beral than Mrs Miff - but then he is not
a pew-opener. 'It must be done, Ma'am,' he says. 'We must marry 'em. We must
have  our national  schools  to walk  at the head of, and  we must  have our
standing  armies. We must marry 'em,  Ma'am,'  says Mr Sownds, 'and keep the
country going.'
     Mr  Sownds  is sitting on  the steps and  Mrs  Miff is dusting  in  the
church, when a  young couple, plainly dressed, come in. The mortified bonnet
of Mrs Miff is  sharply  turned towards  them, for she espies in this  early
visit indications  of a runaway  match. But they don't want to be married  -
'Only,' says the gentleman,  'to walk round the church.'  And as he  slips a
genteel compliment into the palm of Mrs Miff, her vinegary face relaxes, and
her mortified bonnet and her spare dry figure dip and crackle.
     Mrs Miff  resumes her  dusting and plumps  up her  cushions  - for  the
yellow-faced old gentleman is  reported to have tender knees - but keeps her
glazed, pew-opening eye  on  the  young couple  who  are walking  round  the
church. 'Ahem,' coughs Mrs Miff whose cough is  drier than  the hay  in  any
hassock in her charge,  'you'll  come to us one of these mornings, my dears,
unless I'm much mistaken!'
     They  are looking  at a tablet  on  the  wall, erected to the memory of
someone dead. They are a long  way off  from  Mrs Miff, but Mrs Miff can see
with half an  eye  how  she is leaning on his arm, and how his head  is bent
down over her. 'Well, well,' says Mrs Miff, 'you might do  worse. For you're
a tidy pair!'
     There is  nothing personal in Mrs Miff's remark.  She  merely speaks of
stock-in-trade.  She is hardly more curious in couples than in  coffins. She
is such a spare, straight, dry  old lady - such a pew of a woman - that  you
should find as  many individual sympathies in a chip. Mr Sownds, now, who is
fleshy, and has scarlet in his coat, is of a different temperament. He says,
as they stand upon the steps watching the young couple  away, that she has a
pretty figure,  hasn't  she, and  as well as he could see (for she  held her
head down coming out), an uncommon pretty face. 'Altogether, Mrs Miff,' says
Mr Sownds with a relish, 'she is what you may call a rose-bud.'
     Mrs Miff assents with a spare nod of her mortified bonnet; but approves
of this so little, that she inwardly resolves she wouldn't be the wife of Mr
Sownds for any money he could give her, Beadle as he is.
     And  what are the young couple saying as  they leave the church, and go
out at the gate?
     'Dear Walter, thank you! I can go away, now, happy.'
     'And  when  we  come  back,  Florence,  we will come and see  his grave
again.'
     Florence  lifts her eyes,  so bright with tears, to his  kind face; and
clasps her disengaged hand on that other modest little hand which clasps his
arm.
     'It is very early, Walter, and the streets are almost empty yet. Let us
walk.'
     'But you will be so tired, my love.'
     'Oh no! I was  very tired the first time that  we ever walked together,
but  I shall  not be so  to-day.' And thus  -  not much  changed -  she,  as
innocent and earnest-hearted -  he, as frank,  as hopeful, and more proud of
her - Florence and Walter, on their bridal morning, walk through the streets
together.
     Not even in  that childish walk of long  ago, were  they so far removed
from all the world about them as to-day. The childish feet of  long ago, did
not tread such enchanted ground as theirs do now. The confidence and love of
children may be given many times, and will spring up in many places; but the
woman's heart of Florence, with its undivided treasure,  can be yielded only
once, and under slight or change, can only droop and die.
     They take the streets that are the quietest, and do not go near that in
which her  old  home stands. It is a fair, warm summer  morning, and the sun
shines on them, as they walk towards the darkening mist that overspreads the
City. Riches are uncovering in shops; jewels, gold,  and silver flash in the
goldsmith's sunny windows; and  great houses cast  a stately shade upon them
as they  pass. But  through the light, and through  the  shade, they  go  on
lovingly together, lost to everything around; thinking of  no other  riches,
and no prouder home, than they have now in one another.
     Gradually they come into the darker, narrower  streets, where  the sun,
now yellow, and now red, is seen through the  mist, only at street  corners,
and  in small open  spaces where there is a tree, or one of  the innumerable
churches, or a paved way and a flight of steps, or a curious little patch of
garden, or a burying-ground, where the few tombs and tombstones  are  almost
black. Lovingly and trustfully, through  all the narrow yards and alleys and
the shady streets, Florence goes, clinging to his arm, to be his wife.
     Her heart beats quicker now, for Walter tells her that their  church is
very near. They pass a few great  stacks of warehouses,  with waggons at the
doors, and busy carmen stopping  up the way - but Florence  does  not see or
hear them  - and  then the air is quiet, and the day is darkened, and she is
trembling in a church which has a strange smell like a cellar.
     The shabby little old man, ringer of the disappointed bell, is standing
in the porch,  and has put his hat  in the font  - for he is quite  at  home
there,  being  sexton. He ushers  them into  an  old  brown, panelled, dusty
vestry,  like  a corner-cupboard with the shelves taken out; where the wormy
registers diffuse a smell like faded snuff, which has set the tearful Nipper
sneezing.
     Youthful, and how beautiful, the young bride  looks,  in this old dusty
place, with no kindred object near her but her husband. There is a dusty old
clerk,  who keeps  a  sort  of  evaporated news  shop underneath an  archway
opposite,  behind  a perfect fortification  of posts.  There is a dusty  old
pew-opener who only keeps herself, and  finds that quite enough to do. There
is a dusty  old beadle (these are Mr Toots's beadle and pew-opener  of  last
Sunday), who  has something to  do with  a Worshipful Company who have got a
Hall in the next yard, with a stained-glass window in it that no mortal ever
saw.  There are  dusty  wooden ledges and cornices poked in and out over the
altar, and over the  screen and round the gallery, and over  the inscription
about  what  the Master  and Wardens  of the Worshipful  Company did  in one
thousand six hundred and ninety-four.  There  are  dusty old sounding-boards
over the  pulpit and  reading-desk, looking like lids to be let down on  the
officiating  ministers  in  case  of their giving offence.  There  is  every
possible provision for the accommodation of  dust, except in the churchyard,
where  the  facilities in that respect are  very limited. The Captain, Uncle
Sol, and Mr  Toots are come; the clergyman is putting on his surplice in the
vestry, while the clerk  walks round him, blowing  the dust  off it; and the
bride and bridegroom  stand before the altar. There is no bridesmaid, unless
Susan Nipper is one; and  no better father than Captain Cuttle. A man with a
wooden leg, chewing a faint apple and carrying a blue bag in has hand, looks
in to  see what is going on; but finding it nothing entertaining, stumps off
again, and pegs his way among the echoes out of doors.
     No gracious  ray of light is seen to fall on Florence, kneeling at  the
altar with her timid head bowed down. The morning luminary is built out, and
don't shine there.  There  is a meagre tree  outside, where the sparrows are
chirping  a  little; and  there is a blackbird in an eyelet-hole of sun in a
dyer's  garret,  over  against  the window,  who whistles  loudly whilst the
service  is performing; and  there is the  man with  the wooden leg stumping
away. The  amens of the dusty clerk appear, like Macbeth's,  to stick in his
throat a little'; but Captain Cuttle helps him out, and does it with so much
goodwill that  he interpolates  three entirely  new responses  of that word,
never introduced into the service before.
     They are married,  and have signed their names in one of the old sneezy
registers,  and  the  clergyman's surplice is restored to the dust, and  the
clergymam is gone home.  In  a  dark corner of the dark church, Florence has
turned to Susan Nipper, and is weeping in her arms. Mr Toots's eyes are red.
The  Captain lubricates his nose. Uncle Sol has  pulled down  his spectacles
from his forehead, and walked out to the door.
     'God bless you,  Susan; dearest Susan! If you ever  can bear witness to
the love I have for Walter, and the reason  that I have to  love  him, do it
for his sake. Good-bye! Good-bye!'
     They have thought it better  not  to go back to the Midshipman,  but to
part so; a coach is waiting for them, near at hand.
     Miss  Nipper  cannot speak; she  only  sobs and  chokes,  and hugs  her
mistress. Mr Toots advances, urges her to cheer up, and takes charge of her.
Florence gives him her hand - gives him,  in the fulness of  her heart,  her
lips - kisses  Uncle Sol, and Captain Cuttle, and is borne away by her young
husband.
     But  Susan  cannot bear  that  Florence should go away with  a mournful
recollection  of her.  She had meant to be so different, that she reproaches
herself bitterly. Intent on making one last effort to redeem her  character,
she breaks from Mr Toots and runs away to find the coach, and show a parting
smile. The Captain, divining her object, sets off after her; for he feels it
his duty also to dismiss  them with a cheer, if  possible.  Uncle Sol and Mr
Toots are left behind together, outside the church, to wait for them.
     The coach is gone, but the street is steep, and narrow, and blocked up,
and Susan can see it at a stand-still in the distance, she  is sure. Captain
Cuttle follows her as she flies down the hill, and waves his glazed hat as a
general signal, which may attract the right coach and which may not.
     Susan outstrips the Captain, and comes up  with it. She looks in at the
window, sees Walter, with the  gentle  face beside him, and claps  her hands
and screams:
     'Miss Floy, my darling!  look at me! We are all so happy now, dear! One
more good-bye, my precious, one more!'
     How  Susan does it, she don't know,  but  she reaches  to  the  window,
kisses her, and has her arms about her neck, in a moment.
     We are  all so  happy now,  my  dear  Miss  Floy!' says Susan,  with  a
suspicious catching in her breath. 'You, you won't be angry with me now. Now
will you?'
     'Angry, Susan!'
     'No,  no; I am  sure you  won't. I say  you won't, my pet, my dearest!'
exclaims Susan; 'and here's  the Captain  too - your friend the Captain, you
know - to say good-bye once more!'
     'Hooroar,  my  Heart's  Delight!'  vociferates  the   Captain,  with  a
countenance of strong emotion. 'Hooroar, Wal'r my lad. Hooroar! Hooroar!'
     What with the young husband at one window,  and the young wife  at  the
other; the Captain hanging on at this door, and Susan Nipper holding fast by
that;  the coach obliged to go on whether  it will or no,  and all the other
carts and coaches turbulent because it  hesitates;  there never  was so much
confusion on four  wheels. But Susan  Nipper gallantly  maintains her point.
She keeps a smiling face upon her mistress, smiling through her tears, until
the last. Even when she is left behind,  the Captain continues to appear and
disappear  at the  door,  crying  'Hooroar,  my  lad!  Hooroar,  my  Heart's
Delight!' with his shirt-collar in a violent state of agitation, until it is
hopeless to attempt to keep up with the coach any longer. Finally,  when the
coach is  gone, Susan Nipper, being  rejoined  by the Captain,  falls into a
state of insensibility, and is taken into a baker's shop to recover.
     Uncle Sol and Mr Toots wait patiently in the churchyard, sitting on the
coping-stone of  the railings, until  Captain  Cuttle  and Susan come  back,
Neither being  at  all  desirous to  speak,  or to  be  spoken to,  they are
excellent  company, and quite satisfied.  When they  all arrive again at the
little  Midshipman, and sit down to  breakfast,  nobody  can touch a morsel.
Captain Cuttle makes a feint of being voracious about toast, but gives it up
as  a  swindle.  Mr Toots says,  after breakfast, he  will come back  in the
evening; and  goes wandering about the town all  day, with a vague sensation
upon him as if he hadn't been to bed for a fortnight.
     There  is  a strange charm in the house, and in the room, in which they
have been used  to  be together,  and  out of  which  so much  is  gone.  It
aggravates, and yet it soothes, the sorrow of the separation. Mr Toots tells
Susan Nipper when he comes at night, that he hasn't been so wretched all day
long, and yet  he likes it. He confides in  Susan Nipper,  being  alone with
her,  and tells  her what his feelings were when she gave  him  that  candid
opinion as to the probability of  Miss Dombey's ever loving him. In the vein
of confidence engendered by these  common recollections, and their tears, Mr
Toots  proposes  that  they shall  go  out  together, and buy something  for
supper. Miss Nipper assenting, they buy a good many little things; and, with
the aid of Mrs Richards, set the supper out quite showily before the Captain
and old Sol came home.
     The  Captain and  old  Sol  have  been  on  board  the ship,  and  have
established Di there, and have seen the chests put aboard. They have much to
tell  about  the  popularity of Walter, and the  comforts he will have about
him, and the quiet way in which it seems he has been working early and late,
to make  his cabin what the Captain calls 'a picter,' to surprise his little
wife. 'A admiral's cabin, mind you,' says the Captain, 'ain't more trim.'
     But  one of  the  Captain's chief  delights is, that he  knows the  big
watch,  and  the  sugar-tongs, and tea-spoons, are  on board: and  again and
again he  murmurs  to  himself, 'Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, you  never shaped  a
better  course in your life than  when you  made that there little  property
over  jintly. You see how the  land bore, Ed'ard,' says the Captain, 'and it
does you credit, my lad.'
     The  old Instrument-maker is more distraught and misty than  he used to
be,  and takes the  marriage and the parting very much  to heart. But  he is
greatly  comforted by having his  old ally,  Ned Cuttle, at his side; and he
sits down to supper with a grateful and contented face.
     'My boy has been preserved and thrives,'  says  old Sol  Gills, rubbing
his hands. 'What right have I to be otherwise than thankful and happy!'
     The Captain, who  has not yet taken his seat at the table, but  who has
been fidgeting about for some time, and now stands hesitating in  his place,
looks doubtfully at Mr Gills, and says:
     'Sol! There's the last bottle of the old  Madeira down below. Would you
wish to have it up to-night, my boy, and drink to Wal'r and his wife?'
     The Instrument-maker,  looking wistfully at the Captain, puts his  hand
into the  breast-pocket  of  his  coffee-coloured  coat,  brings  forth  his
pocket-book, and takes a letter out.
     'To Mr Dombey,'  says the old  man. 'From  Walter. To be  sent in three
weeks' time. I'll read it.'
     '"Sir.  I  am married  to your daughter. She  is gone  with  me  upon a
distant voyage. To be devoted to her is to have  no claim on her or you, but
God knows that I am.
     '"Why, loving  her  beyond  all  earthly things,  I  have  yet, without
remorse, united her to the uncertainties  and dangers of my life, I will not
say to you. You know why, and you are her father.
     '"Do not reproach her. She has never reproached you.
     '"I  do  not  think or  hope that  you will  ever forgive me. There  is
nothing  I expect less. But if an hour should come when it  will comfort you
to  believe that  Florence has someone ever near  her, the great  charge  of
whose life is  to cancel her  remembrance of past  sorrow, I solemnly assure
you, you may, in that hour, rest in that belief."'
     Solomon  puts back the letter carefully  in his  pocket-book,  and puts
back his pocket-book in his coat.
     'We won't drink the last bottle  of the old Madeira yet, Ned,' says the
old man thoughtfully. 'Not yet.
     'Not yet,' assents the Captain. 'No. Not yet.'
     Susan and Mr Toots are of the same opinion.  After a silence  they  all
sit down to supper, and drink  to the young  husband  and wife  in something
else; and the last  bottle of the old Madeira still  remains among its  dust
and cobwebs, undisturbed.

     A  few days have elapsed, and a stately  ship is out  at sea, spreading
its white wings to the favouring wind.
     Upon the deck, image to the roughest man  on board of something that is
graceful, beautiful, and harmless -  something that it is good  and pleasant
to have there, and that  should make the voyage prosperous - is Florence. It
is night, and she and Walter  sit  alone, watching  the solemn path of light
upon the sea between them and the moon.
     At  length she cannot see it plainly, for the tears that fill her eyes;
and then she lays her head down on his breast, and puts her  arms around his
neck, saying, 'Oh Walter, dearest love, I am so happy!'
     Her husband holds her to his  heart, and they are  very quiet, and  the
stately ship goes on serenely.
     'As I hear the sea,' says  Florence, 'and sit watching it, it brings so
many days into my mind. It makes me think so much - '
     'Of Paul, my love. I know it does.'
     Of Paul and Walter.  And the voices in the waves  are always whispering
to  Florence,  in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of  love, eternal and
illimitable,  not bounded by  the confines of  this world, or by the end  of
time, but  ranging still, beyond  the sea, beyond the sky,  to the invisible
country far away!

        CHAPTER 58.
     After a Lapse

     The sea  had ebbed  and flowed, through  a  whole year. Through a whole
year, the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had
been performed, in storm and sunshine.  Through  a whole  year, the tides of
human chance and change  had set in their  allotted courses. Through a whole
year,  the  famous  House  of Dombey and  Son had  fought a fight for  life,
against   cross   accidents,  doubtful   rumours,   unsuccessful   ventures,
unpropitious times, and  most of all, against the infatuation  of its  head,
who  would not contract its enterprises by  a hair's breadth,  and would not
listen to a word of warning that the  ship  he strained  so hard against the
storm, was  weak, and  could not bear it. The  year was  out, and the  great
House was down.
     One summer afternoon; a year, wanting some odd days, after the marriage
in the City church;  there  was a  buzz  and whisper upon 'Change of a great
failure. A certain cold proud man, well known there, was not there,  nor was
he represented there. Next day  it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had
stopped, and  next night there was  a List of Bankrupts published, headed by
that name.
     The world was very busy now, in sooth, and had a deal to say. It was an
innocently  credulous  and  a much ill-used world. It  was a world in  which
there was 'no other sort of bankruptcy  whatever. There were no  conspicuous
people  in it, trading far and wide on rotten banks of religion, patriotism,
virtue,  honour. There was no  amount  worth  mentioning  of  mere paper  in
circulation,  on which anybody  lived  pretty  handsomely, promising to  pay
great sums of goodness with no effects. There were no shortcomings anywhere,
in  anything but  money.  The world was  very angry indeed;  and  the people
especially,  who, in  a worse world,  might have  been  supposed  to be  apt
traders themselves in shows  and  pretences,  were  observed to  be mightily
indignant.
     Here was  a new inducement to dissipation, presented to  that sport  of
circumstances, Mr Perch the  Messenger!  It was  apparently the  fate  of Mr
Perch  to  be  always  waking  up,  and finding  himself famous. He had  but
yesterday,  as one  might say, subsided into private life from the celebrity
of the elopement and the events that followed it; and now he was made a more
important man than ever, by the bankruptcy.  Gliding from his bracket in the
outer office where he now sat, watching the strange faces of accountants and
others, who quickly superseded nearly all the  old clerks,  Mr Perch had but
to show  himself in the court  outside, or, at farthest, in  the bar of  the
King's Arms, to be asked a multitude of questions, almost certain to include
that interesting question, what would he take to  drink? Then would Mr Perch
descant upon the hours of acute uneasiness he and Mrs Perch had suffered out
at  Balls Pond, when  they first  suspected 'things  was  going wrong.' Then
would  Mr Perch relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse
of the deceased House were  lying unburied  in the  next room, how Mrs Perch
had first come to surmise that things was going wrong by hearing him (Perch)
moaning  in  his  sleep,  'twelve  and ninepence in  the pound,  twelve  and
ninepence  in  the pound!'  Which act  of  somnambulism he supposed to  have
originated in  the  impression made upon him by  the  change in Mr  Dombey's
face. Then would he inform them how he had once said, 'Might I make so  bold
as ask, Sir, are you unhappy in your  mind?' and how Mr Dombey  had replied,
'My faithful  Perch  - but no, it cannot  be!' and with that had struck  his
hand upon his forehead, and said, 'Leave  me, Perch!' Then, in  short, would
Mr Perch, a  victim  to  his position, tell  all manner of  lies;  affecting
himself to tears by those that were of a moving nature, and really believing
that  the inventions  of yesterday had, on repetition, a sort of truth about
them to-day.
     Mr Perch always closed these conferences by meekly remarking, That,  of
course, whatever his suspicions might have been (as if he had ever had any!)
it wasn't for  him to betray his trust, was it? Which sentiment (there never
being  any  creditors  present) was  received as  doing great honour  to his
feelings. Thus, he generally  brought away a  soothed conscience and left an
agreeable impression  behind him, when he returned to  his bracket: again to
sit watching the strange faces of the accountants and others, making so free
with the great mysteries, the Books; or now and then to go on tiptoe into Mr
Dombey's empty room, and  stir the  fire; or to take an  airing at the door,
and have  a little more doleful chat with  any straggler whom he knew; or to
propitiate, with various small attentions, the head accountant: from whom Mr
Perch had expectations of a messengership in a Fire Office, when the affairs
of the House should be wound up.
     To Major Bagstock, the bankruptcy was quite  a calamity. The  Major was
not a sympathetic character - his attention being wholly concentrated  on J.
B. - nor was he  a man  subject to lively  emotions, except  in the physical
regards of  gasping and choking. But he had so paraded  his friend Dombey at
the club; had so flourished him at the heads  of the members in general, and
so  put them down by continual assertion of his riches; that the club, being
but human, was  delighted  to retort upon  the Major, by asking him, with  a
show of  great  concern,  whether  this  tremendous smash  had  been  at all
expected, and how his friend  Dombey bore it. To such questions,  the Major,
waxing very purple, would reply  that it was a bad world,  Sir,  altogether;
that Joey knew a thing or two, but had been done, Sir, done  like an infant;
that if you had foretold this, Sir, to J. Bagstock, when he went abroad with
Dombey  and was chasing that vagabond up and down France, J. Bagstock  would
have pooh-pooh'd you -  would have pooh- pooh'd you, Sir, by the  Lord! That
Joe had been deceived, Sir, taken in, hoodwinked, blindfolded, but was broad
awake again and staring; insomuch, Sir, that if Joe's father were to rise up
from  the grave  to-morrow, he  wouldn't  trust the old blade  with  a penny
piece, but would tell him that his son Josh was too old a soldier to be done
again,  Sir. That he  was a  suspicious,  crabbed, cranky,  used-up,  J.  B.
infidel, Sir; and that if it were consistent with the dignity of a rough and
tough  old  Major,  of the old school,  who  had  had  the  honour of  being
personally known to, and commended by, their late Royal Highnesses the Dukes
of Kent and York, to retire to a tub and  live in it, by Gad! Sir, he'd have
a tub in Pall Mall to-morrow, to show his contempt for mankind!'
     Of  all  this, and  many  variations  of the same tune, the Major would
deliver himself with so many apoplectic symptoms, such rollings of his head,
and  such  violent growls of  ill  usage  and resentment,  that  the younger
members  of the club surmised he  had invested money in his  friend Dombey's
House,  and lost it; though the older soldiers and deeper dogs, who knew Joe
better, wouldn't hear of such a thing. The unfortunate Native, expressing no
opinion, suffered dreadfully; not  merely in his moral feelings, which  were
regularly fusilladed by the Major every hour in the day, and riddled through
and through, but in his sensitiveness to bodily knocks and bumps, which  was
kept continually on the stretch. For  six entire weeks after the bankruptcy,
this miserable foreigner lived in a rainy season of boot-jacks and brushes.
     Mrs Chick had three ideas upon the subject of the terrible reverse. The
first was that she could not understand it. The second, that her brother had
not made an effort. The third, that if she had been invited to dinner on the
day of that first party, it never would have happened; and that she had said
so, at the time.
     Nobody's opinion stayed  the  misfortune,  lightened  it,  or  made  it
heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up
as they best could be; that Mr Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and
asked for no favour from anyone. That any resumption of the business was out
of the question, as he  would listen to no friendly negotiation having  that
compromise  in  view;  that  he  had  relinquished  every  post  of trust or
distinction he had  held,  as a  man respected among  merchants; that he was
dying, according to some; that  he  was going  melancholy  mad, according to
others; that he was a broken man, according to all.
     The clerks dispersed after holding a little dinner  of condolence among
themselves, which  was enlivened by comic singing,  and went off  admirably.
Some took  places abroad, and some engaged  in  other Houses at  home;  some
looked up relations in the country,  for whom they suddenly  remembered they
had  a  particular  affection;  and  some advertised for  employment in  the
newspapers.  Mr Perch alone remained of all the  late establishment, sitting
on his bracket looking at the accountants, or starting off it, to propitiate
the head  accountant, who  was to get him into the Fire Office. The Counting
House soon got to be dirty and neglected.  The principal  slipper  and dogs'
collar seller, at the corner  of the court, would have doubted the propriety
of throwing up his forefinger to the brim of his hat, any more, if Mr Dombey
had  appeared there  now;  and the ticket porter, with  his hands  under his
white  apron,  moralised  good sound  morality  about  ambition,  which  (he
observed) was not, in his opinion, made to rhyme to perdition, for nothing.
     Mr  Morfin,  the  hazel-eyed  bachelor,  with  the  hair  and  whiskers
sprinkled with  grey, was perhaps  the only person within the  atmosphere of
the  House - its head, of course, excepted  - who  was heartily  and  deeply
affected by the disaster that had befallen it. He had treated Mr Dombey with
due respect and deference through many years, but he had never disguised his
natural character, or meanly truckled to him, or pampered his master passion
for   the  advancement   of  his  own  purposes.   He  had,   therefore,  no
self-disrespect to avenge; no long-tightened springs to release with a quick
recoil. He  worked early and late  to  unravel whatever  was complicated  or
difficult  in the  records  of the transactions of the House;  was always in
attendance to  explain  whatever required explanation;  sat in his  old room
sometimes  very late at  night, studying points by  his  mastery of which he
could  spare Mr Dombey  the pain of being personally  referred to;  and then
would go home to Islington, and  calm his mind  by producing the most dismal
and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed.
     He was solacing himself with this  melodious grumbler one evening, and,
having  been much  dispirited by the proceedings  of  the day,  was scraping
consolation out of its deepest notes, when his landlady (who was fortunately
deaf, and had no other consciousness of these performances than a  sensation
of something rumbling in her bones) announced a lady.
     'In mourning,' she said.
     The  violoncello  stopped immediately; and the  performer, laying it on
the  sofa  with great tenderness and care, made a sign that the lady was  to
come in. He followed directly, and met Harriet Carker on the stair.
     'Alone!'  he said,  'and John  here this morning! Is there anything the
matter, my dear? But no,' he added, 'your face tells quite another story.'
     'I am afraid it is a selfish revelation that you see there, then,'  she
answered.
     'It is a  very pleasant one,' said he; 'and, if selfish, a novelty too,
worth seeing in you. But I don't believe that.'
     He had placed a chair for her by this time,  and sat down opposite; the
violoncello lying snugly on the sofa between them.
     'You will not be surprised at  my coming alone, or at John's not having
told you I was coming,' said Harriet;  'and  you will believe  that,  when I
tell you why I have come. May I do so now?'
     'You can do nothing better.'
     'You were not busy?'
     He pointed to the violoncello lying on the sofa, and said 'I have been,
all day. Here's my witness. I have been confiding all my cares to it. I wish
I had none but my own to tell.'
     'Is the House at an end?' said Harriet, earnestly.
     'Completely at an end.'
     'Will it never be resumed?'
     'Never.'
     The bright  expression of her face  was not  overshadowed  as  her lips
silently repeated  the  word.  He  seemed to observe this  with  some little
involuntary surprise: and said again:
     'Never.  You  remember  what  I  told  you.  It has  been,  all  along,
impossible to convince  him;  impossible  to  reason  with  him;  sometimes,
impossible even to approach him.  The worst has happened; and the  House has
fallen, never to be built up any more.'
     'And Mr Dombey, is he personally ruined?'
     'Ruined.'
     'Will he have no private fortune left? Nothing?'
     A certain eagerness in  her voice, and something that was almost joyful
in her look, seemed to surprise him  more and more;  to disappoint  him too,
and jar discordantly  against his own emotions. He drummed  with the fingers
of one hand  on  the table, looking wistfully at her, and shaking  his head,
said, after a pause:
     'The extent  of  Mr  Dombey's  resources  is  not accurately  within my
knowledge;  but though they  are doubtless very large,  his obligations  are
enormous. He  is a gentleman of  high honour and integrity. Any  man in  his
position could, and many a man in his position would, have saved himself, by
making  terms which would  have very  slightly, almost insensibly, increased
the losses of those who had had dealings with him, and left him a remnant to
live upon.  But he is resolved on payment to the last farthing of his means.
His own words  are, that they  will clear, or nearly clear,  the House,  and
that no  one can  lose much.  Ah, Miss  Harriet, it would  do  us no harm to
remember oftener than we do, that  vices are sometimes only virtues  carried
to excess! His pride shows well in this.'
     She  heard him with little or no  change in her  expression, and with a
divided attention that showed her to be busy with something in her own mind.
When he was silent, she asked him hurriedly:
     'Have you seen him lately?'
     'No one sees him. When this crisis of his affairs renders  it necessary
for him to  come out of his house, he comes out  for the occasion, and again
goes  home, and  shuts himself up, and will sea  no one. He has written me a
letter, acknowledging our past  connexion in  higher terms than it deserved,
and parting from me. I am delicate  of obtruding myself upon  him now, never
having had much intercourse with him in better times; but I have tried to do
so. I have written, gone there, entreated. Quite in vain.'
     He watched  her, as  in the hope  that  she  would testify some greater
concern than  she  had yet shown; and spoke  gravely and feelingly, as if to
impress her the more; but there was no change in her.
     'Well, well, Miss Harriet,' he  said, with a disappointed air, 'this is
not  to  the purpose.  You  have  not come here to hear this. Some other and
pleasanter theme is in your mind. Let it be in mine,  too, and we shall talk
upon more equal terms. Come!'
     'No,  it is the  same theme,' returned  Harriet, with frank  and  quick
surprise. 'Is it  not likely that it should  be? Is it not natural that John
and  I  should have been thinking and  speaking very much of late  of  these
great changes? Mr Dombey, whom he served so many years - you  know upon what
terms - reduced, as you describe; and we quite rich!'
     Good, true  face, as that face of hers was, and pleasant as it had been
to him, Mr Morfin, the hazel-eyed bachelor, since the first time he had ever
looked  upon it,  it pleased him less at that moment, lighted with a ray  of
exultation, than it had ever pleased him before.
     'I need not remind you,'  said Harriet, casting down  her eyes upon her
black dress,  'through what  means  our  circumstances changed. You have not
forgotten that our brother  James, upon that dreadful day,  left no will, no
relations but ourselves.'
     The face was pleasanter  to him now, though it was pale and melancholy,
than it had been a moment since. He seemed to breathe more cheerily.
     'You know,' she said, 'our history, the history of both my brothers, in
connexion with the unfortunate, unhappy gentleman, of whom  you have  spoken
so truly. You know how few our wants are - John's and mine - and what little
use we  have for  money, after the  life  we  have led together for so  many
years; and  now that  he  is earning an income that is ample for us, through
your kindness. You are not unprepared to hear what favour I have come to ask
of you?'
     'I hardly know. I was, a minute ago. Now, I think, I am not.'
     'Of my  dead brother I  say nothing. If  the dead know what we do - but
you understand  me.  Of my living brother I  could say much; but what need I
say more, than  that this act  of duty, in which  I have  come  to ask  your
indispensable assistance, is his own, and that  he  cannot  rest until it is
performed!'
     She raised  her eyes again;  and the  light of  exultation  in her face
began to appear beautiful, in the observant eyes that watched her.
     'Dear Sir,' she  went  on to say, 'it  must  be done very  quietly  and
secretly. Your experience and knowledge will point out a way of doing it. Mr
Dombey  may,  perhaps,  be  led  to believe  that  it  is  something  saved,
unexpectedly, from  the wreck  of his fortunes;  or that it  is  a voluntary
tribute to his honourable  and upright character,  from  some  of those with
whom he  has had great  dealings; or that  it is some old lost  debt repaid.
There must be many ways of  doing it.  I  know you will choose the best. The
favour I have  come to ask is, that you will do it for us in your  own kind,
generous, considerate manner. That you will never speak of it to John, whose
chief happiness in this  act of restitution  is  to do it secretly, unknown,
and  unapproved of:  that  only a  very small part of the inheritance may be
reserved to  us,  until  Mr Dombey shall have  possessed the interest of the
rest  for  the  remainder of  his  life;  that you  will  keep  our  secret,
faithfully  - but that I am sure you will; and that, from  this time, it may
seldom be whispered, even  between you and  me, but  may live in my thoughts
only  as a new reason for thankfulness to Heaven,  and  joy  and pride in my
brother.'
     Such a look of exultation there  may be on  Angels' faces  when the one
repentant  sinner enters Heaven,  among  ninety-nine  just men. It  was  not
dimmed or  tarnished by the joyful tears  that filled her eyes,  but was the
brighter for them.
     'My dear Harriet,' said Mr Morfin, after a silence, 'I was not prepared
for  this. Do I understand you that you  wish to make  your own part in  the
inheritance available for your good purpose, as well as John's?'
     'Oh, yes,' she returned 'When we have shared everything together for so
long a time, and have had no care, hope, or  purpose apart, could  I bear to
be excluded from my share in this? May I not urge a claim to be my brother's
partner and companion to the last?'
     'Heaven forbid that I should dispute it!' he replied.
     'We may rely on your friendly help?' she said. 'I knew we might!'
     'I should be  a worse man than, - than I hope I  am, or would willingly
believe myself,  if I  could  not give  you that assurance from my heart and
soul. You  may, implicitly. Upon my honour,  I will keep your secret. And if
it should be found that Mr Dombey is so reduced as I fear he will be, acting
on  a determination that there  seem to be no  means of influencing,  I will
assist  you to  accomplish the  design, on which  you  and John are  jointly
resolved.'
     She gave him her hand, and thanked him with a cordial, happy face.
     'Harriet,' he said, detaining it in his. 'To speak to  you of the worth
of any sacrifice that you can make now - above all, of any sacrifice of mere
money - would be idle and presumptuous.  To  put before  you  any appeal  to
reconsider your purpose or to set narrow limits to it, would be, I feel, not
less so. I have  no  right to mar the great end of a  great history,  by any
obtrusion of  my own weak self. I  have every right to bend my  head  before
what you confide to  me, satisfied that  it  comes from a higher and  better
source of inspiration than my poor worldly knowledge. I will say  only this:
I am  your  faithful  steward; and I  would  rather be so,  and  your chosen
friend, than I would be anybody in the world, except yourself.'
     She thanked him  again, cordially, and wished him good-night.  'Are you
going home?' he said. 'Let me go with you.'
     'Not to-night. I am  not going home now; I have  a visit to make alone.
Will you come to-morrow?'
     'Well,  well,'  said he,  'I'll come to-morrow. In  the meantime,  I'll
think  of this, and how  we can  best proceed. And perhaps I'll think of it,
dear Harriet, and - and - think of me a little in connexion with it.'
     He handed her down to a coach she  had  in waiting at the door;  and if
his landlady had  not been deaf,  she would have  heard him muttering as  he
went back upstairs, when the coach had driven off, that we were creatures of
habit, and it was a sorrowful habit to be an old bachelor.
     The violoncello lying  on the sofa between the two  chairs,  he took it
up, without putting away the vacant chair, and sat droning on it, and slowly
shaking his head at the vacant chair, for a long, long time. The  expression
he communicated to  the instrument at first, though monstrously pathetic and
bland, was nothing to the expression  he  communicated to his own  face, and
bestowed upon the empty chair: which  was so sincere, that he was obliged to
have recourse to Captain Cuttle's remedy more than once, and to rub his face
with  his sleeve. By degrees, however, the violoncello,  in unison with  his
own frame of  mind, glided melodiously into the Harmonious Blacksmith, which
he played  over and over again, until his ruddy and serene face gleamed like
true metal on  the anvil of a veritable blacksmith. In fine, the violoncello
and  the  empty  chair were the companions of his bachelorhood  until nearly
midnight; and when he took his supper, the violoncello set up  on end in the
sofa  corner,  big with  the  latent  harmony  of a whole  foundry  full  of
harmonious blacksmiths, seemed to  ogle the empty  chair  out of its crooked
eyes, with unutterable intelligence.
     When  Harriet left the house, the driver of  her hired  coach, taking a
course that  was evidently no new one  to him,  went