"Whatever their efficiency may be," she returned, "you know them all now. I have no more.'

"May I hope to prove them all?" said Mr. Dombey, with solemn gallantry, laying down a drawing he had held, and motioning towards the harp. Oh certainly! If you desire it!"

She rose as she spoke, and crossing by her mother's couch, and directing a stately look towards her, which was instantaneous in its duration, but inclusive (if any one had seen it) of a multitude of expressions, among which that of the twilight smile, without the smile itself, overshadowed all the rest, went out of the room.

The Major, who was quite forgiven by this time, had wheeled a little table up to Cleopatra, and was sitting down to play picquet with her. Mr. Dombey, not knowing the game, sat down to watch them for his edification until Edith should return.

"We are going to have some music, Mr. Dombey, I hope?" said Cleopatra.

"Mrs. Granger has been kind enough to promise so," said Mr. Dombey. "Ah! That's very nice. Do you propose, Major?"

No Ma'am," said the Major. "Couldn't do it."

"You're a barbarous being," replied the lady, "and my hand's destroyed. You are fond of music, Mr. Dombey?"

Eminently so," was Mr. Dombey's answer.

"Yes. It's very nice," said Cleopatra looking at her cards. “So much heart in it-undeveloped recollections of a previous state of existence-and all that which is so truly charming. Do you know," simpered Cleopatra, reversing the knave of clubs, who had come into her game with his heels uppermost, "that if anything could tempt me to put a period to my life, it would be curiosity to find out what it's all about, and what it means; there are so many provoking mysteries, really, that are hidden from us. Major, you to play !"

The Major played; and Mr. Dombey, looking on for his instruction, would soon have been in a state of dire confusion, but that he gave no attention to the game whatever, and sat wondering instead when Edith would come back.

She came at last, and sat down to her harp, and Mr. Dombey rose and stood beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no knowledge of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it, and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of his own, that tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less inexorable.

Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a bird's, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room from end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.

When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr. Dombey's thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before, went with scarcely any pause, to the piano, and began there.

Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very handsome, and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is deep and rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son!

Alas he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir him,

rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams, although the night has turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and threaten to discharge themselves in hail!

CHAPTER XXII.

A TRIFLE OF MANAGEMENT BY MR. CARKER THE MANAGER,

MR. CARKER the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual, reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for distribution through the several departments of the House. The post had come in heavy that morning, and Mr. Carker the Manager had a good deal to do.

The general action of a man so engaged-pausing to look over a bundle of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions, taking up another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows and pursedout lips-dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns-would easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards. The face of Mr. Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a fancy. It was the face of a man who studied his play, warily: who made himself master of all the strong and weak points of the game: who registered the cards in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly what was on them, what they missed, and what they made: who was crafty to find out what the other players held, and who never betrayed his own hand.

The letters were in various languages, but Mr. Carker the Manager read them all. If there had been anything in the offices of Dombey and Son that he could not read, there would have been a card wanting in the pack. He read almost at a glance, and made combinations of one letter with another and one business with another as he went on, adding new matter to the heaps much as a man would know the cards at sight, and work out their combinations in his mind after they were turned. Something too deep for a partner, and much too deep for an adversary, Mr. Carker the Manager sat in the rays of the sun that came down slanting on him through the skylight, playing his game alone.

And although it is not among the instincts wild or domestic of the cat tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr. Carker the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked dialplate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to any speck of dirt, which made him pause sometimes and watch the falling motes of dust, and rub them off his smooth white hand or glossy linen: Mr. Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty stedfastness and patience at his work, as if he were waiting at a mouse's hole.

At length the letters were disposed of, excepting one which he reserved

for a particular audience. Having locked the more confidential correspondence in a drawer, Mr. Carker the Manager rang his bell.

Why do you answer it ?" was his reception of his brother.

"The messenger is out, and I am the next," was the submissive reply. "You are the next!" muttered the Manager. "Yes! Creditable to

me! There!"

Pointing to the heaps of opened letters, he turned disdainfully away, in his elbow-chair, and broke the seal of that one which he held in his hand. "I am sorry to trouble you, James," said the brother, gathering them "but

up,

"Oh! You have something to say. I knew that. Well ?"

Mr. Carker the Manager did not raise his eyes or turn them on his brother, but kept them on his letter, though without opening it. "Well?" he repeated sharply.

"I am uneasy about Harriet."

"Harriet who? what Harriet? I know nobody of that name." "She is not well, and has changed very much of late.”

"She changed very much, a great many years ago," replied the Manager; "and that is all I have to say.'

"I think if you would hear me

"Why should I hear you, Brother John ?" returned the Manager, laying a sarcastic emphasis on those two words, and throwing up his head, but not lifting his eyes. "I tell you, Harriet Carker made her choice many years ago between her two brothers. She may repent it, but she must abide by it."

"Don't mistake me. I do not say she does repent it. It would be black ingratitude in me to hint at such a thing," returned the other. "Though believe me, James, I am as sorry for her sacrifice as you." "As I?" exclaimed the Manager.

"As I?"

"As sorry for her choice for what you call her choice—as you are angry at it," said the Junior.

Angry ?" repeated the other, with a wide show of his teeth.

Displeased. Whatever word you like best. You know my meaning. There is no offence in my intention."

"There is offence in everything you do," replied his brother, glancing at him with a sudden scowl, which in a moment gave place to a wider smile than the last. " Carry those papers away, if you please. I am busy." His politeness was so much more cutting than his wrath, that the Junior went to the door. But stopping at it, and looking round, he said: "When Harriet tried in vain to plead for me with you, on your first just indignation, and my first disgrace; and when she left you, James, to follow my broken fortunes, and devote herself, in her mistaken affection, to a ruined brother, because without her he had no one, and was lost; she was young and pretty. I think if you could see her now-if you would go and see her she would move your admiration and compassion."

The Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, as who should say, in answer to some careless small-talk, "Dear me! Is that the case ?" but said never a word.

"We thought in those days: you and I both: that she would marry young, and lead a happy and light-hearted life," pursued the other. "Oh

if you knew how cheerfully she cast those hopes away; how cheerfully she has gone forward on the path she took, and never once looked back; you never could say again that her name was strange in your ears. Never!" Again the Manager inclined his head, and showed his teeth, and seemed to say, "Remarkable indeed! You quite surprise me !" And again he uttered never a word.

"May I go on ?" said John Carker, mildly. "On your way?" replied his smiling brother. goodness."

"If you will have the

John Carker, with a sigh, was passing slowly out at the door, when his brother's voice detained him for a moment on the threshold.

"If she has gone, and goes, her own way cheerfully," he said, throwing the still unfolded letter on his desk, and putting his hands firmly in his pockets, "you may tell her that I go as cheerfully on mine. If she has never once looked back, you may tell her that I have, sometimes, to recal her taking part with you, and that my resolution is no easier to wear away;" he smiled very sweetly here; "than marble."

Once a

"I tell her nothing of you. We never speak about you. year, on your birthday, Harriet says always, 'Let us remember James by name, and wish him happy,' but we say no more."

"Tell it then, if you please," returned the other, "to yourself. You can't repeat it too often, as a lesson to you to avoid the subject in speaking to me. I know no Harriet Carker. There is no such person. may have a sister; make much of her. I have none."

You

Mr. Carker the Manager took up the letter again, and waved it with a smile of mock courtesy towards the door. Unfolding it as his brother withdrew, and looking darkly after him as he left the room, he once more turned round in his elbow-chair, and applied himself to a diligent perusal of its contents.

:

It was in the writing of his great chief, Mr. Dombey, and dated from Leamington. Though he was a quick reader of all other letters, Mr. Carker read this slowly weighing the words as he went, and bringing every tooth in his head to bear upon them. When he had read it through once, he turned it over again, and picked out these passages. 'I find myself benefited by the change, and am not yet inclined to name any time for my return.' 'I wish, Carker, you would arrange to come down once and see me here, and let me know how things are going on, in person.' 'I omitted to speak to you about young Gay. If not gone per Son and Heir, or if Son and Heir still lying in the Docks, appoint some other young man and keep him in the city for the present. I am not decided.' "Now that's unfortunate!" said Mr. Carker the Manager, expanding his mouth, as if it were made of India Rubber: "for he 's far away!"

Still that passage, which was in a postscript, attracted his attention and his teeth, once more.

"I think," he said, "my good friend Captain Cuttle mentioned something about being towed along in the wake of that day. What a pity he 's so far away!"

He refolded the letter, and was sitting trifling with it, standing it longwise and broad-wise on his table, and turning it over and over on all sides doing pretty much the same thing perhaps, by its contents-when Mr. Perch the messenger knocked softly at the door, and coming in on

tiptoe, bending his body at every step as if it were the delight of his life to bow, laid some papers on the table.

"Would you please to be engaged Sir?" asked Mr. Perch, rubbing his hands, and deferentially putting his head on one side, like a man who felt he had no business to hold it up in such a presence, and would keep it as much out of the way as possible.

"Who wants me?"

"Why Sir," said Mr. Perch, in a soft voice, "really nobody, Sir, to speak of at present. Mr. Gills the Ship's Instrument-maker Sir, has looked in, about a little matter of payment, he says; but I mentioned to him, Sir, that you was engaged several deep; several deep."

Mr. Perch coughed once behind his hand, and waited for further orders. "Anybody else?"

Well Sir," said Mr. Perch, "I wouldn't of my own self take the liberty of mentioning, Sir, that there was anybody else; but that same young lad that was here yesterday Sir, and last week, has been hanging about the place; and it looks Sir," added Mr. Perch, stopping to shut the door, "dreadful unbusiness-like to see him whistling to the sparrows down the court, and making of 'em answer him."

"You said he wanted something to do, didn't you Perch?" asked Mr. Carker, leaning back in his chair and looking at that officer.

"Why Sir," said Mr. Perch, coughing behind his hand again, "his expression certainly were that he was in wants of a sitiwation, and that he considered something might be done for him about the Docks, being used to fishing with a rod and line: but-" Mr. Perch shook his head very dubiously indeed.

"What does he say when he comes?" asked Mr. Carker.

"Indeed Sir," said Mr. Perch, coughing another cough behind his hand, which was always his resource as an expression of humility when nothing else occurred to him, "his observation generally air that he would humbly wish to see one of the gentlemen, and that he wants to earn a living. But you see, Sir," added Perch, dropping his voice to a whisper, and turning, in the inviolable nature of his confidence, to give the door a thrust with his hand and knee, as if that would shut it any more when it was shut already, "it's hardly to be bore Sir that a common lad like that should come a prowling here, and saying that his mother nursed our House's young gentleman, and that he hopes our House will give him a chance on that account. I am sure Sir," observed Mr. Perch, "that although Mrs. Perch was at that time nursing as thriving a little girl Sir as we've ever took the liberty of adding to our family, I wouldn't have made so free as drop a hint of her being capable of imparting nourishment, not if it was ever so!"

Mr. Carker grinned at him like a shark, but in an absent thoughtful

manner.

66

Whether," submitted Mr. Perch, after a short silence, and another cough, "it mightn't be best for me to tell him, that if he was seen here any more he would be given into custody; and to keep to it! With respect to bodily fear," said Mr. Perch, "I'm so timid, myself, by nature Sir, and my nerves is so unstrung by Mrs. Perch's state, that I could take my affidavit easy."

66

Let me see this fellow, Perch," said Mr. Carker. Bring him in!"