by her mother, Miss Berry! You may say nonsense! I ain't offended, miss. I hope you may be able to think in your own conscience that it is nonsense; you'll find your spirits all the better for it in this "Good-night, miss!" said Wickam, softly. "Goodnight! Your aunt is an old lady, Miss Berry, and it's what you must have looked for, often." This consolatory farewell, Mrs. Wickam accom you'll excuse my being so free-in this burying-panied with a look of heartfelt anguish; and being ground of a place; which is wearing of me down. Master Paul's a little restless in his sleep. Pat his back, if you please." "Of course you think," said Berry,tly doing what she was asked, that "he has been nursed by his mother, too?" "Betsey Jane," returned Mrs. Wickam in her most solemn tones, "was put upon as that child has been put upon, and changed as that child has changed. I have seen her sit, often and often, think, think, thinking, like him. I have seen her look, often and often, old, old, old, like him. I have heard her, many a time, talk just like him. I consider that child and Betsey Jane on the same footing entirely, Miss Berry." "Is your uncle's child alive?" asked Berry. "Yes, miss, she is alive," returned Mrs. Wickam with an air of triumph, for it was evident Miss Berry expected the reverse; "and is married to a silverchaser. Oh yes, miss, SHE is alive," said Mrs. Wickam, laying strong stress on her nominative case. It being clear that somebody was dead, Mrs. Pipchin's niece inquired who it was. "I wouldn't wish to make you uneasy," returned Mrs. Wickam, pursuing her supper. "Don't ask me." This was so very unexpected and awful to Mrs. Pipchin's niece, that she sat upright on the hard edge of the bedstead, breathing short, and surveying her informant with looks of undisguised alarm. Mrs. Wickam shook her left forefinger stealthily toward the bed where Florence lay; then turned it upside down, and made several emphatic points at the floor; immediately below which was the parlor in which Mrs. Pipchin habitually consumed the toast. "Remember my words, Miss Berry," said Mrs. Wickam, "and be thankful that Master Paul is not too fond of you. I am, that he's not too fond of me, I assure you; though there isn't much to live foryou'll excuse my being so free-in this jail of a house!" Miss Berry's emotion might have led to her patting Paul too hard on the back, or might have produced a cessation of that soothing monotony, but he turned in his bed just now, and, presently awaking, sat up in it with his hair hot and wet from the effects of some childish dream, and asked for Florence. She was out of her own bed at the first sound of his voice; and bending over his pillow immediately, sang him to sleep again. Mrs. Wickam shaking her head, and letting fall several tears, pointed out the little group to Berry, and turned her eyes up to the ceiling. left alone with the two children again, and becoming conscious that the wind was blowing mournfully, she indulged in melancholy-that cheapest and most accessible of luxuries-until she was overpowered by slumber. Although the niece of Mrs. Pipchin did not expect to find that exemplary dragon prostrate on the hearthrug when she went down stairs, she was relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with every present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a comfort to all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining, in the course of the ensuing week, when the constitutional viands still continued to disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that Paul studied her as attentively as ever, and occupied his usual seat between the black skirts and the fender, with unwavering constancy. But as Paul himself was no stronger at the expiration of that time than he had been on his first arrival, though he looked much healthier in the face, a little carriage was got for him, in which he could lie at his ease, with an alphabet and other elementary works of reference, and be wheeled down to the seaside. Consistent in his odd tastes, the child set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of this carriage, and selected, instead, his grandfather -a weazen, old, crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oil-skin, who had got tough and stringy from long pickling in salt water, and who smelled like a weedy sea-beach when the tide is out. With this notable attendant to pull him along, and Florence always walking by his side, and the despondent Wickam bringing up the rear, he went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would sit or lie in his carriage for hours together: never so distressed as by the company of children-Florence alone excepted, always. "Go away, if you please," he would say to any child who came to bear him company. "Thank you, but I don't want you." Some small voice, near his ear, would ask him how he was, perhaps. "I am very well, I thank you," he would answer. "But you had better go and play, if you please." Then he would turn his head, and watch the child away, and say to Florence, “We don't want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floy." He had even a dislike, at such times, to the company of Wickam, and was well pleased when she strolled away, as she generally did, to pick up shells and acquaintances. His favorite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his side at work, or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more. "Floy," he said one day, "where's India, where that boy's friends live?" "Oh, it's a long, long distance off," said Florence, raising her eyes from her work. "Weeks off?" asked Paul, head down on his pillow, caressing him. would she, she said, if he were there. He would be better soon. "Oh! I am a great deal better now!" he answer IN WHICH THE WOODEN MIDSHIPMAN GETS INTO TROUBLE. HAT spice of romance and love of the marvelous, ed. "I don't mean that. I mean that I should die of which there was a pretty strong infusion in of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!" Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly for a long time. Awaking suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat listening. Florence asked him what he thought he heard. "I want to know what it says," he answered, looking steadily in her face. "The sea, Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?" She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves. "Yes, yes," he said. "But I know that they are always saying something. Always the same thing. the nature of young Walter Gay, and which the guardianship of his uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not very much weakened by the waters of stern practical experience, was the occasion of his attaching an uncommon and delightful interest to the adventure of Florence with good Mrs. Brown. He pampered and cherished it in his memory, especially that part of it with which he had been associated: until it became the spoiled child of his fancy, and took its own way, and did what it liked with it. The recollection of those incidents, and his own share in them, may have been made the more captivating, perhaps, by the weekly dreamings of old Sol and Captain Cuttle on Sundays. Hardly a Sunday passed without mysterious references being made by one or other of those worthy chums to Richard Whittington; and the latter gentleman had even gone so far as to purchase a ballad of considerable antiquity, that had long fluttered among many others, chiefly expressive of maritime sentiments, on a dead wall in the Commercial Road: which poetical performance set forth the courtship and nuptials of a promising young coal-whipper with a certain "lovely Peg," the accomplished daughter of the master, and part-owner of a Newcastle collier. In this stirring legend, Captain Cuttle descried a profound metaphysical bearing on the case of Walter and Florence: and it excited him so much, that on very festive occasions, as birthdays and a few other non-Dominical holidays, he would roar through the whole song in the little back parlor; making an amazing shake on the word Pe-e-eg, with which every verse concluded, in compliment to the heroine of the piece. which gave it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account, more as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to be dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which he was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but not himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what a grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on the day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done wonders there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come back an Admiral of all the colors of the dolphin, or at least a Post-Captain with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have married Florence (then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr. Dombey's teeth, cravat, and watch-chain, and borne her away to the blue shores of somewhere or other triumphantly. But these flights of fancy seldom burnished the brass plate of Dombey and Son's offices into a tablet of golden hope, or shed a brilliant lustre on their dirty sky-lights; and when the Captain and Uncle Sol talked about Richard Whittington and masters' daughters, Walter felt that he understood his true position at Dombey and Son's, much better than they did. But a frank, free-spirited, open-hearted boy, is not much given to analyzing the nature of his own feelings, however strong their hold upon him: and Walter would have found it difficult to decide this point. He had a great affection for the wharf where he had encountered Florence, and for the streets (albeit not enchanting in themselves) by which they had come home. The shoes that had so often tumbled off by the way, he preserved in his own room; and, sitting in the little back parlor of an evening, he had drawn a whole gallery of fancy portraits of good Mrs. Brown. It may be that he became a little smarter in his dress after that memorable occasion; and he certainly liked in his leisure time to walk toward that quarter of the town where Mr. Dombey's house was situated, on the vague chance of passing little Florence in the street. But the sentiment of all this was as boy-bring a doctor to you, if you go on like this." ish and innocent as could be. Florence was very pretty, and it is pleasant to admire a pretty face. Florence was defenseless and weak, and it was a proud thought that he had been able to render her any protection and assistance. Florence was the most grateful little creature in the world, and it was delightful to see her bright gratitude beaming in her face. Florence was neglected and coldly looked upon, and his breast was full of youthful interest for the slighted child in her dull, stately home. So it was that he went on doing what he had to do from day to day, in a cheerful, painstaking, merry spirit; and saw through the sanguine complexion of Uncle Sol and Captain Cuttle; and yet entertained a thousand indistinct and visionary fancies of his own, to which theirs were work-a-day probabilities. Such was his condition at the Pipchin period, when he looked a little older than of yore, but not much; and was the same light-footed, lighthearted, light-headed lad, as when he charged into the parlor at the head of Uncle Sol and the imaginary boarders, and lighted him to bring up the Madeira. "Uncle Sol," said Walter, "I don't think you're well. You haven't eaten any breakfast. I shall Thus it came about that, perhaps some half a dozen times in the course of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the street, and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs. Wickam (who, with a characteristic alteration of his name invariably spoke of him as "Young Graves") was so well used to this, knowing the story of their acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the other hand, rather looked out for these occasions: her sensitive young heart being secretly propitiated by Walter's good looks, and inclining to the belief that its sentiments were responded to. In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As to its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances "He can't give me what I want, my boy," said Uncle Sol. "At least he is in good practice if he can-and then he wouldn't." "What is it, uncle? Customers?" "Custom "Confound it, uncle!" said Walter, putting down his breakfast-cup with a clatter, and striking his hand on the table: "when I see the people going up and down the street in shoals all day, and passing and repassing the shop every minute, by scores, I feel half tempted to rush out, collar somebody, bring him in, and make him buy fifty pounds' worth of instruments for ready money. What are you looking in at the door for?" continued Walter, apostrophizing an old gentleman with a powdered head (inaudibly to him of course), who was staring at a ship's telescope with all his might and main. "That's no use. I could do that. Come in and buy it!" The old gentleman, however, having satiated his curiosity, walked calmly away. "There he goes!" said Walter. "That's the way with 'em all. But, uncle-I say, Uncle Sol"—for the old man was meditating, and had not responded to his first appeal. "Don't be cast down. Don't be out of spirits, uncle. When orders do come, they'll BROGLEY THE BROKER. come in such a crowd, you won't be able to execute 'em." "I shall be past executing 'em, whenever they come, my boy," returned Solomon Gills. "They'll never come to this shop again, till I am out of it." "I say, uncle! You mustn't really, you know!" urged Walter. "Don't!" Old Sol endeavored to assume a cheery look, and smiled across the little table at him as pleasantly as he could. "There's nothing more than usual the matter; is there, uncle?" said Walter, leaning his elbows on the tea-tray, and bending over, to speak the more confidentially and kindly. "Be open with me, uncle, if there is, and tell me all about it." "No, no, no," returned Old Sol. "More than usual? No, no. What should there be the matter more than usual?" Walter answered with an incredulous shake of his head. "That's what I want to know," he said, "and you ask me! I'll tell you what, uncle, when I see you like this, I am quite sorry that I live with you.” Old Sol opened his eyes involuntarily. "Yes. Though nobody ever was happier than I am and always have been with you, I am quite sorry that I live with you, when I see you with any thing on your mind." "I am a little dull at such times, I know," observed Solomon, meekly rubbing his hands. "What I mean, Uncle Sol," pursued Walter, bending over a little more to pat him on the shoulder, "is, that then I feel you ought to have, sitting here and pouring out the tea instead of me, a nice little dumpling of a wife, you know-a comfortable, capital, cozy old lady, who was just a match for you, and knew how to manage you, and keep you in good heart. Here am I, as loving a nephew as ever was (I am sure I ought to be!); but I am only a nephew, and I can't be such a companion to you when you're low and out of sorts as she would have made herself, years ago, though I'm sure I'd give any money if I could cheer you up. And so I say, when I see you with any thing on your mind, that I feel quite sorry you haven't got somebody better about you than a blundering young rough-and-tough boy like me, who has got the will to console you, uncle, but hasn't got the way hasn't got the way," repeated Walter, reaching over farther yet, to shake his uncle by the hand. "Wally, my dear boy," said Solomon, "if the cozy little old lady had taken her place in this parlor fiveand-forty years ago, I never could have been fonder of her than I am of you." "I know that, Uncle Sol," returned Walter. "Lord bless you, I know that. But you wouldn't have had the whole weight of any uncomfortable secrets if she had been with you, because she would have known how to relieve you of 'em, and I don't." 66 Yes, yes, you do," returned the instrument-maker. "Well, then, what's the matter, Uncle Sol ?" said Walter, coaxingly. "Come! What's the matter?" Solomon Gills persisted that there was nothing the matter; and maintained it so resolutely, that his nephew had no resource but to make a very indifferent imitation of believing him. "All I can say is, Uncle Sol, that if there is—" "But there isn't," said Solomon. 53 "Very well," said Walter. "Then I've no more to say; and that's lucky, for my time's up for going to business. I shall look in by-and-by when I'm out, to see how you get on, uncle. And mind, uncle! I'll never believe you again, and never tell you any thing more about Mr. Carker the Junior, if I find out that you have been deceiving me!" Solomon Gills laughingly defied him to find out any thing of the kind; and Walter, revolving in his thoughts all sorts of impracticable ways of making fortunes and placing the wooden midshipman in a position of independence, betook himself to the of fices of Dombey and Son with a heavier countenance than he usually carried there. There lived in those days, round the corner-in Bishopsgate Street Without-one Brogley, sworn broker and appraiser, who kept a shop where every description of second-hand furniture was exhibited in the most uncomfortable aspect, and under circumstances and in combinations the most completely foreign to its purpose. Dozens of chairs hooked on to washing-stands, which with difficulty poised themselves on the shoulders of sideboards, which in their turn stood upon the wrong side of dining-tables, gymnastic with their legs upward on the tops of other dining-tables, were among its most reasonable arrangements. A banquet array of dish-covers, wine-glasses, and decanters was generally to be seen spread forth upon the bosom of a four-post bedstead, for the entertainment of such genial company as half a dozen pokers and a hall lamp. A set of window curtains with no windows belonging to them, would be seen gracefully draping a barricade of chests of drawers, loaded with little jars from chemists' shops; while a homeless hearth-rug, severed from its natural companion the fireside, braved the shrewd east wind in its adversity, and trembled in melancholy accord with the shrill complainings of a cabinet piano, wasting away, a string a day, and faintly resounding to the noises of the street in its jangling and distracted brain. Of motionless clocks that never stirred a finger, and seemed as incapable of being successfully wound up, as the pecuniary affairs of their former owners, there was always great choice in Mr. Brogley's shop; and various looking-glasses, accidentally placed at compound interest of reflection and refraction, presented to the eye an eternal perspective of bankruptcy and ruin. Mr. Brogley himself was a moist-eyed, pink-complexioned, crisp-haired man, of a bulky figure and an easy temper-for that class of Caius Marius who sits upon the ruins of other people's Carthages, can keep up his spirits well enough. He had looked in at Solomon's shop sometimes to ask a question about articles in Solomon's way of business; and Walter knew him sufficiently to give him good-day when they met in the street; but as that was the extent of the broker's acquaintance with Solomon Gills also, Walter was not a little surprised when he came back in the course of the forenoon, agreeably to his promise, to find Mr. Brogley sitting in the back parlor with his hands in his pockets, and his hat hanging up behind the door. "Well, Uncle Sol!" said Walter. The old man was sitting ruefully on the opposite side of the table, with his spectacles over his eyes, for a wonder, instead of on his forehead. "How are you now?" Solomon shook his head, and waved one hand toward the broker, as introducing him. "Is there any thing the matter?" asked Walter, with a catching in his breath. "No, no. There's nothing the matter," said Mr. Brogley. "Don't let it put you out of the way." Walter looked from the broker to his uncle in mute amazement. "The fact is," said Mr. Brogley, "there's a little payment on a bond debt-three hundred and seventy odd, over due: and I'm in possession." from land to water, on the approach to Captain Cuttle's lodgings, was curious. It began with the erection of flag-staffs, as appurtenances to public-houses; then came slop-sellers' shops, with Guernsey shirts, Sou'wester hats, and canvas pantaloons, at once the tightest and the loosest of their order, hanging up outside. These were succeeded by anchor and chaincable forges, where sledge-hammers were dinging upon iron all day long. Then came rows of houses, with little vane-surmounted masts uprearing themselves from among the scarlet beans. Then ditches. Then pollard willows. Then more ditches. Then unaccountable patches of dirty water, hardly to be "In possession!" cried Walter, looking round at descried, for the ships that covered them. Then, the the shop. "Ah!" said Mr. Brogley, in confidential assent, and nodding his head as if he would urge the advisability of their all being comfortable together. "It's an execution. That's what it is. Don't let it put you out of the way. I come myself, because of keeping it quiet and sociable. You know me. It's quite private." "Uncle Sol!" faltered Walter. "Wally, my boy,” returned his uncle. "It's the first time. Such a calamity never happened to me before. I'm an old man to begin." Pushing up his spectacles again (for they were useless any longer to conceal his emotion), he covered his face with his hand, and sobbed aloud, and his tears fell down upon his coffee-colored waistcoat. "Uncle Sol! Pray! oh don't!" exclaimed Walter, who really felt a thrill of terror in seeing the old man weep. "For God's sake don't do that. Mr. Brogley, what shall I do?" "I should recommend you looking up a friend or so," said Mr. Brogley, "and talking it over." "To be sure!" cried Walter, catching at any thing. "Certainly! Thankee. Captain Cuttle's the man, uncle. Wait till I run to Captain Cuttle. Keep your eye upon my uncle, will you, Mr. Brogley, and make him as comfortable as you can while I am gone? Don't despair, Uncle Sol. Try and keep a good heart, there's a dear fellow!" Saying this with great fervor, and disregarding the old man's broken remonstrances, Walter dashed out of the shop again as hard as he could go; and, having hurried round to the office to excuse himself on the plea of his uncle's sudden illness, set off, full speed, for Captain Cuttle's residence. Every thing seemed altered as he ran along the streets. There were the usual entanglement and noise of carts, drays, omnibuses, wagons, and footpassengers, but the misfortune that had fallen on the wooden midshipman made it strange and new. Houses and shops were different from what they used to be, and bore Mr. Brogley's warrant on their fronts in large characters. The broker seemed to have got hold of the very churches; for their spires rose into the sky with an unwonted air. Even the sky itself was changed, and had an execution in it plainly. Captain Cuttle lived on the brink of a little canal near the India Docks, where there was a swivel bridge which opened now and then to let some wandering monster of a ship come roaming up the street like a stranded leviathan. The gradual change air was perfumed with chips; and all other trades were swallowed up in mast, oar, and block making, and boat building. Then, the ground grew marshy and unsettled. Then, there was nothing to be smelled but rum and sugar. Then, Captain Cuttle's lodgings-at once a first floor and a top story, in Brig Place-were close before you. The Captain was one of those timber-looking men, suits of oak as well as hearts, whom it is almost impossible for the liveliest imagination to separate from any part of their dress, however insignificant. Accordingly, when Walter knocked at the door, and the Captain instantly poked his head out of one of his little front windows, and hailed him, with the hard glazed hat already on it, and the shirt-collar like a sail, and the wide suit of blue, all standing as usual, Walter was as fully persuaded that he was always in that state, as if the Captain had been a bird and those had been his feathers. "Wal'r, my lad!" said Captain Cuttle. "Stand by and knock again. Hard! It's washing-day.” Walter, in his impatience, gave a prodigious thump with the knocker. "Hard it is!" said Captain Cuttle, and immediately drew in his head, as if he expected a squall. Nor was he mistaken: for a widow lady, with her sleeves rolled up to her shoulders, and her arms frothy with soap-suds and smoking with hot water, replied to the summons with startling rapidity. Before she looked at Walter she looked at the knocker, and then, measuring him with her eyes from head to foot, said she wondered he had left any of it. Captain Cuttle's at home, I know," said Walter, with a conciliatory smile. "In-deed!" "Is he?" replied the widow lady. "He has just been speaking to me," said Walter, in breathless explanation. "Then p'raps "Has he?" replied the widow lady. you'll give him Mrs. MacStinger's respects, and say that the next time he lowers himself and his lodgings by talking out of winder she'll thank him to come down and open the door too." Mrs. MacStinger spoke loud, and listened for any observations that might be offered from the first floor. "I'll mention it," said Walter, "if you'll have the goodness to let me in, ma'am." For he was repelled by a wooden fortification extending across the door-way, and put there to prevent the little MacStingers in their moments of recreation from tumbling down the steps. "A boy that can knock my door down," said Mrs. MacStinger, contemptuously, "can get over that, I |