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him? They want to lay your little boy-the baby, Fanny, you know; you have hardly seen him yet, I think-in bed; but they can't till you rouse yourself a little. Don't you think it's time you roused yourself a little? Eh ?"

She bent her ear to the bed, and listened at the same time looking round at the bystanders, and holding up her finger.

"Eh?" she repeated, "what was it you said, Fanny? I didn't hear you."

No word or sound in answer. Mr. Dombey's watch and Dr. Farker Peps's watch seemed to be racing faster.

"Now, really Fanny my dear," said the sister-in-law, altering her position, and speaking less confidently, and more earnestly, in spite of herself, "I shall have to be quite cross with you, if you don't rouse yourself. It's necessary for you to make an effort, and perhaps a very great and painful effort which you are not disposed to make; but this is a world of effort you know, Fanny, and we must never yield, when so much depends upon us. Come! Try! I must really scold you if you don't !"

The race in the ensuing pause was fierce and furious. The watches seemed to jostle, and to trip each other up.

"Fanny!" said Louisa, glancing round, with a gathering a.arm. "Only look at me. Only open your eyes to show me that you hear and understand me; will you? Good Heaven, gentlemen, what is to be done!"

The two medical attendants exchanged a look across the bed; and the physician, stooping down, whispered in the child's ear. Not having understood the purport of his whisper, the little creature turned her perfectly colourless face, and deep dark eyes towards him; but without loosening her hold in the least.

The whisper was repeated.

"Mama!" said the child.

The little voice, familiar and dearly loved, awakened some show of consciousness, even at that ebb. closed eye-lids trembled, and the nostril faintest shadow of a smile was seen.

"Mama!" cried the child sobbing aloud.

oh dear mama!"

For a moment, the quivered, and the

"Oh dear mama!

The doctor gently brushed the scattered ringlets of the child, aside from the face and mouth of the mother. Alas how calm they lay there; how little breath there was to stir them!

Thus, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the

mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the world.

CHAPTER II.

In which Timely Provision is made for an Emergency that will sometimes arise in the best-regulated Families.

SHALL never cease to congratulate myself," said Mrs. Chick, "on having said, when I little thought what was in store for us,-really as if I was inspired by something, that I forgave poor dear Fanny everything. Whatever happens, that must always be a comfort to me!"

Mrs. Chick made this impressive observation in the drawingroom, after having descended thither from the inspection of the mantua-makers up-stairs, who were busy on the family mourn ing. She delivered it for the behoof of Mr. Chick, who was a stout bald gentleman, with a very large face, and his hands continually in his pockets, and who had a tendency in his nature to whistle and hum tunes, which, sensible of the indecorum of such sounds in a house of grief, he was at some pains to repress at present.

"Don't you over-exert yourself, Loo," said Mr. Chick, “or you'll be laid up with spasms, I see. Right tol loor rul! Bless my soul, I forgot! We're here one day and gone the next!" Mrs. Chick contented herself with a glance of reproof, and then proceeded with the thread of her discourse.

"I am sure," she said, "I hope this heart-rending occurrence will be a warning to all of us, to accustom ourselves to rouse ourselves and to make efforts in time where they're required of There's a moral in everything, if we would only avail ourselves of it. It will be our own faults if we lose sight of this one."

us.

Mr. Chick invaded the grave silence which ensued on this remark with the singularly inappropriate air of 'A cobbler there was;' and checking himself, in some confusion, observed that it was undoubtedly our own faults if we didn't improve such melancholy occasions as the present.

"Which might be better improved, I should think, Mr. C.," retorted his helpmate, after a short pause, "than by the intro

duction, either of the college hornpipe, or the equally unmean ing and unfeeling remark of rump-te-iddity, bow-wow-wow!"— which Mr. Chick had indeed indulged in, under his breath, and which Mrs. Chick repeated in a tone of withering scorn.

"Merely habit, my dear," pleaded Mr. Chick. "Nonsense! Habit!" returned his wife. "If you're a ra tional being, don't make such ridiculous excuses. Habit! If I was to get a habit (as you call it) of walking on the ceiling, like the flies, I should hear enough of it, I dare say."

It appeared so probable that such a habit might be attended with some degree of notoriety, that Mr. Chick didn't venture to dispute the position.

"How's the baby, Loo?" asked Mr. Chick: to change the subiect.

"What baby do you mean ?" answered Mrs. Chick. "I am sure the morning I have had, with that dining-room down-stairs one mass of babies, no one in their senses would believe."

"One mass of babies!" repeated Mr. Chick, staring with an alarmed expression about him.

"It would have occurred to most men," said Mrs. Chick, "that poor dear Fanny being no more, it becomes necessary to provide a nurse."

"Oh! Ah!" said Mr. Chick. "Toor-rul-such is life, I mean. I hope you are suited, my dear."

"Indeed I ain not," said Mrs. Chick; "nor likely to be, so far as I can see. Meanwhile, of course, the child is—”.

"Going to the very deuce," said Mr. Chick, thoughtfully, "to be sure."

Admonished, however, that he had committed himself, by the indignation expressed in Mrs. Chick's countenance at the idea of a Dombey going there; and thinking to atone for his misonduct by a bright suggestion, he added:

"Couldn't something temporary be done with a teapot?" If he had meant to bring the subject prematurely to a close, no could not have done it more effectually. After looking at him for some moments in silent resignation, Mrs. Chick walked majestically to the window and peeped through the blind, attracted by the sound of wheels. Mr. Chick, finding that his destiny was, for the time against him, said no more, and walked of But it was not always thus with Mr. Chick. He was often in the ascendant himself, and at those times punished Louisa oundly. In their matrimonial bickerings they were, upon the whole, a well-matched, fairly-balanced, give-and take couple. It would have been, generally speaking, very difficult to have

betted on the winner. Often when Mr. Chick seemed beaten, he would suddenly make a start, turn the tables, clatter them about the ears of Mrs. Chick, and carry all before him. Being liable himself to similar unlooked-for checks from Mrs. Chick, their little contests usually possessed a character of uncertainty that was very animating.

Miss Tox had arrived on the wheels just now alluded to, and came running into the room in a breathless condition.

"My dear Louisa," said Miss Tox, "is the vacancy still un. supplied?"

"You good soul, yes," said Mrs. Chick.

"Then, my dear Louisa," returned Miss Tox, "I hope and believe-but in one moment, my dear, I'll introduce the party." Running down-stairs again as fast as she had run up, Miss Tox got the party out of the hackney-coach, and soon returned with it under convoy.

It then appeared that she had used the word not in its legal or business acceptation, when it merely expresses an individual, but as a noun of multitude, or signifying many: for Miss Tox escorted a plump rosy-cheeked wholesome apple-faced young woman, with an infant in her arms; a younger woman not so plump, but apple-faced also, who led a plump and apple-faced child in each hand; another plump and also apple-faced boy who walked by himself; and finally, a plump and apple-faced man, who carried in his arms another plump and apple-faced boy, whom he stood down on the floor, and admonished in a husky whisper to "kitch hold of his brother Johnny."

"My dear Louisa," said Miss Tox, "knowing your great anxiety, and wishing to relieve it, I posted off myself to the Queen Charlotte's Royal Married Females, which you had forgot, and put the question, Was there anybody there that they thought would suit? No, they said, there was not. When they gave me that answer, I do assure you, my dear, I was almost driven to despair on your account. But it did so happen, that one of the Royal Married Females, hearing the inquiry, reminded the matron of another who had gone to her own home, and who, she said, would in all likelihood be most satisfactory. The moment I heard this, and had it corroborated by the matron -excellent references and unimpeachable character-I got the address, my dear, and posted off again."

"Like the dear good Tox, you are!" said Louisa.

"Not at all," returned Miss Tox. "Don't say so. Arriving at the house (the cleanest place, my dear! You might eat your dinner off the floor), I found the whole family sitting at

table; and feeling that no account of them could be half so comfortable to you and Mr. Dombey as the sight of them all together, I brought them all away. This gentleman," said Miss Tox, pointing out the apple-faced man, "is the father. Will you have the goodness to come a little forward, sir?"

The apple-faced man having sheepishly complied with this request, stood chuckling and grinning in a front row.

"This is his wife, of course," said Miss Tox, singling out the young woman with the baby. "How do you do, Polly?"

"I'm pretty well, I thank you, ma'am," said Polly?

By way of bringing her out dexterously, Miss Tox had made the inquiry as in condescension to an old acquaintance, whom she hadn't seen for a fortnight or so.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Miss Tox. "The other young woman is her unmarried sister who lives with them, and would take care of her children. Her name's Jemima. How do you do, Jemima ?"

"I'm pretty well, I thank you, ma'am," returned Jemima. "I'm very glad indeed to hear it," said Miss Tox. "I hope you'll keep so. Five children. Youngest six weeks. The fine little boy with the blister on his nose is the eldest. The blister, I believe," said Miss Tox, looking round upon the family, "is not constitutional, but accidental ?"

The apple-faced man was understood to growl, "Flat iron." "I beg your pardon, sir," said Miss Tox, "did you ?—” "Flat iron," he repeated.

"Oh yes," said Miss Tox. "Yes! quite true. I forgot. The little creature, in his mother's absence, smelt a warm flat iron. You're quite right, sir. You were going to have the goodness to inform me, when we arrived at the door, that you were by trade, a-"

"Stoker," said the man.

"A choker!" said Miss Tox, quite aghast.

"Stoker," said the man.

"Steam engine."

"Oh-h! Yes!" returned Miss Tox, looking thoughtfully at him, and seeming still to have but a very imperfect understanding of his meaning.

"Your trade."

"And how do you like it, sir?" "Which, mum ?" said the man. "That," replied Miss Tox. "Oh! Pretty well, mum. The ashes sometimes gets in here;" touching his chest: "and makes a man speak gruff, as at the present time. But it is ashes, mum, not crustiness." Miss Tox seemed to be so little enlightened by this reply, as

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