful Miss Florence looks to-night, and what a sweet young  lady she has
grown,  poor dear!  A pause  succeeds; and then Cook, feeling, as president,
that  her sentiments are waited for, wonders whether -  and there stops. The
housemaid  wonders too,  and so  does  Mrs  Perch, who has  the happy social
faculty of always  wondering when other people wonder, without  being at all
particular   what  she  wonders  at.  Mr  Towlinson,  who  now  descries  an
opportunity  of bringing down  the  spirits of the ladies to his  own level,
says wait and see; he wishes some people were well out of this. Cook leads a
sigh then, and  a murmur of 'Ah, it's a  strange  world,  it is indeed!' and
when it  has  gone  round the  table, adds persuasively,  'but Miss Florence
can't  well be  the worse for  any  change, Tom.' Mr Towlinson's  rejoinder,
pregnant  with  frightful meaning,  is 'Oh, can't  she though!' and sensible
that  a  mere man can  scarcely be more prophetic,  or improve upon that, he
holds his peace.
     Mrs Skewton, prepared to greet her darling daughter and dear son-in-law
with open arms, is appropriately attired for that purpose in a very youthful
costume,  with short  sleeves.  At  present,  however, her ripe  charms  are
blooming in the  shade of  her own  apartments,  whence she had not  emerged
since she took possession  of them a few  hours  ago,  and where she is fast
growing fretful,  on account of  the postponement  of  dinner. The maid  who
ought to be a skeleton, but  is in truth a  buxom damsel,  is,  on the other
hand,  In a most amiable state: considering her quarterly stipend much safer
than  heretofore, and  foreseeing  a great  improvement  in  her  board  and
lodging.
     Where are  the  happy  pair, for whom this brave  home  is waiting?  Do
steam, tide,  wind,  and horses,  all abate their speed,  to linger  on such
happiness? Does the swarm  of  loves and  graces hovering about them  retard
their progress  by  its numbers? Are there so  many  flowers in their  happy
path,  that they can scarcely move along, without entanglement  in thornless
roses, and sweetest briar?
     They are  here at last! The noise of wheels is heard, grows louder, and
a carriage  drives up to  the door!  A  thundering knock from  the obnoxious
foreigner anticipates the rush of Mr Towlinson  and party to open it; and Mr
Dombey and his bride alight, and walk in arm in arm.
     'My  sweetest  Edith!'  cries  an agitated voice upon  the stairs.  'My
dearest Dombey!'  and the short  sleeves  wreath themselves  about the happy
couple in turn, and embrace them.
     Florence had come down to the hall too, but did  not advance: reserving
her  timid  welcome until these nearer and dearer transports should subside.
But the eyes of Edith sought her out, upon the threshold; and dismissing her
sensitive parent with a slight kiss on the cheek, she hurried on to Florence
and embraced her.
     'How do you do, Florence?' said Mr Dombey, putting out his hand.
     As Florence, trembling, raised it to her lips, she met  his glance. The
look was cold and distant enough, but it stirred her heart to think that she
observed in it something more of interest than  he had ever shown before. It
even expressed a kind of faint surprise, and not a disagreeable surprise, at
sight  of  her. She  dared not raise her eyes to his any  more; but she felt
that he looked  at her once again, and not less favourably. Oh what a thrill
of  joy  shot through her, awakened by  even  this intangible  and  baseless
confirmation of her hope  that she would learn to  win him, through  her new
and beautiful Mama!
     'You will not be long dressing, Mrs Dombey, I presume?' said Mr Dombey.
     'I shall be ready immediately.'
     'Let them send up dinner in a quarter of an hour.'
     With  that Mr Dombey stalked away  to  his own  dressing-room,  and Mrs
Dombey  went upstairs to  hers.  Mrs  Skewton  and Florence  repaired to the
drawing-room, where that excellent mother considered it incumbent on her  to
shed a  few irrepressible  tears,  supposed  to  be forced from  her by  her
daughter's felicity; and  which she was still drying, very gingerly, with  a
laced corner of her pocket-handkerchief, when her son-in-law appeared.
     'And how, my  dearest  Dombey, did  you  find  that  delightfullest  of
cities, Paris?' she asked, subduing her emotion.
     'It was cold,' returned Mr Dombey.
     'Gay as ever,' said Mrs Skewton, 'of course.
     'Not particularly. I thought it dull,' said Mr Dombey.
     'Fie, my dearest Dombey!' archly; 'dull!'
     'It  made  that impression upon me, Madam,' said Mr Dombey,  with grave
politeness. 'I  believe Mrs Dombey  found it dull too. She mentioned once or
twice that she thought it so.'
     'Why, you  naughty  girl!' cried  Mrs Skewton, rallying her dear child,
who  now  entered,  'what dreadfully heretical  things have you  been saying
about Paris?'
     Edith raised her eyebrows  with  an air  of weariness; and passing  the
folding-doors which were thrown open to display the suite of rooms in  their
new  and handsome garniture, and barely glancing at them  as she passed, sat
down by Florence.
     'My dear Dombey,'  said Mrs Skewton,  'how charmingly these people have
carried  out every  idea that we hinted. They have  made a perfect palace of
the house, positively.'
     'It is  handsome,' said Mr  Dombey,  looking round. 'I directed that no
expense should  be spared;  and  all that  money could do,  has been done, I
believe.'
     'And what can it not do, dear Dombey?' observed Cleopatra.
     'It is powerful, Madam,' said Mr Dombey.
     He looked in his solemn way towards his wife, but not a word said she.
     'I  hope, Mrs Dombey,' addressing her after  a moment's  silence,  with
especial distinctness; 'that these alterations meet with your approval?'
     'They are  as  handsome as  they  can be,' she  returned, with  haughty
carelessness. 'They should be so, of' course. And I suppose they are.'
     An expression  of  scorn was  habitual to the  proud  face, and  seemed
inseparable from it; but the contempt  with  which it received any appeal to
admiration, respect, or consideration on the ground of his riches, no matter
how slight  or  ordinary in  itself, was  a  new  and different  expression,
unequalled  in  intensity by any other of which  it was  capable. Whether Mr
Dombey, wrapped in his own greatness, was at all aware of this, or no, there
had not been  wanting opportunities already for his  complete enlightenment;
and at that moment it might have been effected by the one glance of the dark
eye  that  lighted on him, after  it had rapidly and scornfully surveyed the
theme of his self-glorification. He might  have read in that one glance that
nothing that  his wealth  could do,  though  it were increased  ten thousand
fold, could win him for its own sake, one look of softened recognition  from
the  defiant woman,  linked to him, but arrayed with  her whole soul against
him.  He  might have  read in that one glance that even  for its sordid  and
mercenary  influence  upon herself,  she spurned  it,  while she claimed its
utmost  power  as  her  right,  her  bargain -  as the  base  and  worthless
recompense for which she had become his wife. He might have read in it that,
ever baring her own  head for the lightning of her own contempt and pride to
strike, the most innocent allusion to the power  of his riches degraded  her
anew, sunk her deeper  in  her  own respect,  and made  the blight and waste
within her more complete.
     But dinner was announced, and Mr Dombey led  down Cleopatra; Edith  and
his  daughter following. Sweeping  past the gold and silver demonstration on
the sideboard as if it were  heaped-up dirt, and deigning to bestow  no look
upon  the elegancies around her, she  took her  place  at his board for  the
first time, and sat, like a statue, at the feast.
     Mr Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well enough
pleased  to  see  his  handsome  wife  immovable  and  proud  and  cold. Her
deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as  a  general  behaviour
was   agreeable  and  congenial  to  him.  Presiding,  therefore,  with  his
accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on  his wife by any warmth  or
hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the honours of the table with
a cool  satisfaction;  and  the  installation dinner,  though  not  regarded
downstairs as  a great success, or  very  promising beginning,  passed  oil,
above, in a sufficiently polite, genteel, and frosty manner.
     Soon after tea' Mrs Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and worn
Out by her emotions of  happiness, arising in the contemplation of  her dear
child  united  to the man of her heart, but who, there is reason to suppose,
found  this  family  party  somewhat  dull,  as  she  yawned  for  one  hour
continually behind her fan, retired to bed. Edith,  also, silently  withdrew
and  came  back'  no more. Thus,  it  happened that  Florence, who had  been
upstairs  to  have  some  conversation  with  Diogenes,   returning  to  the
drawing-room with her little work-basket, found no one there but her father,
who was walking to and fro, in dreary magnificence.
     'I  beg your pardon.  Shall I go away,  Papa?' said  Florence  faintly,
hesitating at the door.
     'No,' returned Mr Dombey, looking round over his shoulder; you can come
and go here, Florence, as you please. This is not my private room.
     Florence entered, and sat down at a distant little table with her work:
finding herself for the first time  in her life -  for the  very  first time
within her memory from her infancy to  that hour - alone with her father, as
his companion. She, his natural companion, his only child, who in her lonely
life  and grief had  known  the suffering  of a breaking heart; who,  in her
rejected  love,  had  never breathed his name  to God at night,  but with  a
tearful blessing, heavier  on him than a curse; who had prayed to die young,
so she might only die in his arms; who had, all through, repaid the agony of
slight  and  coldness, and  dislike,  with patient unexacting love, excusing
him, and pleading for him, like his better angel!
     She  trembled,  and  her eyes were  dim. His figure  seemed  to grow in
height  and bulk before her as he paced the room: now it was all blurred and
indistinct; now clear  again, and  plain; and  now she  seemed to think that
this  had happened,  just the  same, a multitude  of years ago.  She yearned
towards him, and yet shrunk from his approach. Unnatural emotion in a child,
innocent  of wrong! Unnatural the hand that  had directed  the sharp plough,
which furrowed up her gentle nature for the sowing of its seeds!
     Bent upon not distressing  or offending  him  by her distress, Florence
controlled  herself, and  sat quietly at  her work.  After  a few more turns
across and across the  room, he  left off pacing it; and  withdrawing into a
shadowy corner at some distance, where there  was an easy chair, covered his
head with a handkerchief, and composed himself to sleep.
     It  was enough for Florence to sit there watching him; turning her eyes
towards his  chair from time to time;  watching him with  her thoughts, when
her face  was intent upon  her  work; and sorrowfully glad to think that  he
could sleep, while she was there, and  that he was not  made restless by her
strange and long-forbidden presence.
     What would have been her thoughts if she had known that he was steadily
regarding her; that the veil upon his face, by accident or by design, was so
adjusted  that his sight was free, and that itnever  wandered from  her face
face  an  instant  That when  she looked towards  him'  In the obscure  dark
corner,  her  speaking eyes,  more earnest  and pathetic  in their voiceless
speech than all the orators of all the world, and impeaching him more nearly
in their mute address, met his, and did not know  it! That when she bent her
head again over her work, he  drew his breath more easily, but with the same
attention looked  upon her still - upon her white brow and her falling hair,
and busy hands; and once attracted, seemed to have no power to turn his eyes
away!
     And what were his thoughts meanwhile? With what emotions did he prolong
the  attentive  gaze covertly directed on his unknown  daughter?  Was  there
reproach to him in the quiet figure and the mild  eyes? Had he begun  to her
disregarded claims  and did they  touch him  home at last, and waken  him to
some sense of his cruel injustice?
     There are yielding moments in  the lives of the  sternest  and harshest
men, though such men  often  keep their secret well. The sight ofher in  her
beauty, almost changed into  a woman without his knowledge, may  have struck
out  some such  moments even In his life of pride. Some passing thought that
he had had a happy home within  his reach-had had a household spirit bending
at has feet - had  overlooked  it in his  stiffnecked sullen arrogance,  and
wandered  away  and lost  himself,  may  have engendered  them.  Some simple
eloquence distinctly heard,  though only uttered in  her  eyes,  unconscious
that he  read them'  as'By the death-beds I have  tended, by the childhood I
have suffered, by our meeting in this dreary house at midnight,  by the  cry
wrung from me in the anguish of my heart, oh, father, turn  to me and seek a
refuge in my love before it is too late!' may have arrested them. Meaner and
lower thoughts,  as that his dead boy was now superseded by new ties, and he
could  forgive  the having  been  supplanted  in  his  affection,  may  have
occasioned them.  The  mere association of  her as an ornament, with all the
ornament and pomp about him, may have been sufficient. But as he  looked, he
softened to her, more and  more.  As he looked, she  became blended with the
child he had  loved, and he could hardly separate the  two. As he looked, he
saw her  for an instant by a clearer and a brighter light, not bending  over
that child's pillow as his rival - monstrous thought  - but as the spirit of
his home,  and  in the  action tending himself no less, as he sat once  more
with his  bowed-down  head upon his  hand at the  foot of the little bed. He
felt inclined  to  speak to her,  and call her to him. The words  'Florence,
come here!' were rising  to his lips - but slowly and with  difficulty, they
were so  very strange - when they were  checked and stifled by a footstep on
the stair.
     It was his wife's. She had exchanged her dinner dress for a loose robe,
and unbound her hair, which fell freely about her neck. But this was not the
change in her that startled him.
     'Florence, dear,' she said, 'I have been looking for you everywhere.'
     As she sat  down  by the  side of  Florence, she stooped and kissed her
hand.  He hardly knew his wife. She was  so changed. It  was not merely that
her smile was  new to him - though that  he had  never seen; but her manner,
the tone of her voice, the  light of her eyes, the interest, and confidence,
and winning wish to please, expressed in all-this was not Edith.
     'Softly, dear Mama. Papa is asleep.'
     It  was  Edith now. She looked towards the corner where he  was, and he
knew that face and manner very well.
     'I scarcely thought you could be here, Florence.'
     Again, how altered and how softened, in an instant!
     'I left here early,' pursued Edith, 'purposely to sit upstairs and talk
with you. But, going  to  your room, I  found my bird was  flown, and I have
been waiting there ever since, expecting its return.
     If  it had been  a  bird, indeed, she could  not  have  taken  it  more
tenderly and gently to her breast, than she did Florence.
     'Come, dear!'
     'Papa will not expect to find me, I suppose, when  he wakes,' hesitated
Florence.
     'Do you think he will, Florence?' said Edith, looking full upon her.
     Florence drooped her  head, and rose, and  put up her work-basket Edith
drew her hand through her arm,  and they went out of the room like  sisters.
Her very step  was different and new to him' Mr Dombey  thought, as his eyes
followed her to the door.
     He sat in his shadowy corner so long, that the church clocks struck the
hour three  times  before he  moved  that night. All that while his face was
still  intent upon the  spot where  Florence had been seated. The room  grew
darker,  as the candles waned  and  went out; but a darkness gathered on his
face, exceeding any that the night could cast, and rested there.
     Florence  and  Edith, seated  before the fire in the remote room  where
little Paul had died, talked together for a long time. Diogenes,  who was of
the  party,  had  at  first objected to the admission of Edith, and, even In
deference to  his  mistress's wish,  had only  permitted  it under  growling
protest. But, emerging  by little and  little from the ante-room, whither he
had retired in  dudgeon,  he soon appeared to comprehend, that with the most
amiable intentions he had made one of those mistakes which will occasionally
arise in the best-regulated dogs' minds; as a friendly apology for which  he
stuck himself up on end between the two, in a very hot place in front of the
fire,  and  sat panting at  it, with his  tongue  out,  and a  most imbecile
expression of countenance, liste