he  comes  at  your
recommendation, let him come to your room.'
     'May I - shall I go away?' asked Florence, hurriedly.
     Edith  nodded yes,  but on her way to the door Florence met the visitor
coming   in.  With  the  same   disagreeable  mixture   of  familiarity  and
forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he  addressed her now in
his softest manner - hoped she was quite well - needed not to ask, with such
looks to  anticipate the answer  - had scarcely had  the honour to know her,
last night, she was so greatly  changed - and held the door open  for her to
pass out; with a secret sense of power in  her shrinking  from him, that all
the deference and politeness of his manner could not quite conceal.
     He  then  bowed himself for  a moment  over Mrs Skewton's condescending
hand, and lastly bowed to Edith. Coldly returning his salute without looking
at  him, and  neither seating  herself  nor inviting him  to  be seated, she
waited for him to speak.
     Entrenched  in her pride and power, and  with all  the obduracy  of her
spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that  she and her mother
had been  known  by  this  man in  their  worst  colours, from  their  first
acquaintance; that every degradation she had suffered in her own eyes was as
plain  to him as to herself; that he read her life as though it  were a vile
book, and fluttered the leaves before her in slight looks and tones of voice
which no one else could detect;  weakened and undermined her. Proudly as she
opposed herself to him,  with her commanding face exacting his humility, her
disdainful lip repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark
lashes of her eyes sullenly  veiling their light, that  no  ray  of it might
shine upon him - and submissively as he stood before her, with an entreating
injured manner, but with complete submission  to her will - she knew, in her
own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the triumph and superiority
were his, and that he knew it full well.
     'I have presumed,' said Mr Carker, 'to solicit an interview, and I have
ventured to describe it as being one of business, because - '
     'Perhaps you  are charged by Mr Dombey with  some  message of reproof,'
said Edit 'You possess Mr  Dombey's  confidence  in such an  unusual degree,
Sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were your business.'
     'I have no message to the lady who sheds a lustre upon his  name,' said
Mr Carker. 'But I  entreat that lady, on my own  behalf to be just to a very
humble claimant for justice at her hands - a mere dependant of Mr Dombey's -
which is a position of humility; and to reflect upon my perfect helplessness
last  night, and  the impossibility of my avoiding the share that was forced
upon me in a very painful occasion.'
     'My dearest Edith,' hinted  Cleopatra in a low voice, as  she held  her
eye-glass aside,  'really  very charming of Mr What's-his-name. And full  of
heart!'
     'For I  do,'  said Mr Carker, appealing  to Mrs  Skewton with a look of
grateful deference, - 'I do  venture to call  it a  painful occasion, though
merely  because it was so to me,  who had  the misfortune to  be present. So
slight a difference, as between the principals - between those who love each
other with disinterested  devotion, and would make any  sacrifice of self in
such a cause -  is nothing. As Mrs  Skewton  herself expressed, with so much
truth and feeling last night, it is nothing.'
     Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments,
     'And your business, Sir - '
     'Edith,  my pet,' said  Mrs  Skewton,  'all  this  time  Mr  Carker  is
standing! My dear Mr Carker, take a seat, I beg.'
     He offered  no  reply to the  mother,  but fixed his eyes  on the proud
daughter, as though he  would only be bidden  by her, and was resolved to he
bidden by  her. Edith, in spite of herself sat  down,  and slightly motioned
with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be colder, haughtier,
more insolent in its air of supremacy and disrespect, but  she had struggled
against  even  that concession  ineffectually, and it was wrested from  her.
That was enough! Mr Carker sat down.
     'May I be allowed,  Madam,' said Carker, turning his white teeth on Mrs
Skewton like  a light - 'a lady of your excellent  sense  and quick  feeling
will  give me credit, for good reason, I am sure - to address what I have to
say, to Mrs  Dombey, and  to leave her to impart it to you who  are her best
and dearest friend - next to Mr Dombey?'
     Mrs Skewton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would have
stopped him too, and indignantly ordered  him to speak openly or not at all,
but that he said, in a low  Voice -  'Miss Florence - the young lady who has
just left the room - '
     Edith  suffered  him  to  proceed.  She  looked at him now.  As he bent
forward, to be nearer,  with the utmost show  of delicacy and  respect,  and
with his teeth persuasively arrayed, in a  self-depreciating smile, she felt
as if she could have struck him dead.
     'Miss Florence's position,' he  began, 'has been an unfortunate  one. I
have a difficulty in alluding  to it to you,  whose attachment to her father
is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to him.' Always
distinct  and soft in  speech, no language could describe the extent  of his
distinctness and softness, when he  said these words, or came to  any others
of  a  similar  import. 'But, as one who  is  devoted to  Mr Dombey  in  his
different  way,  and  whose life is  passed in  admiration  of  Mr  Dombey's
character, may I say, without offence  to  your tenderness as a  wife,  that
Miss Florence has unhappily been neglected - by her father. May I say by her
father?'
     Edith replied, 'I know it.'
     'You know it!' said Mr Carker, with a great  appearance of relief.  'It
removes  a mountain  from my breast. May  I hope you  know how  the  neglect
originated; in  what an amiable phase  of Mr  Dombey's pride -  character  I
mean?'
     'You may pass that by, Sir,' she returned,  'and come the sooner to the
end of what you have to say.'
     'Indeed,  I  am sensible,  Madam,' replied Carker,  -  'trust me,  I am
deeply sensible, that Mr Dombey can require  no justification in anything to
you.  But,  kindly judge  of my breast by your own, and you will  forgive my
interest in him, if in its excess, it goes at all astray.
     What a  stab to her  proud heart, to sit there, face to face  with him,
and have him tendering her false oath  at the altar again  and again for her
acceptance, and pressing it upon her  like the dregs of a sickening  cup she
could  not own  her loathing of  or turn away from'. How shame, remorse, and
passion  raged within her, when, upright and majestic  in her  beauty before
him, she knew that in her spirit she was down at his feet!
     'Miss Florence,' said  Carker, 'left to the  care - if one may call  it
care  -  of  servants  and mercenary  people,  in  every way  her inferiors,
necessarily  wanted  some  guide and  compass  in  her  younger  days,  and,
naturally, for  want  of them, has been  indiscreet, and  has in some degree
forgotten her station. There was some folly about one Walter,  a common lad,
who is fortunately dead now: and some very undesirable association, I regret
to say, with  certain coasting sailors,  of anything but  good repute, and a
runaway old bankrupt.'
     'I  have  heard  the circumstances,  Sir,'  said  Edith,  flashing  her
disdainful glance upon him, 'and I  know that  you pervert them. You may not
know it. I hope so.'
     'Pardon me,' said Mr Carker, 'I believe that nobody knows them so  well
as I. Your  generous and ardent nature, Madam - the same  nature which is so
nobly  imperative in vindication of  your  beloved and honoured husband, and
which has blessed him as even his merits deserve - I must respect, defer to,
bow before. But, as regards the circumstances, which is indeed the  business
I presumed to solicit your attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in  the
execution of  my  trust as  Mr Dombey's confidential  - I presume  to  say -
friend, I have fully ascertained them. In my execution  of that trust; in my
deep concern,  which  you can so well understand, for everything relating to
him, intensified, if you will (for I fear I labour under  your displeasure),
by  the lower motive of  desire to prove my  diligence, and make  myself the
more  acceptable;  I  have long  pursued these  circumstances  by myself and
trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable and most minute proofs.'
     She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth,  but she saw the means of
mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained.
     'Pardon  me, Madam,' he continued, 'if in my perplexity,  I presume  to
take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure. I think I have observed
that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence?'
     What  was there in her he had not  observed, and did  not know? Humbled
and yet maddened by  the  thought, in  every new  presentment of it, however
faint, she pressed her teeth upon  her quivering lip to force  composure  on
it, and distantly inclined her head in reply.
     'This  interest,  Madam  -  so  touching   an  evidence  of  everything
associated with Mr Dombey being dear  to you - induces me  to pause before I
make him  acquainted with these  circumstances, which, as  yet, he does  not
know. It so shakes me, if I may make the confession,  in my allegiance, that
on the  intimation  of  the least desire to  that effect from  you,  I would
suppress them.'
     Edith raised her head quickly,  and starting back, bent her dark glance
upon him.  He met it with his blandest and most deferential  smile, and went
on.
     'You say  that as I describe them, they  are perverted. I fear  not - I
fear not: but let us assume that they  are. The  uneasiness I have for  some
time felt on the subject, arises in this: that the mere circumstance of such
association often repeated, on the part of Miss Florence, however innocently
and  confidingly, would be conclusive  with  Mr Dombey,  already predisposed
against her,  and  would  lead  him  to  take  some  step  (I  know  he  has
occasionally  contemplated it) of separation and  alienation of her from his
home. Madam, bear with me, and  remember my intercourse with  Mr Dombey, and
my knowledge of him, and my reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I
say that if he has a fault, it is a lofty stubbornness, rooted in that noble
pride  and sense  of  power which belong to him, and which we must all defer
to; which  is not  assailable  like  the obstinacy of other characters;  and
which grows upon itself from day to day, and year to year.
     She  bent her  glance upon him  still;  but, look as steadfast  as  she
would, her haughty nostrils dilated, and  her breath  came somewhat  deeper,
and her lip would slightly curl, as he described that in his patron to which
they must all bow down. He saw it; and though his expression did not change,
she knew he saw it.
     'Even  so  slight an incident  as  last night's,' he said, 'if I  might
refer to it once more, would serve  to illustrate my meaning,  better than a
greater one. Dombey and Son  know neither time, nor  place, nor  season, but
bear  them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for  it has opened the
way for me to approach Mrs Dombey with this  subject to-day, even if  it has
entailed upon me  the  penalty of her temporary  displeasure. Madam,  in the
midst  of my uneasiness and apprehension on this  subject, I was summoned by
Mr Dombey  to Leamington.  There I saw you. There I  could  not help knowing
what relation  you would shortly  occupy  towards  him  -  to  his  enduring
happiness  and  yours.   There  I  resolved   to  await  the  time  of  your
establishment at home here, and to do as I have  now done. I have, at heart,
no fear that I  shall be wanting in my duty to Mr Dombey,  if I bury what  I
know in your breast; for where there is  but one  heart and mind between two
persons - as in such a  marriage -  one almost represents the  other.  I can
acquit  my  conscience therefore,  almost equally, by  confidence, on such a
theme, in you or him. For the  reasons I have mentioned I  would select you.
May I aspire to the distinction of believing that my confidence is accepted,
and that I am relieved from my responsibility?'
     He long remembered the look she gave him - who could see it, and forget
it? - and the struggle that ensued within her. At last she said:
     'I  accept  it, Sir You will please to  consider this matter at an end,
and that it goes no farther.'
     He bowed  low,  and  rose. She  rose too, and  he took  leave  with all
humility. But Withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the beauty
of  his teeth,  and at his brilliant smile;  and  as he  rode  away upon his
white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist, such was the dazzling
show  he made. The  people took  her,  when  she  rode out in  her  carriage
presently, for a great lady, as happy as she was rich and fine. But they had
not seen her,  just before, in her own room with no one by; and they had not
heard her utterance of the three words, 'Oh Florence, Florence!'
     Mrs Skewton, reposing on her sofa, and sipping her chocolate, had heard
nothing  but  the  low word  business, for which she had a  mortal aversion,
insomuch  that she  had  long banished it from her  vocabulary, and had gone
nigh, in  a  charming  manner and  with an immense  amount  of heart, to say
nothing  of soul,  to  ruin  divers  milliners and  others  in  consequence.
Therefore Mrs Skewton asked no questions,  and showed  no curiosity. Indeed,
the  peach-velvet bonnet  gave  her sufficient occupation out of  doors; for
being perched on the  back of her head, and the  day being rather windy,  it
was frantic to escape from Mrs Skewton's company, and  would be  coaxed into
no sort of compromise. When the carriage was closed, and the  wind shut out,
the palsy  played among the artificial roses again like an almshouse-full of
superannuated zephyrs; and altogether Mrs Skewton had enough to  do, and got
on but indifferently.
     She  got  on  no  better  towards night; for  when Mrs  Dombey, in  her
dressing-room, had been  dressed  and  waiting for  her half an hour, and Mr
Dombey, in  the drawing-room, had  paraded  himself into a  state of  solemn
fretfulness  (they  were  all three going  out to  dinner), Flowers the Maid
appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying:
     'If you please, Ma'am, I beg  your pardon,  but I can't do nothing with
Missis!'
     'What do you mean?' asked Edith.
     'Well,  Ma'am,' replied  the  frightened  maid,  'I hardly  know. She's
making faces!'
     Edith hurried with her to her  mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed  in
full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, and other
juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be deceived, had known her
for the object of its errand, and had struck her at her glass, where she lay
like a horrible doll that had tumbled down.
     They  took her to  pieces in very shame, and put the little of her that
was real on a bed. Doctors were sent  for, and  soon came. Powerful remedies
were  resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from this shock,  but
would not survive another; and  there she lay speechless, and staring at the
ceiling,  for days; sometimes  making inarticulate sounds in answer  to such
questions as  did she know who were present, and the like:  sometimes giving
no reply either by sign or gesture, or in her unwinking eyes.
     At length she began  to recover consciousness, and  in some degree  the
power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her right hand
returned; and  showing  it to her  maid who was in  attendance on  her,  and
appearing  very  uneasy  in her mind, she made  signs for a pencil and  some
paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking she was going to  make a
will, or  write some last request; and Mrs  Dombey being from home, the maid
awaited the result with solemn feelings.
     After much painful  scrawling  and  erasing,  and  putting in  of wrong
characters, which seemed to tumble out of the  pencil of their  own  accord,
the old woman produced this document:
     'Rose-coloured curtains.'
     The  maid  being  perfectly  transfixed,  and  with  tolerable  reason,
Cleopatra  amended the manuscript by adding  two  words more, when  it stood
thus:
     'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.'
     The maid now perceived  remotely that  she wished these articles  to be
provided for the better presentation  of her complexion to the  faculty; and
as those in the house who knew  her best, had no doubt of the correctness of
this  opinion,  which  she  was soon  able  to  establish  for  herself  the
rose-coloured curtains were  added to her bed, and she mended with increased
rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to sit up,  in curls and a  laced
cap and nightgown,  and to have a  little  artificial bloom dropped into the
hollow caverns of her cheeks.
     It was a tremendous sight to  see this  old woman in her finery leering
and mincing at Death,  and playing off her youthful tricks upon him as if he
had been  the  Major;  but  an alteration  in  her mind that  ensued on  the
paralytic stroke was  fraught with as  much  matter for reflection,  and was
quite as ghastly.
     Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and  false
than before, or whether it confused her between what  she  had assumed to be
and what she  really had been, or  whether it had awakened any glimmering of
remorse, which could neither struggle  into  light nor  get  back into total
darkness, or whether, in the jumble of her faculties, a combination of these
effects  had been shaken up, which  is perhaps the more  likely supposition,
the result was this: - That she became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's
affection and gratitude and attention to her; highly laudatory of herself as
a most  inestimable parent; and very jealous of  having any rival in Edith's
regard.  Further, in place of remembering that compact made between them for
an  avoidance  of the  subject, she  constantly  alluded  to her  daughter's
marriage as a proof of her being  an incomparable mother; and all this, with
the weakness and peevishness of such a state, always serving for a sarcastic
commentary on her levity and youthfulness.
     'Where is Mrs Dombey? she would say to her maid.
     'Gone out, Ma'am.'
     'Gone out! Does she go out to shun her Mama, Flowers?'
     'La bless you, no, Ma'am. Mrs Dombey has only gone  out for a ride with
Miss Florence.'
     'Miss Florence. Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss Florence.
What's Miss Florence to her, compared to me?'
     The apposite display of the diamonds,  or  the peach-velvet bonnet (she
sat in the bonnet  to  receive visitors, weeks before she could stir  out of
doors), or the dressing of her up in some gaud or other, usually stopped the
tears that began to flow hereabouts; and  she  would remain  in a complacent
state until Edith came to see her; when,  at a glance of the proud face, she
would relapse again.
     'Well, I am sure, Edith!' she would cry, shaking her head.
     'What is the matter, mother?'
     'Matter! I really don't know what is the matter. The world is coming to
such  an  artificial and ungrateful state, that I begin  to think there's no
Heart - or anything of that sort - left in it, positively. Withers is more a
child to me than you are. He attends to me much more than my own daughter. I
almost wish  I didn't look so young - and all that  kind of thing - and then
perhaps I should be more considered.'
     'What would you have, mother?'
     'Oh, a great deal, Edith,' impatiently.
     'Is there anything you want  that you have not? It is your own fault if
there be.'
     'My  own  fault!' beginning to whimper. 'The parent I have been to you,
Edith: making you a companion from your cradle! And when you neglect me, and
have  no more  natural affection  for me than if I  was a  stranger  - not a
twentieth part of the affection  that you have for Florence -  but I am only
your mother, and should corrupt her in a day!  -  you  reproach me with  its
being my own fault.'
     'Mother, mother, I reproach you with nothing. Why will you always dwell
on this?'
     'Isn't it natural  that I should dwell on this, when I am all affection
and sensitiveness, and am wounded in the cruellest way, whenever you look at
me?'
     'I  do not mean  to wound you, mother.  Have you no remembrance of what
has been said between us? Let the Past rest.'
     'Yes,  rest!  And let gratitude to  me  rest; and let  affection for me
rest; and  let  me rest in my out-of-the-way  room,  with no society and  no
attention, while you find new relations to make much of, who have no earthly
claim  upon  you!  Good  gracious,  Edith,  do  you  know  what  an  elegant
establishment you are at the head of?'
     'Yes. Hush!'
     'And  that  gentlemanly  creature, Dombey? Do  you  know that  you  are
married to  him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position, and a
carriage, and I don't know what?'
     'Indeed, I know it, mother; well.'
     'As you would have had  with that delightful good soul - what  did they
call him?  - Granger -  if he hadn't died. And who have you to thank for all
this, Edith?'
     'You, mother; you.'
     'Then  put your arms round  my  neck, and  kiss me; and show me, Edith,
that you  know  there never was a better Mama than  I have been  to you. And
don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing myself at your
ingratitude, or when I'm out again in society no soul will know me, not even
that hateful animal, the Major.'
     But,  sometimes, when Edith  went nearer  to her, and bending down  her
stately  head, Put  her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back as If
she were afraid of her, and would fall  into a fit of trembling, and cry out
that there was a wandering in her wits. And sometimes she would entreat her,
with humility, to sit down on  the  chair beside her bed, and  would look at
her (as  she  sat  there brooding) with a face  that even the  rose-coloured
curtains could not make otherwise than scared and wild.
     The rose-coloured curtains  blushed, in course of  time, on Cleopatra's
bodily  recovery, and on her dress -  more juvenile than ever, to repair the
ravages of illness  - and on the rouge, and on the teeth,  and on the curls,
and on the  diamonds, and the short sleeves, and the  whole  wardrobe of the
doll that  had tumbled down  before  the mirror. They blushed,  too, now and
then, upon  an  indistinctness  in  her speech which  she  turned off with a
girlish giggle, and on an occasional failing In her memory, that had no rule
in it, but came  and  went  fantastically, as if in mockery of her fantastic
self.
     But they never  blushed upon a  change in the new manner of her thought
and speech towards her daughter.  And though that daughter often came within
their  influence, they never blushed upon  her  loveliness  irradiated by  a
smile, or softened by the light of filial love, in its stem beauty.

        CHAPTER 38.
     Miss Tox improves an Old Acquaintance

     The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa  Chick, and bereft
of Mr  Dombey's countenance  - for no delicate pair of wedding cards, united
by  a silver thread, graced the  chimney-glass in Princess's  Place,  or the
harpsichord, or any of those little posts of display which Lucretia reserved
for holiday  occupation - became depressed in her spirits, and suffered much
from melancholy. For a time the Bird Waltz was unheard in  Princess's Place,
the plants were neglected, and dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's
ancestor with the powdered head and pigtail.

     Miss Tox, however,  was  not  of  an age  or of  a disposition  long to
abandon herself to  unavailing regrets.  Only two notes  of  the harpsichord
were dumb  from disuse when the Bird Waltz again warbled and trilled in  the
crooked drawing-room: only one  slip of geranium fell a  victim to imperfect
nursing,  before she was gardening  at  her green  baskets again,  regularly
every  morning; the powdered-headed ancestor had  not been under a cloud for
more  than six  weeks, when Miss Tox breathed on his  benignant visage,  and
polished him up with a piece of wash-leather.
     Still, Miss  Tox  was  lonely,  and at a loss. Her attachments, however
ludicrously shown,  were  real and strong; and she was, as she expressed it,
'deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely  she  had met with from Louisa.' But
there was no  such  thing as anger  in Miss Tox's  composition.  If she  had
ambled on through life, in her soft spoken  way,  without  any opinions, she
had,  at least, got so far  without any  harsh passions.  The mere sight  of
Louisa Chick  in  the  street  one  day,  at  a  considerable  distance,  so
overpowered  her milky nature, that she was fain to seek immediate refuge in
a pastrycook's, and  there, in a  musty little back  room usually devoted to
the consumption of soups, and pervaded by an ox-tail atmosphere, relieve her
feelings by weeping plentifully.
     Against Mr Dombey  Miss Tox  hardly  felt  that  she had any  reason of
complaint. Her  sense of that  gentleman's magnificence was such,  that once
removed from him,  she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable,
and as if  he had greatly condescended  in tolerating her  at all.  No  wife
could  be too  handsome  or  too  stately for  him, according to Miss  Tox's
sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that in looking for one, he should
look  high. Miss  Tox  with  tears  laid  down this  proposition, and  fully
admitted  it, twenty  times  a  day. She  never recalled the lofty manner in
which Mr Dombey had made  her  subservient to his  convenience and caprices,
and had  graciously permitted her to be one of the nurses of his little son.
She only thought, in her own words,  'that she had passed a great many happy
hours in  that house, which she  must  ever remember with gratification, and
that she could never cease to regard Mr Dombey as one of the most impressive
and dignified of men.'
     Cut  off,  however,  from the implacable Louisa, and being shy  of  the
Major  (whom she  viewed with  some distrust  now),  Miss Tox found it  very
irksome to know nothing  of what was going on in Mr  Dombey's establishment.
And as she really had  got into the  habit of considering  Dombey and Son as
the pivot on which the world in general turned, she resolved, rather than be
ignorant of intelligence which so  strongly interested her, to cultivate her
old  acquaintance,  Mrs  Richards,  who she  knew,  since her last memorable
appearance  before  Mr  Dombey,  was  in  the  habit  of  sometimes  holding
communication with his servants. Perhaps Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle
family, had  the  tender motive  hidden in her breast of having  somebody to
whom  she  could  talk about  Mr Dombey, no matter how humble  that somebody
might be.
     At all events,  towards  the Toodle  habitation  Miss Tox directed  her
steps one evening,  what time Mr Toodle, cindery  and swart, was  refreshing
himself  with  tea,  in the  bosom of his family. Mr Toodle  had only  three
stages  of  existence. He  was either taking  refreshment  in the bosom just
mentioned, or he  was tearing  through  the country  at from twenty-five  to
fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in
a whirlwind or a calm, and a peaceable,  contented, easy-going man Mr Toodle
was in either state, who seemed to have made over all his own inheritance of
fuming  and  fretting  to the  engines with  which he  was  connected, which
panted, and gasped, and chafed, and wore themselves out, in a most unsparing
manner, while Mr Toodle led a mild and equable life.
     'Polly, my gal,' said Mr Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee,  and
two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about - Mr Toodle was
never out  of children, but always kept  a good supply on  hand - 'you ain't
seen our Biler lately, have you?'
     'No,' replied Polly, 'but he's almost  certain to look in tonight. It's
his right evening, and he's very regular.'
     'I  suppose,' said  Mr Toodle, relishing his  meal infinitely,  'as our
Biler is a doin' now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly?'
     'Oh! he's a doing beautiful!' responded Polly.
     'He ain't got to be  at all secret-like -  has he, Polly?' inquired  Mr
Toodle.
     'No!' said Mrs Toodle, plumply.
     'I'm glad he ain't got to  be at  all secret-like, Polly,' observed  Mr
Toodle  in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter
with a clasp knife, as  if he were stoking himself, 'because that don't look
well; do it, Polly?'
     'Why, of course it don't, father. How can you ask!'
     'You see,  my  boys and gals,' said  Mr Toodle, looking round upon  his
family, 'wotever  you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you can't
do better  than be open. If you find yourselves in  cuttings  or in tunnels,
don't you  play no secret  games.  Keep your whistles going, and  let's know
where you are.
     The  rising Toodles  set  up  a  shrill  murmur,  expressive  of  their
resolution to profit by the paternal advice.
     'But  what makes you say this along of  Rob, father?'  asked  his wife,
anxiously.
     'Polly,  old  ooman,'  said  Mr  Toodle,  'I  don't know as  I  said it
partickler along o' Rob, I'm sure. I starts light with Rob only; I  comes to
a branch;  I takes on what  I finds there; and a  whole train of  ideas gets
coupled on to him, afore I knows where I am, or where  they comes from. What
a Junction a man's thoughts is,' said Mr Toodle, 'to-be-sure!'
     This profound reflection Mr Toodle washed  down with a pint mug of tea,
and  proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging
his young daughters meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he
was uncommon  dry,  and should take the  indefinite quantity of 'a  sight of
mugs,' before his thirst was appeased.
     In  satisfying himself, however,  Mr Toodle  was  not regardless of the
younger  branches about him, who, although they had made  their  own evening
repast, were on  the look-out for irregular morsels, as possessing a relish.
These he distributed now and  then to  the expectant circle, by holding  out
great wedges of bread and butter, to be bitten  at by the  family  in lawful
succession, and  by  serving  out small doses  of tea in like  manner with a
spoon; which snacks had such a relish in  the mouths of these young Toodles,
that, after partaking of  the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy
among  themselves, and stood on one leg apiece, and hopped,  and indulged in
other saltatory tokens of gladness.  These vents for their excitement found,
they gradually closed about  Mr Toodle  again, and eyed  him hard as  he got
through more bread  and  butter and  tea;  affecting,  however,  to have  no
further expectations of their own in  reference to  those viands,  but to be
conversing on foreign subjects, and whispering confidentially.
     Mr  Toodle,  in the  midst of this family group,  and setting  an awful
example to his children  in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young
Toodles on  his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating
the rest over  a barrier of bread  and butter, when  Rob the Grinder, in his
sou'wester  hat and mourning slops, presented himself, and was received with
a general rush of brothers and sisters.
     'Well, mother!' said Rob, dutifully kissing her; 'how are you, mother?'
     'There's my boy!' cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat  on the back.
'Secret! Bless you, father, not he!'
     This was intended for Mr  Toodle's  private  edification, but  Rob  the
Grinder,  whose withers  were not  unwrung, caught the  words as  they  were
spoken.
     'What! father's been a saying something more again  me, has he?'  cried
the injured innocent. 'Oh, what a hard thing it is that when a cove has once
gone a little wrong, a  cove's  own father should be always a throwing it in
his face  behind  his  back!  It's  enough,'  cried  Rob, resorting  to  his
coat-cuff in anguish of spirit, 'to make  a cove go and do something, out of
spite!'
     'My poor boy!' cried Polly, 'father didn't mean anything.'
     'If father  didn't  mean anything,' blubbered the injured Grinder, 'why
did he go and say  anything, mother?  Nobody thinks half so bad of me as  my
own father does. What a unnatural  thing! I wish somebody'd take and chop my
head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I  believe, and I'd much  rather he
did that than t'other.'
     At  these  desperate words all the young Toodles  shrieked;  a pathetic
effect,  which the Grinder  improved by ironically adjuring them not  to cry
for him, for they ought to hate him, they ought, if  they was good boys  and
girls;  and  this  so  touched the youngest Toodle  but one, who was  easily
moved,  that  it  touched  him not only in his spirit but in  his wind  too;
making him so purple  that Mr Toodle in consternation carried him out to the
water-butt,  and  would  have  put  him under  the  tap, but  for  his being
recovered by the sight of that instrument.
     Matters  having reached  this  point,  Mr  Toodle  explained,  and  the
virtuous  feelings of his  son  being  thereby calmed, they shook hands, and
harmony reigned again.
     'Will you do as I do, Biler, my boy?' inquired his father, returning to
his tea with new strength.
     'No, thank'ee, father. Master and I had tea together.'
     'And how is master, Rob?' said Polly.
     'Well, I  don't know, mother;  not  much  to boast on.  There  ain't no
bis'ness  done, you see. He don't know anything about it - the Cap'en don't.
There  was  a man come  into  the shop this  very  day, and says, "I want  a
so-and-so," he says - some hard name or another. "A which?" says the Cap'en.
"A  so-and-so,"  says the man. "Brother," says the Cap'en, "will you take  a
observation round the shop." "Well," says the man, "I've  done" "Do  you see
wot you want?" says  the Cap'en "No, I don't," says the man. "Do you know it
wen you do see it?" says the Cap'en. "No, I don't," says the man. "Why, then
I tell you wot, my lad," says the Cap'en, "you'd better go back and ask  wot
it's like, outside, for no more don't I!"'
     'That ain't the way to make money, though, is it?' said Polly.
     'Money,  mother!  He'll never make  money. He has  such ways as I never
see. He ain't  a  bad master though, I'll say that for him. But  that  ain't
much to me, for I don't think I shall stop with him long.'
     'Not stop in your place, Rob!' cried his mother; while Mr Toodle opened
his eyes.
     'Not in that place, p'raps,'  returned  the  Grinder,  with  a wink. 'I
shouldn't wonder - friends  at court you know -  but never you mind, mother,
just now; I'm all right, that's all.'
     The indisputable proof  afforded in  these  hints, and in the Grinder's
mysterious manner, of his not being subject to  that failing which Mr Toodle
had, by implication, attributed to  him, might have led to a renewal  of his
wrongs, and of the sensation in the family, but for the opportune arrival of
another  visitor,  who,  to Polly's  great  surprise, appeared  at the door,
smiling patronage and friendship on all there.
     'How do  you do, Mrs Richards?' said Miss Tox. 'I have come to see you.
May I come in?'
     The cheery face of Mrs Richards shone with a hospitable reply, and Miss
Tox, accepting the proffered chair, and grab fully recognising Mr Toodle  on
her way to  it, untied her bonnet strings,  and said that in the first place
she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.
     The  ill-starred  youngest  Toodle but one, who would appear, from  the
frequency  of his  domestic  troubles, to have  been  born  under an unlucky
planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by
having fixed the sou'wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling)
deep on his  head, hind side before, and being unable to get  it  off again;
which accident  presenting to his terrified imagination  a dismal picture of
his passing the rest of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from
his friends and family, caused him  to struggle with great violence,  and to
utter suffocating  cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very
hot, and red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.
     'You have almost  forgotten me,  Sir, I daresay,' said  Miss Tox  to Mr
Toodle.
     'No, Ma'am, no,'  said Toodle. 'But we've all on  us got a little older
since then.'
     'And how do you find yourself, Sir?' inquired Miss Tox, blandly.
     'Hearty,  Ma'am, thank'ee,' replied Toodle. 'How do  you find yourself,
Ma'am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma'am? We must all expect to
grow into 'em, as we gets on.'
     'Thank you,' said Miss  Tox. 'I have  not  felt any  inconvenience from
that disorder yet.'
     'You're wery fortunate,  Ma'am,' returned  Mr  Toodle. 'Many  people at
your time of  life, Ma'am,  is martyrs to  it. There was my  mother  - ' But
catching his  wife's  eye here,  Mr Toodle judiciously  buried  the rest  in
another mug of tea
     'You  never mean to say, Mrs Richards,' cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob,
'that that is your - '
     'Eldest,  Ma'am,'  said Polly. 'Yes, indeed, it  is. That's the  little
fellow, Ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much.'
     'This here, Ma'am,' said Toodle, 'is him with the short legs - and they
was,' said Mr Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, 'unusual short for
leathers - as Mr Dombey made a Grinder on.'
     The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it  had  a
peculiar interest  for  her  directly. She  asked  him  to shake hands,  and
congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her,
called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.
     'And  now,  Mrs  Richards,'  said  Miss  Tox,  -  'and  you  too, Sir,'
addressing Toodle - 'I'll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here
for. You  may be aware, Mrs Richards -  and, possibly, you may be aware too,
Sir - that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my
friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now.'
     Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed  as
much in a little look. Mr Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss
Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.
     'Of course,'  said Miss Tox, 'how our little coolness has arisen  is of
no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient  for me to
say, that  I have the  greatest  possible  respect for, and interest in,  Mr
Dombey;' Miss Tox's voice faltered; 'and everything that relates to him.'
     Mr Toodle,  enlightened, shook his head, and said he had heerd it said,
and, for his own part, he did think, as Mr Dombey was a difficult subject.
     'Pray don't say  so,  Sir, if you  please,' returned Miss  Tox. 'Let me
entreat you not to  say  so, Sir, either  now, or at  any  future time. Such
observations cannot but  be very painful to me;  and  to a gentleman,  whose
mind is constituted as, I am quite sure, yours  is, can afford no  permanent
satisfaction.'
     Mr Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark
that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded.
     'All  that I  wish to say, Mrs Richards,' resumed  Miss  Tox, -  'and I
address myself to  you too, Sir, -  is this. That  any intelligence  of  the
proceedings of the family,  of the  welfare of the family,  of the health of
the family, that reaches you, will be always  most  acceptable to me. That I
shall  be always very  glad  to chat with Mrs Richards about the family, and
about  old time And as  Mrs Richards  and I  never  had the least difference
(though I could wish now that we  had been better  acquainted, but I have no
one but myself to blame for that), I  hope she will not object  to our being
very good friends now, and to my coming backwards and forwards here,  when I
like, without being a stranger. Now, I really hope, Mrs Richards,' said Miss
Tox  -  earnestly,  'that  you  will  take  this,  as  I  mean  it,  like  a
good-humoured creature, as you always were.'
     Polly  was gratified,  and showed it. Mr Toodle  didn't know whether he
was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness.
     'You see, Mrs Richards,' said Miss Tox - 'an