cept the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss Dombey."

Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags, which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's cloak, quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child complied with increased readiness, if possible.

In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet which was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair, which grew lux uriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good Mrs. Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an unaccountable state of excitement. "Why couldn't you let me be," said Mrs. Brown, "when I was contented. You little fool!"

"I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done," panted Florence. "I couldn't help it."

"Couldn't help it!" cried Mrs. Brown. "How do you expect I can help it? Why, Lord!" said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious pleasure, "any body but me would have had 'em off first of all."

Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not her head which Mrs. Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes toward the face of that good soul.

"If I hadn't once had a gal of my own-beyond seas now — that was proud of her hair," said Mrs. | Brown, "I'd have had every lock of it. She's far away, she's far away! Oho Oho!"

Mrs. Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever. It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs. Brown, after hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself, Mrs. Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were eating the stem.

When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to carry, that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told her that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near for Mrs. Brown's convenience), but to her father's office in the city; also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the clock struck three. These directions Mrs. Brown enforced with assurances that there would be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant of all she did; and these directions Florence promised faithfully and earnestly to observe.

At length, Mrs. Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable-yard, with a gate-way at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself audible. Pointing out this gate-way, and informing Florence that when the clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs. Brown, after making a parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade her go and do it remembering that she was watched.

With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked back and saw the head of Good Mrs. Brown peeping out of the low wooden passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist of Good Mrs. Brown shaking toward her. But though she often looked back afterward-every minute, at least, in her nerv ous recollection of the old woman-she could not see her again.

Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more and more bewildered by it; and in the mean while the clocks appeared to have made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the steeples rang out three o'clock, there was on close by, so she couldn't be mistaken; and-after often looking over her shoulder, and often going a little way, and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful spies of Mrs. Brown should take offense-she hurried off, as fast as she could in her slipshod shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand. All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to Dombey and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as she generally made inquiry of children-being afraid to ask grown people-she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees, toward the heart of that great region which is governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.

Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her an gry father in such an altered state, perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all the firmness and self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had prematurely formed and tried; and, keeping the end she had in view steadily before her, steadily pursued it.

It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangor of a narrow street full of carts and wagons, she peeped into a kind of wharf or landing-place upon the river side,

to Walter's hurried explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two youthful figures arm in arm before him. He was not old, but his hair was white; his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some great trouble: and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy face. The fire of his eyes, the expression of his features, the very voice in which he spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay in ashes. He was respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black; but his clothes, moulded to the general character of his figure, seemed to shrink and abase themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful solicitation which the whole man from head to foot expressed, to be left unnoticed, and alone in his humility.

And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished with the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he read some fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present brightness.

"What do you advise, Mr. Carker?" said Walter, smiling. "You always give me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not often, though."

"I think your own idea is the best," he answered: looking from Florence to Walter, and back again.

"Mr. Carker," said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, "come! Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr. Dombey's, and be the messenger of good news. It may do you some good, sir. I'll remain at home. You shall go."

"I!" returned the other.

"Yes. Why not, Mr. Carker?" said the boy.

He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner ashamed and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and advising him to make haste, turned away.

"Come, Miss Dombey," said Walter, looking after him as they turned away also, "we'll go to my uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever hear Mr Dombey speak of Mr. Carker the junior, Miss Florence ?"

"No," returned the child, mildly, "I don't often hear papa speak."

"Ah! true! more shame for him," thought Walter. After a minute's pause, during which he had been looking down upon the gentle, patient little face moving on at his side, he bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and restlessness to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes coming off again opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his uncle's in his arms. Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined the proposal, lest he should let her fall; and as they were already near the wooden midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various precedents, from shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger boys than he had triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than Florence, they were still in full conversation about it when they arrived at the instrument-maker's door.

"Halloo, Uncle Sol!" cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of the evening. "Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr. Dombey's daughter lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a woman-found by me-brought home to our parlor to rest-look here!"

"Good Heaven!" said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favorite compass-case. "It can't be! Well, I-"

"No, nor any body else," said Walter, anticipating the rest. "Nobody would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol-take care of the plates-cut some dinner for her, will you uncle-throw those shoes under the grate. Miss Florence-put your feet on the fender to dry-how damp they arehere's an adventure, uncle, eh?-God bless my soul, how hot I am!"

Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes and ears, and had no clear perception of any thing except that he was being constantly knocked against and tumbled over by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about the room attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing at all.

"Here, wait a minute, uncle," he continued, catching up a candle, " till I run up stairs and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off. I say, uncle, isn't this an adventure?"

"My dear boy," said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating between Florence on the sofa and his nephew in all parts of the parlor, "it's the most extraordinary—”

"No, but do, uncle, please-do, Miss Florencedinner, you know, uncle."

"Yes, yes, yes," cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton, as if he were catering for a giant. "I'll take care of her, Wally! I understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready. Lord bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London."

Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending from it, but in the mean time Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy returned, she was sleeping peacefully.

"That's capital!" he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it squeezed a new expression into his face. "Now I'm off. I'll just take a crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry-and-don't wake her, Uncle Sol."

"Pretty child."

"No, no," said Solomon. "Pretty, indeed!" cried Walter. "I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol. Now I'm off."

"That's right," said Solomon, greatly relieved.

"I say, Uncle Sol," cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.

"Here he is again," said Solomon.

"How does she look now?"
"Quite happy," said Solomon.
"That's famous! Now I'm off."

"I hope you are," said Solomon to himself.

"I say, Uncle Sol," cried Walter, re-appearing at the door.

"Here he is again!" said Solomon. "We met Mr. Carker the junior in the street, He bade me good-bye, but came queerer than ever. behind us here-there's an odd thing!-for when we reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away, like a servant who had seen me

window every two or three minutes, in impatient reArriving at his jourmonstrance with the driver.

ney's end, he leaped out, and breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed him straight into the library, where there was a great confusion of tongues, and where Mr. Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper, were all congregated together.

"Oh! I beg your pardon, sir," said Walter, rushing up to him, "but I'm happy to say it's all right, sir. Miss Dombey's found!"

The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes, panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr. Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.

66

"I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found," said Mr. Dombey, looking slightly over his

Miss Tox. "Let the servants know that no further steps are necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the office. How was my daughter found, sir? I know how she was lost." "But Here he looked majestically at Richards. Who found her?" how was she found? "Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, sir," said Walter, modestly; "at least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found her, sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of-"

"What do you mean, sir," interrupted Mr. Dombey, regarding the boy's evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an instinctive dislike, "by not having exactly found my daughter, and