:

motioned his child's foster-father to the door, who departed by no means unwillingly and then turning the key, paced up and down the room in solitary wretchedness. For all his starched, impenetrable dignity and composure, he wiped blinding tears from his eyes as he did so; and often said, with an emotion of which he would not, for the world, have had a witness, "Poor little fellow!"

It may have been characteristic of Mr. Dombey's pride, that he pitied himself through the child. Not poor me. Not poor widower, confiding by constraint in the wife of an ignorant Hind who has been working mostly underground' all his life, and yet at whose door Death has never knocked, and at whose poor table four sons daily sit--but poor little fellow !

Those words being on his lips, it occurred to him-and it is an instance of the strong attraction with which his hopes and fears and all his thoughts were tending to one centre-that a great temptation was being placed in this woman's way. Her infant was a boy too. Now, would it be possible for her to change them?

Though he was soon satisfied that he had dismissed the idea as romantic and unlikely-though possible, there was no denying-he could not help pursuing it so far as to entertain within himself a picture of what his condition would be, if he should discover such an imposture when he was grown old. Whether a man so situated, would be able to pluck away the result of so many years of usage, confidence, and belief, from the impostor, and endow a stranger with it?

As his unusual emotion subsided, these misgivings gradually melted away, though so much of their shadow remained behind, that he was constant in his resolution to look closely after Richards himself, without appearing to do so. Being now in an easier frame of mind, he regarded the woman's station as rather an advantageous circumstance than otherwise, by placing, in itself, a broad distance between her and the child, and rendering their separation easy and natural.

Meanwhile terms were ratified and agreed upon between Mrs. Chick and Richards, with the assistance of Miss Tox; and Richards being with much ceremony invested with the Dombey baby, as if it were an Order, resigned her own, with many tears and kisses, to Jemima. Glasses of wine were then produced, to sustain the drooping spirits of the family.

"You'll take a glass yourself, Sir, won't you?" said Miss Tox, as Toodle appeared.

"Thankee, Mum," said Toodle, "since you are suppressing."

"And you 're very glad to leave your dear good wife in such a comfortable home, aint you, Sir?" said Miss Tox, nodding and winking at him stealthily.

"No, Mun," said Toodle. "Here's wishing of her back agin."

66

Polly cried more than ever at this. So Mrs. Chick, who had her matronly apprehensions that this indulgence in grief might be prejudicial to the little Dombey ("acid, indeed," she whispered Miss Tox), hastened to the rescue. Your little child will thrive charmingly with your sister Jemima, Richards," said Mrs. Chick; "and you have only to make an effort this is a world of effort, you know, Richards-to be very happy indeed. have been already measured for your mourning, haven't

you, Richards?

You

"Ye—yes, ma'am," sobbed Polly.

"And it 'll fit beautifully, I know," said Mrs. Chick, "for the same young person has made me many dresses. The very best materials, too!" "Lor, you'll be so smart," said Miss Tox, "that your husband won't know you; will you, Sir?"

"I should know her," said Toodle, gruffly, "anyhows and anywheres." Toodle was evidently not to be bought over.

"As to living, Richards, you know," pursued Mrs. Chick, "why, the very best of everything will be at your disposal. You will order your little dinner every day; and anything you take a fancy to, I'm sure will be as readily provided as if you were a Lady."

"Yes, to be sure!" said Miss Tox, keeping up the ball with great sympathy. "And as to porter!-quite unlimited, will it not, Louisa?" "Oh, certainly!" returned Mrs. Chick in the same tone. "With a little abstinence, you know, my dear, in point of vegetables."

"And pickles, perhaps," suggested Miss Tox.

"With such exceptions," said Louisa, "she 'll consult her choice entirely, and be under no restraint at all, my love."

"And then, of course, you know," said Miss Tox, "however fond she is of her own dear little child-and I'm sure, Louisa, you don't blame her for being fond of it?"

"Oh no!" cried Mrs. Chick benignantly.

"Still," resumed Miss Tox, "she naturally must be interested in her young charge, and must consider it a privilege to see a little cherub closely connected with the superior classes, gradually unfolding itself from day to day at one common fountain. Is it not so, Louisa?"

"Most undoubtedly!" said Mrs. Chick. "You see, my love, she's already quite contented and comfortable, and means to say good-bye to her sister Jemima and her little pets, and her good honest husband, with a light heart and a smile, don't she, my dear?

"Oh yes!" cried Miss Tox. "To be sure she does!"

Notwithstanding which, however, poor Polly embraced them all round in great distress, and finally ran away to avoid any more particular leavetaking between herself and the children. But the stratagem hardly succeeded as well as it deserved; for the smallest boy but one divining her intent, immediately began swarming up stairs after her-if that word of doubtful etymology be admissible-on his arms and legs; while the eldest (known in the family by the name of Biler, in remembrance of the steam engine) beat a demoniacal tattoo with his boots, expressive of grief; in which he was joined by the rest of the family.

A quantity of oranges and halfpence, thrust indiscriminately on each young Toodle, checked the first violence of their regret, and the family were speedily transported to their own home, by means of the hackneycoach kept in waiting for that purpose. The children under the guardianship of Jemima, blocked up the window, and dropped out oranges and halfpence all the way along. Mr. Toodle himself preferred to ride behind among the spikes, as being the mode of conveyance to which he was best accustomed.

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH MR. DOMBEY, AS A MAN AND A FATHER, IS SEEN AT THE HEAD OF THE HOME-DEPARTMENT.

THE funeral of the deceased lady having been "performed," to the entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point, and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the ceremonies, the various members of Mr. Dombey's household subsided into their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and the house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their mourning was wearing rusty too. On Richards, who was established up-stairs in a state of honourable captivity, the dawn of her new life seemed to break cold and grey. Mr. Dombey's house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark, dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland-place and Bryanstonesquare. It was a corner house, with great wide areas containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by crooked-eyed doors leading to dustbinns. It was a house of dismal state, with a circular back to it, containing a whole suit of drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees, with blackened trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their leaves were so smoke-dried. The summer sun was never on the street, but in the morning about breakfast time, when it came with the water-carts and the old clothes-men, and the people with geraniums, and the umbrella mender, and the man who trilled the little bell of the Dutch clock as he went along. It was soon gone again to return no more that day; and the bands of music and the straggling Punch's shows going after it, left it a prey to the most dismal of organs, and white mice; with now and then a porcupine, to vary the entertainments; until the butlers whose families were dining out, began to stand at the house doors in the twilight, and the lamp-lighter made his nightly failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas.

It was as blank a house inside as outside. When the funeral was over, Mr. Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up-perhaps to preserve it for the son with whom his plans were all associated and the rooms to be ungarnished, saving such as he retained for himself on the ground floor. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables and chairs, heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over with great windingsheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and looking-glasses, being papered up in journals, daily and weekly, obtruded fragmentary accounts of deaths and dreadful murders. Every chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear depending from the ceiling's eye. Odours,

as from vaults and damp places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose, brought eddying round the corner from the neighbouring mews, some fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she was ill, mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the neighbourhood: and these, being always drawn by some invisible attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let immediately opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr. Dombey's windows.

The apartments which Mr. Dombey reserved for his own inhabiting, were attainable from the hall, and consisted of a sitting-room; a library, which was in fact a dressing-room, so that the smell of hot-pressed paper, vellum, morocco, and Russia leather, contended in it with the smell of divers pairs of boots; and a kind of conservatory or little glass breakfastroom beyond, commanding a prospect of the trees before mentioned, and, generally speaking, of a few prowling cats. These three rooms opened upon one another. In the morning, when Mr. Dombey was at his breakfast in one or other of the two first mentioned of them, as well as in the afternoon when he came home to dinner, a bell was rung for Richards to repair to this glass chamber, and there walk to and fro with her young charge. From the glimpses she caught of Mr. Dombey at these times, sitting in the dark distance, looking out towards the infant from among the dark heavy furniture—the house had been inhabited for years by his father, and in many of its appointments was old-fashioned and grim-she began to entertain ideas of him in his solitary state, as if he were a lone prisoner in a cell, or a strange apparition that was not to be accosted or understood. Little Paul Dombey's foster-mother had led this life herself, and had carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned up stairs one day from a melancholy saunter through the dreary rooms of state (she never went out without Mrs. Chick, who called on fine mornings, usually accompanied by Miss Tox, to take her and Baby for an airing or in other words, to march them gravely up and down the pavement, like a walking funeral); when, as she was sitting in her own room, the door was slowly and quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little girl looked in.

"It's Miss Florence come home from her aunt's, no doubt," thought Richards, who had never seen the child before. "Hope I see you well Miss."

"Is that my brother?" asked the child, pointing to the Baby. "Yes my pretty," answered Richards. "Come and kiss him.' But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the face, and said:

"What have you done with my Mama?"

"Lord bless the little creeter!" cried Richards, "what a sad question! I done? Nothing Miss."

"What have they done with my Mama?" inquired the child.

"I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!" said Richards, who naturally substituted for this child one of her own, inquiring for herself in like circumstances. "Come nearer here my dear Miss! Don't be afraid

of me."

"I am not afraid of you," said the child, drawing nearer. "But I want to know what they have done with my Mama."

"My darling," said Richards, "you wear that pretty black frock in remembrance of your Mama."

"I can remember my Mama," returned the child, with tears springing to her eyes, "in any frock."

"But people put on black, to remember people when they're gone." "Where gone?" asked the child.

"Come and sit down by me," said Richards, "and I'll tell you a

story.

With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she had asked, little Florence laid aside the bonnet she had held in her hand until now, and sat down on a stool at the Nurse's feet, looking up into her face. "Once upon a time," said Richards, "there was a lady-a very good lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her."

"A very good lady and her little daughter dearly loved her," repeated the child.

"Who, when God thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill and died."

The child shuddered.

"Died, never to be seen again by any one on earth, and was buried in the ground where the trees grow."

"The cold ground," said the child shuddering again.

"No! The warm ground," returned Polly, seizing her advantage, "where the ugly little seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and corn, and I don't know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright angels, and fly away to Heaven!"

The child, who had drooped her head, raised it again, and sat looking at her intently.

"So; let me see,' ," said Polly, not a little flurried between this earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success, and her very slight confidence in her own powers. "So, when this lady died, wherever they took her, or wherever they put her, she went to GOD! and she prayed to Him, this lady did," said Polly, affecting herself beyond measure; being heartily in earnest, "to teach her little daughter to be sure of that in her heart and to know that she was happy there and loved her still and to hope and try-Oh all her life-to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any more."

"It was my Mama!" exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping her round the neck.

"And the child's heart," said Polly, drawing her to her breast: "the little daughter's heart, was so full of the truth of this, that even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it right, but was a poor mother herself, and that was all, she found a comfort in it-didn't feel so lonely-sobbed and cried upon her bosom-took kindly to the baby lying in her lap-and-there, there, there!" said Polly, smoothing the child's curls and dropping tears upon them. "There, poor dear!"

"Oh well Miss Floy ! And won't your Pa be angry neither!” cried a quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown, womanly girl of fourteen, with a little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads.

"When

it was 'tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit the wet

nurse."