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No-n-o-o, my darling dear Miss Floy, I can't inBut it can't be helped; I've deed," sobbed Susan. done my duty, miss, I have indeed. It's no fault of mine. I am quite resi-igned. I couldn't stay my month or I could never leave you then, my darling, and I must at last as well as at first; don't speak to me, Miss Floy, for though I'm pretty firm I'm not a marble doorpost, my own dear."

"What is it! Why is it?" said Florence. "Won't you tell me?" For Susan was shaking her head. "Don't ask "No-n-no, my darling," returned Susan. me, for I musn't, and whatever you do, don't put in a word for me to stop, for it couldn't be and you'd only wrong yourself; and as God bless you, my own precious, and forgive me any harm I have done, or any temper have showed in all these many years!

With which entreaty, very heartily delivered, Susan hugged her mistress in her arms.

"My darling, there's a many that may come to serve you and be glad to serve you and who'll serve you well and true," said Susan, "but there can't be one who'll serve you so affectionate as me or love you half as dearly, that's my comfort. Go-ood by, sweet Miss Floy!"

Where will you go, Susan?" asked her weeping mistress.

"I've got a brother down in the country miss-a farmer in Essex," said the heart-broken Nipper, "that keeps ever so many co-o-ows and pigs and I shall go down there by the coach and sto-op with him, and don't mind me, for I've got money in the Savings' Banks, my dear, and needn't take another service just yet, which I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't do, my heart's own mistress!" Susan finished with a burst of sorrow, which was opportunely broken by the voice of Mrs. Pipchin talking downstairs; on hearing which, she dried her red and swollen eyes, and made a melancholy feint of calling jauntily to Mr. Towlinson to fetch a cab and carry down her boxes.

Florence, pale and hurried and distressed, but withheld from useless interference even here, by her dread of causing any new division between her father and his wife (whose stern, indignant face had been warning to her a few moments since), and by her apprehension of being in some way unconsciously connected already

with the dismissal of her old servant and friend, followed, weeping, down-stairs to Edith's dressing-room, whither Susan betook herself to make her parting curtsey.

"Now, here's the cab, and here's the boxes, get along with you, do!" said Mrs. Pipchin, presenting herself at the same moment. "I beg your pardon, ma'am, but Mr. Dombey's orders are imperative.'

Edith, sitting under the hands of her maid-she was going out to dinner-preserved her haughty face, and took not the least notice.

"There's your money," said Mrs. Pipchin, who, in pursuance of her system, and in recollection of the Mines, was accustomed to rout the servants about, as she had routed her young Brighton boarders; to the eyerlasting acidulation of Master Bitherstone, "and the sooner this house sees your back the better."

Susan had no spirits even for the look that belonged to Mrs. Pipchin by right; so she dropped her curtsey to Mrs. Dombey (who inclined her head without one word and whose eye avoided every one but Florence), and gave one last parting hug to her young mistress, and received her parting embrace in return. Poor Susan's face at this crisis, in the intensity of her feelings and the determined suffocation of her sobs, lest one should become audible and be a triumph to Mrs. Pipchin, presented a series of the most extraordinary physiognomical phenomena ever witnessed.

"I beg your pardon, miss, I'm sure," said Towlinson, outside the door with the boxes, addressing Florence, "but Mr. Toots is in the dining-room, and sends his compliments, and begs to know how Diogenes and master is."

Quick as thought, Florence glided out, and hastened down-stairs, where Mr. Toots, in the most splendid vestments, was breathing very hard with doubt and agitation on the subject of her coming.

"Oh, how de do, Miss Dombey," said Mr. Toots, "God bless my soul!"

This last ejaculation was occasioned by Mr. Toots's deep concern at the distress he saw in Florence's face: which caused him to stop short in a fit of chuckles, and become an image of despair.

"Dear Mr. Toots," said Florence, "you are so friendly

to me, and so honest, that I am sure I may ask a favor of you."

"Miss Dombey," returned Mr. Toots, "if you'll only name one, you'll-you'll give me an appetite. To which," said Mr. Toots, with some sentiment, "I have long been a stranger.

"Susan, who is an old friend of mine, the oldest friend I have," said Florence, "is about to leave here suddenly, and quite alone, poor girl. She is going home, a little way into the country. Might I ask you to take care of her until she is in the coach?"

"Miss Dombey," returned Mr. Toots, "you really do me an honor and a kindness. This proof of your confidence, after the manner in which I was Beast enough to conduct myself at Brighton-"

"Yes," said Florence, hurriedly-"no-don't think of that. Then would you have the kindness to-to go? and to be ready to meet her when she comes out? Thank you a thousand times! You ease my mind so much. She doesn't seem so desolate. You cannot think how grateful I feel to you, or what a good friend I am sure you are!" And Florence, in her earnestness, thanked him again and again; and Mr. Toots, in his earnestness, hurried away-but backwards, that he might lose no glimpse of her.

Florence had not the courage to go out, when she saw poor Susan in the hall, with Mrs. Pipchin driving her forth, and Diogenes jumping about her, and terrifying Mrs. Pipchin to the last degree by making snaps at her bombazeen skirts, and howling with anguish at the sound of her voice-for the good duenna was the dearest and most cherished aversion of his breast. But she saw Susan shake hands with the servants all round, and turn once to look at her old home; and she saw Diogenes bound out after the cab and want to follow it, and testify an impossibility of conviction that he had no longer any property in the fare; and the door was shut, and the hurry over, and her tears flowed fast for the loss of an old friend, whom no one could replace. No one. No one.

Mr. Toots, like the leal and trusty soul he was, stopped the cabriolet in a twinkling, and told Susan Nipper of his commission, at which she cried more than before.

"Upon my soul and body!" said Mr. Toots, taking his

seat beside her, "I feel for you. Upon my word and honor I think you can hardly know your own feelings better than I imagine them. I can conceive nothing more dreadful than to have to leave Miss Dombey."

Susan abandoned herself to her grief now, and it really was touching to see her.

"I say," said Mr. Toots, now, don't! at least I mean now do, you know!"

"Do what, Mr. Toots?" cried Susan.

"Why, come home to my place, and have some dinner before you start," said Mr. Toots. "My cook's a most respectable woman-one of the most motherly people I ever saw-and she'll be delighted to make you comfortable. Her son," said Mr. Toots, as an additional recommendation, " was educated in the Blue-coat School, and blown up in a powder-mill."

Susan accepting this kind offer, Mr. Toots conducted her to his dwelling, where they were received by the matron in question who fully justified his character of her, and by the Chicken who at first supposed, on seeing a lady in the vehicle, that Mr. Dombey had been doubled up, agreeably to his old recommendation, and Miss Dombey abducted. This gentleman awakened in Miss Nipper some considerable astonishment; for, having been defeated by the Larkey boy, his visage was in a state of such great dilapidation, as to be hardly presentable in society, with comfort to the beholders. The Chicken himself attributed this punishment to his haying had the misfortune to get into Chancery early in the proceedings, when he was severely fibbed by the Larkey one, and heavily grassed. But it appeared from the published records of that great contest that the Larkey boy had had it all his own way from the beginning, and that the Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.

After a good repast, and much hospitality, Susan set out for the coach-office in another cabriolet, with Mr. Toots inside, as before, and the Chicken on the box, who, whatever distinction he conferred on the little party by the moral weight and heroism of his character, was scarcely ornamental to it, physically speaking, on