ment for breaking the West Indian intelligence to his old friend, as a piece of extraordinary preferment; declaring that for his part he would freely give a hundred thousand pounds (if he had it) for Walter's gain in the long run, and that he had no doubt such an investment would yield a handsome premium.

Solomon Gills was at first stunned by the commu.. nication, which fell upon the little back-parlor like a thunder-bolt, and tore up the hearth savagely. But the Captain flashed such golden prospects before his dim sight: hinted so mysteriously at Whitting tonian consequences: laid such emphasis on what Walter had just now told them: and appealed to it so confidently as a corroboration of his predictions, and a great advance toward the realization of the romantic legend of Lovely Peg: that he bewildered the old man. Walter, for his part, feigned to be so full of hope and ardor, and so sure of coming home again soon, and backed up the Captain with such expressive shakings of his head and rubbings of his hands, that Solomon, looking first at him and then at Captain Cuttle, began to think he ought to be transported with joy.

"But I'm behind the time, you understand," he observed in apology, passing his hand nervously down the whole row of bright buttons on his coat, and then up again, as if they were beads and he were telling them twice over; "and I would rather have my dear boy here. It's an old-fashioned notion, I dare say. He was always fond of the sea. He's " and he looked wistfully at Walter- "he's glad to go."

"Uncle Sol!" cried Walter, quickly, "if you say that, I won't go. No, Captain Cuttle, I won't. If my uncle thinks I could be glad to leave him, though I was going to be made Governor of all the Islands in the West Indies, that's enough. I'm a fixture."

"Wal'r, my lad," said the Captain. "Steady! Sol Gills, take an observation of your nevy." Following with his eyes the majestic action of the Captain's hook, the old man looked at Walter.

"Here is a certain craft," said the Captain, with a magnificent sense of the allegory into which he was soaring, "agoing to put out on a certain voyage. What name is wrote upon that craft indelibly? Is it The Gay? or," said the Captain, raising his voice as much as to say, observe the point of this, "is it The Gills?"

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Ned," said the old man, drawing Walter to his side, and taking his arm tenderly through his, "I know. I know. Of course I know that Wally considers me more than himself always. That's in my mind. When I say he is glad to go, I mean I hope he is. Eh? look you, Ned, and you too, Wally, my dear, this is new and unexpected to me; and I'm afraid my being behind the time, and poor, is at the bottom of it. Is it really good fortune for him, do you tell me, now ?" said the old man, looking anxiously from one to the other. "Really and truly? Is it? I can reconcile myself to almost any thing that advances Wally, but I won't have Wally put ting himself at any disadvantage for me, or keeping any thing from me. You, Ned Cuttle!" said the old man, fastening on the Captain, to the manifest con

fusion of that diplomatist; "are you dealing plainly by your old friend? Speak out, Ned Cuttle. Is there any thing behind? Ought he to go? How do you know it first, and why?"

As it was a contest of affection and self-denial, Walter struck in with infinite effect, to the Captain's relief; and between them they tolerably reconciled old Sol Gills, by continued talking, to the project; or rather so confused him, that nothing, not even the pain of separation, was distinctly clear to his mind.

He had not much time to balance the matter; for on the very next day, Walter received from Mr. Carker, the Manager, the necessary credentials for his passage and outfit, together with the information that the Son and Heir would sail in a fortnight, or within a day or two afterward at latest. In the hurry of preparation: which Walter purposely enhanced as much as possible: the old man lost what little selfpossession he ever had; and so the time of departure drew on rapidly.

The Captain, who did not fail to make himself acquainted with all that passed, through inquiries of Walter from day to day, found the time still tending on toward his going away, without any occasion offering itself, or seeming likely to offer itself, for a better understanding of his position. It was after much consideration of this fact, and much pondering over such an unfortunate combination of circumstances, that a bright idea occurred to the Captain. Suppose he made a call on Mr. Carker, and tried to find out from him how the land really lay!

Captain Cuttle liked this idea very much. It came upon him in a moment of inspiration, as he was smoking an early pipe in Brig Place after breakfast; and it was worthy of the tobacco. It would quiet his conscience, which was an honest one, and was made a little uneasy by what Walter had confided to him, and what Sol Gills had said; and it would be a deep, shrewd act of friendship. He would sound Mr. Carker carefully, and say much or little, just as he read that gentleman's character, and discovered that they got on well together or the reverse.

Accordingly, without the fear of Walter before his eyes (who he knew was at home packing), Captain Cuttle again assumed his ankle-jacks and mourning brooch, and issued forth on this second expedition. He purchased no propitiatory nosegay on the present occasion, as he was going to a place of business; but he put a small sunflower in his button-hole to give himself an agreeable relish of the country; and with this, and the knobby stick, and the glazed hat, bore down upon the offices of Dombey and Son.

After taking a glass of warm rum-and-water at a tavern close by, to collect his thoughts, the Captain made a rush down the court, lest its good effects should evaporate, and appeared suddenly to Mr. Perch.

"Matey," said the Captain, in persuasive accents. "One of your Governors is named Carker."

Mr. Perch admitted it; but gave him to understand, as in official duty bound, that all his Governors were engaged, and never expected to be disengaged any more.

"Look'ee here, mate," said the Captain in his ear; "my name's Cap'en Cuttle."

The Captain would have hooked Perch gently to

him, but Mr. Perch eluded the attempt; not so much in design, as in starting at the sudden thought that such a weapon unexpectedly exhibited to Mrs. Perch might, in her then condition, be destructive to that lady's hopes.

"If you'll be so good as just report Cap'en Cuttle here, when you get a chance," said the Captain, "I'll wait."

Saying which, the Captain took his seat on Mr. Perch's bracket, and drawing out his handkerchief from the crown of the glazed hat, which he jammed between his knees (without injury to its shape, for nothing human could bend it), rubbed his head well all over, and appeared refreshed. He subsequently arranged his hair with his hook, and sat looking round the office, contemplating the clerks with a serene respect.

The Captain's equanimity was so impenetrable, and he was altogether so mysterious a being, that Perch the messenger was daunted.

"What name was it you said?" asked Mr. Perch, bending down over him as he sat on the bracket. "Cap'en," in a deep, hoarse whisper.

"Yes," said Mr. Perch, keeping time with his head. "Cuttle."

"Oh!" said Mr. Perch, in the same tone, for he caught it, and couldn't help it; the Captain, in his diplomacy, was so impressive. "I'll see if he's disengaged now. I don't know. Perhaps he may be for a minute."

"Ay, ay, my lad, I won't detain him longer than a minute," said the Captain, nodding with all the weighty importance that he felt within him. Perch, soon returning, said, "Will Captain Cuttle walk this way?"

Mr. Carker the manager, standing on the hearthrug before the empty fire-place, which was ornamented with a castellated sheet of brown paper, looked at the Captain as he came in, with no very special encouragement.

"Mr. Carker?" said Captain Cuttle.

"I believe so," said Mr. Carker, showing all his teeth.

The Captain liked his answering with a smile; it looked pleasant. "You see," began the Captain, rolling his eyes slowly round the little room, and taking in as much of it as his shirt-collar permitted; "I'm a sea-faring man myself, Mr. Carker, and Wal'r, as is on your books here, is a'most a son of mine."

"Walter Gay?" said Mr. Carker, showing all his teeth again.

"Wal'r Gay it is," replied the Captain; "right!" The Captain's manner expressed a warm approval of Mr. Carker's quickness of perception. "I'm a intimate friend of his and his uncle's. Perhaps," said the Captain, "you may have heard your head Governor mention my name?-Captain Cuttle."

"No!" said Mr. Carker, with a still wider demonstration than before.

"Well," resumed the Captain, "I've the pleasure of his acquaintance. I waited upon him down on the Sussex coast there, with my young friend Wal'r, when-in short, when there was a little accommodation wanted." The Captain nodded his head in a manner that was at once comfortable, easy, and expressive. "You remember, I dare say?"

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"I think," said Mr. Carker, "I had the honor of arranging the business."

"To be sure!" returned the Captain. "Right again! you had. Now I've took the liberty of coming here-"

"Won't you sit down?" said Mr. Carker, smiling. "Thankee," returned the Captain, availing himself of the offer. "A man does get more way upon himself, perhaps, in his conversation, when he sits down. Won't you take a cheer yourself?"

"No, thank you," said the manager, standing, perhaps from the force of winter habit, with his back against the chimney-piece, and looking down upon the Captain with an eye in every tooth and gum. "You have taken the liberty, you were going to say -though it's none-"

"Thankee kindly, my lad," returned the Captain: of coming here, on account of my friend Wal'r. Sol Gills, his uncle, is a man of science, and in science he may be considered a clipper; but he ain't what I should altogether call a able seaman-not a man of practice. Wal'r is as trim a lad as ever stepped; but he's a little down by the head in one respect, and that is modesty. Now what I should wish to put to you," said the Captain, lowering his voice, and speaking in a kind of confidential growl, "in a friendly way, entirely between you and me, and for my own private reckoning, 'till your head Governor has wore round a bit, and I can come alongside of him, is this: Is every thing right and comfortable here, and is Wal'r out'ard bound, with a pretty fair wind?” "What do you think, now, Captain Cuttle," returned Carker, gathering up his skirts, and settling himself in his position. "You are a practical man;

what do you think?"

The acuteness and significance of the Captain's eye as he cocked it in reply, no words short of those unutterable Chinese words before referred to could describe.

"Come!" said the Captain, unspeakably encouraged, "what do you say? Am I right or wrong?"

So much had the Captain expressed in his eye, emboldened and incited by Mr. Carker's smiling urbanity, that he felt himself in as fair a condition to put the question as if he had expressed his sentiments with the utmost elaboration.

"Right," said Mr. Carker, "I have no doubt." "Out'ard bound, with fair weather, then, I say," cried Captain Cuttle.

Mr. Carker smiled assent.

"Wind right astarn, and plenty of it,” pursued the Captain.

Mr. Carker smiled assent again.

"Ay, ay!" said Captain Cuttle, greatly relieved and pleased. "I know'd how she headed, well enough; I told Wal'r so. Thankee, thankee."

"Gay has brilliant prospects," observed Mr. Carker, stretching his mouth wider yet: "all the world before him."

"All the world and his wife too, as the saying is," returned the delighted Captain.

At the word "wife" (which he had uttered without design), the Captain stopped, cocked his eye again, and putting the glazed hat on the top of the knobby stick, gave it a twirl, and looked sideways at his always smiling friend.

"Am I right again?" inquired the Captain in a whisper, with the scarlet circle on his forehead swelling in his triumphant joy.

Mr. Carker, in reply, still smiling, and now nodding assent, Captain Cuttle rose and squeezed him by the hand, assuring him, warmly, that they were on the same tack, and that as for him (Cuttle) he had laid his course that way all along. "He know'd her first," said the Captain, with all the secrecy and gravity that the subject demanded, "in an uncommon manner-you remember his finding her in the street when she was a'most a babby-he has liked her ever since, and she him, as much as two such youngsters can. We've always said, Sol Gills and me, that they was cut out for each other."

A cat, or a monkey, or a hyena, or a death's-head, could not have shown the Captain more teeth at one time than Mr. Carker showed him at this period of their interview.

"You're right again," returned the Captain, giving his hand another squeeze. "Nothing it is. So! steady! There's a son gone: pretty little creetur. Ain't there?"

"Yes, there's a son gone," said the acquiescent Carker.

"Pass the word, and there's another ready for you," quoth the Captain. "Nevy of a scientific uncle! Nevy of Sol Gills! Wal'r! Wal'r, as is already in your business! And" said the Captain, rising gradually to a quotation he was preparing for a final burst-"who comes from Sol Gills's daily, to your business, and your buzzums."

The Captain's complacency as he gently jogged Mr. Carker with his elbow, on concluding each of the foregoing short sentences, could be surpassed by nothing but the exultation with which he fell back and eyed him when he had finished this brilliant display of eloquence and sagacity; his great blue waistcoat heaving with the throes of such a master-piece, and his nose in a state of violent inflammation from the same cause.

"Am I right?" said the Captain.

at the knees, for a moment, in an odd manner, as if he were falling together to hug the whole of himself at once, "your views in reference to Walter Gay are thoroughly and accurately right. I understand that we speak together in confidence."

"Honor!" interposed the Captain. "Not a word." "To him or any one?" pursued the Manager. Captain Cuttle frowned and shook his head. "But merely for your own satisfaction and guidance-and guidance, of course," repeated Mr. Carker, "with a view to your future proceedings."

"Thankee kindly, I am sure," said the Captain, listening with great attention.

"I have no hesitation in saying, that's the fact. You have hit the probabilities exactly."

"And with regard to your head Governor," said the Captain, "why an interview had better come about nat'ral between us. There's time enough."

Mr. Carker, with his mouth from ear to ear, repeated, "Time enough." Not articulating the words, but bowing his head affably, and forming them with his tongue and lips.

"And as I know-it's what I always said that Wal'r's in a way to make his fortune," said the Captain.

"To make his fortune," Mr. Carker repeated, in the same dumb manner.

"And as Wal'r's going on this little voyage is, as I may say, in his day's work, and a part of his general expectations here," said the Captain.

"Of his general expectations here," assented Mr. Carker, dumbly, as before.

"Why, so long as I know that," pursued the Captain, "there's no hurry, and my mind's at ease."

Mr. Carker still blandly assenting in the same voiceless manner, Captain Cuttle was strongly confirmed in his opinion that he was one of the most agreeable men he had ever met, and that even Mr. Dombey might improve himself on such a model. With great heartiness, therefore, the Captain once again extended his enormous hand (not unlike an old block in color), and gave him a grip that left upon his smoother flesh a proof impression of the chinks and crevices with which the Captain's palm was liberally tattooed.

"Farewell!" said the Captain. "I ain't a man of many words, but I take it very kind of you to be so friendly and above-board. You'll excuse me if I've been at all intruding, will you?" said the Captain. "Not at all," returned the other.

"Thankee. My berth ain't very roomy," said the Captain, turning back again, "but it's tolerably snug; and if you was to find yourself near Brig Place, number nine, at any time-will you make a note of it?-and would come up stairs, without minding what was said by the person at the door, I should be proud to see you."

With that hospitable invitation, the Captain said "Good-day!" and walked out and shut the door; leaving Mr. Carker still reclining against the chimney-piece. In whose sly look and watchful manner; in whose false mouth, stretched but not laughing; in whose spotless cravat and very whiskers; even in whose silent passing of his soft hand over his white linen and his smooth face; there was something des

check her in her glee, when, pointing with her dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse's face, and asks "What's that!"

And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the weeping women, Mr. Dombey passes through the hall to the oth. carriage that is waiting to receive him. He is not "brought down," these observers think, by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind no handkerchief, and looks before him. But that his face is something sunk and rigid, and is pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He takes his place within the carriage, and three other gentlemen follow. Then the grand funeral moves slowly down the street. The feathers are yet nodding in the distance, when the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the same crowd to admire it. But the juggler's wife is less alert than usual with the money-box, for a child's burial has set her thinking that perhaps the baby underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a man, and wear a sky-blue fillet round his head, and salmon-colored worsted drawers, and tumble in the mud.

The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within the sound of a church bell. In this same church the pretty boy received all that will soon be left of him on earth-a name. All of him that is dead they lay there, near the perishable substance of his mother. It is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks-oh lonely, lonely walks!-may pass them any day.

The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr. Dombey looks round, demanding in a low voice | whether the person who has been requested to attend to receive instructions for the tablet is there?

Some one comes forward, and says "Yes."

Mr. Dombey intimates where he would have it placed; and shows him, with his hand upon the wall, the shape and size; and how it is to follow the memorial to the mother. Then, with his pencil, he writes out the inscription and gives it to him: adding, "I wish to have it done at once.”

"It shall be done immediately, sir." "There is really nothing to inscribe but name and age, you see."

The man bows, glancing at the paper, but appears to hesitate. Mr. Dombey not observing his hesitation, turns away, and leads toward the porch.

"I beg your pardon, sir;" a touch falls gently on bis mourning cloak; "but as you wish it done immediately, and it may be put in hand when I get back-"

time-shaded by his cloak. Nor do they see it any more that day. He alights first, and passes immediately into his own room. The other mourners (who are only Mr. Chick and two of the medical attendants) proceed up stairs to the drawing-room, to be received by Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox. And what the face is, in the shut-up chamber underneath: or what the thoughts are: what the heart is, what the contest or the suffering, no one knows.

The chief thing that they know below stairs, in the kitchen, is that "it seems like Sunday." They can hardly persuade themselves but that there is something unbecoming, if not wicked, in the conduct of the people out-of-doors, who pursue their ordinary occupations, and wear their every-day attire. It is quite a novelty to have the blinds up and the shutters open; and they make themselves dismally comfortable over bottles of wine, which are freely broached as on a festival. They are much inclined to moralize. Mr. Towlinson proposes, with a sigh, "Amendment to us all!" for which, as Cook says, with another sigh, "There's room enough, God knows." In the evening, Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox take to needle-work again. In the evening, also, Mr. Towlinson goes out to take the air, accompanied by the housemaid, who has not yet tried her mourning-bonnet. They are very tender to each other at dusky streetcorners, and Towlinson has visions of leading an altered and blameless existence as a serious green-grocer in Oxford Market.

There is sounder sleep and deeper rest in Mr. Dombey's house to-night than there has been for many nights. The morning sun awakens the old household, settled down once more in their old ways. The rosy children opposite run past with hoops.

There

is a splendid wedding in the church. The juggler's wife is active with the money-box in another quarter of the town. The mason sings and whistles as he chips out P-A-U-L in the marble slab before him.

And can it be that in a world so full and busy the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of vast eternity can fill it up! Florence, in her innocent affliction, might have answered, "Oh my brother, oh my dearly loved and loving brother! Only friend and companion of my slighted childhood! Could any less idea shed the light already dawning on your early grave, or give birth to the softened sorrow that is springing into life beneath this rain of tears!"

"My dear child," said Mrs. Chick, who held it as a duty incumbent on her to improve the occasion, "when you are as old as I am

"Which will be the prime of life," observed Miss Tox.

"You will then," pursued Mrs. Chick, gently squeezing Miss Tox's hand in acknowledgment of her friendly remark, "you will then know that all grief is unavailing, and that it is our duty to submit."

"I will try, dear aunt. I do try," answered Florence, sobbing.

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Chick, "because, my love, as our dear Miss Tox-of whose sound sense and excellent judgment there can not possibly be two opinions—”