"You wish well to him, and would have him happy. I am sure you would!" said Florence. "Oh! let me be able, if I have the occasion at some future time, to say so?"

Edith sat with her dark eyes gazing steadfastly before her, and did not reply until Florence had repeated her entreaty; when she drew her hand within her arm, and said, with the same thoughtful gaze upon the night outside:

"Tell him that if, in his own present, he can find any reason to compassionate my past, I sent word that I asked him to do so. Tell him that if, in his own present, he can find a reason to think less bitterly of me, I asked him to do so. Tell him, that, dead as we are to one another, never more to meet on this side of eternity, he knows there is one feeling in common between us now, that there never was before."

Her sternness seemed to yield, and there were tears in her dark eyes.

"I trust myself to that," she said, "for his better thoughts of me, and mine of him. When he loves his Florence most, he will hate me least. When he is most proud and happy in her and her children, he will be most repentant of his own part in the dark vision of our married life. At that time, I will be repentant too-let him know it then-and think that when I thought so much of all the causes that had made me what I was, I needed to have allowed more for the causes that had made him what he was. I will try, then, to forgive him his share of blame. Let him try to forgive me mine!"

"Oh Mama!" said Florence. "How it lightens my heart, even in such a meeting and parting, to hear this!"

"Strange words in my own ears," said Edith," and foreign to the sound of my own voice! But even if I had been the wretched creature I have given him occasion to believe me, I think I could have said them still, hearing that you and he were very dear to one another. Let him, when you are dearest, ever feel that he is most forbearing in his thoughts of me that I am most forbearing in my thoughts of him! Those are the last words I send him! Now, good-by, my

life!"

She clasped her in her arms, and seemed to pour out all her woman's soul of love and tenderness at once.

"This kiss for your child! These kisses for a blessing on your head! My own dear Florence, my sweet girl, farewell!"

"To meet again!" cried Florence."

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Never again! Never again! When you leave me in this

dark room, think that you have left me in the grave. only that I was once, and that I loved you!

Remember

And Florence left her, seeing her face no more, but accom panied by her embraces and caresses to the last.

Cousin Feenix met her at the door, and took her down to Walter in the dingy dining-room: upon whose shoulder she laid her head weeping.

"I am devilish sorry," said Cousin Feenix, lifting his wristbands to his eyes in the simplest manner possible, and without the least concealment, "that the lovely and accomplished daughter of my friend Dombey, and amiable wife of my friend Gay, should have had her sensitive nature so very much distressed and cut up by the interview which is just concluded. But I hope and trust I have acted for the best, and that my honorable friend Dombey will find his mind relieved by the disclosures which have taken place. I exceedingly lament that my friend Dombey should have got himself, in point of fact, into the devil's own state of conglomeration by an alliance with our family; but am strongly of opinion that if it hadn't been for the infernal scoundrel Barker-man with white teeth-everything would have gone on pretty smoothly. In regard to my relative who does me the honor to have formed an uncommonly good opinion of myself, I can assure the amiable wife of my friend Gay, that she may rely on my being, in point of fact, a father to her. And in regard to the changes of human life, and the extraordinary manner in which we are perpetually conducting ourselves, all I can say is, with my friend Shakespeare -man who wasn't for an age but for all time, and with whom my friend Gay is no doubt acquainted—that it's like the shadow of a dream."

CHAPTER LXII.

FINAL.

A BOTTLE that has been long excluded from the light of day, and is hoary with dust and cobwebs, has been brought into the sunshine; and the golden wine within it sheds a lustre on the table.

It is the last bottle of the old Madeira.

You are quite right, Mr. Gills," says Mr. Dombey. "This is a very rare and most delicious wine."

The Captain, who is of the party, beams with joy. There is a very halo of delight round his glowing forehead.

"We always promised ourselves, Sir," observes Mr. Gills, "Ned and myself, I mean-"

Mr. Dombey nods at the Captain, who shines more and more with speechless gratification.

"that we would drink this, one day or other, to Walter safe at home: though such a home we never thought of. If you don't object to our old whim, Sir, let us devote this first glass to Walter and his wife."

"To Walter and his wife!" says Mr. Dombey. "Florence, my child "--and turns to kiss her.

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"To Walter and his wife!" says Mr. Toots.

"To Wal'r and his wife!" exclaims the Captain. "Hooroar!” and the Captain exhibiting a strong desire to clink his glass against some other glass, Mr. Dombey, with a ready hand, holds out his. The others follow; and there is a blithe and merry ringing, as of a peal of marriage bells.

Other buried wine grows older, as the old Madeira did in its time; and dust and cobwebs thicken on the bottles.

Mr. Dombey is a white-haired gentleman, whose face bears heavy marks of care and suffering; but they are traces of a storm that has passed on for ever, and left a clear evening in its track.

Ambitious projects trouble him no more.

His only pride

is in his daughter and her husband. He has a silent, thoughtful, quiet manner, and is always with his daughter. Miss Tox is not unfrequently of the family party, and is quite devoted to it, and a great favorite. Her admiration of her once stately patron is, and has been ever since the morning of her shock in Princess's Place, platonic, but not weakened in the least.

He

Nothing has drifted to him from the wreck of his fortunes, but a certain annual sum that comes he knows not how, with an earnest entreaty that he will not seek to discover, and with the assurance that it is a debt, and an act of reparation. has consulted with his old clerk about this, who is clear it may be honorably accepted, and has no doubt it arises out of some forgotten transaction in the times of the old House. That hazel-eyed bachelor, a bachelor no more, is married now, and to the sister of the gray-haired Junior. He visits his

old chief sometimes, but seldom. There is a reason in the gray-haired Junior's history, and yet a stronger reason in his name, why he should keep retired from his old employer; and as he lives with his sister and her husband, they participate in that retirement. Walter sees them sometimes-Florence too— and the pleasant house resounds with profound duets ar ranged for the Piano-Forte and Violoncello, and with the labors of Harmonious Blacksmiths.

And how goes the wooden Midshipman in these changed days? Why, here he still is, right leg foremost, hard at work upon the hackney coaches, and more on the alert than ever, being newly-painted from his cocked hat to his buckled shoes; and up above him, in golden characters, these names shine refulgent, GILLS AND CUTTLE.

Not another stroke of business does the Midshipman achieve beyond his usual easy trade. But they do say, in a circuit of some half-mile round the blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, that some of Mr. Gills's old investments are coming out wonderfully well; and that instead of being behind the time in those respects, as he supposed, he was, in truth, a little before it, and had to wait the fulness of the time and the design. The whisper is that Mr. Gills's money has begun to turn itself, and that it is turning itself over and over pretty briskly. Certain it is that, standing at his shopdoor, in his coffee-colored suit, with his chronometer in his pocket and his spectacles on his forehead, he don't appear to break his heart at customers not coming, but looks very jovial and contented, though full as misty as of yore.

As to his partner, Captain Cuttle, there is a fiction of a business in the Captain's mind which is better than any reality. The Captain is as satisfied of the Midshipman's importance to the commerce and navigation of the country, as he could possibly be, if no ship left the Port of London without the Midshipman's assistance. His delight in his own name over the door, is inexhaustible. He crosses the street, twenty times a day, to look at it from the other side of the way; and invariably says, on these occasions, "Ed'ard Cuttle, my lad, if your mother could ha' know'd as you would ever be a man o' science, the good old creetur would ha' been took aback indeed!"

But here is Mr. Toots descending on the Midshipman with violent rapidity, and Mr. Toots's face is very red as he bursts into the little parlor.

"Captain Gills," says Mr. Toots, "and Mr. Sols, I am

happy to inform you that Mrs. Toots has had an increase to her family."

"And it does her credit!" cries the Captain.

"I give you joy, Mr. Toots!" says old Sol.

"Thank'ee," chuckles Mr. Toots," I'm very much obliged to you. I knew that you'd be glad to hear, and so I came down myself. We're positively getting on, you know. There's Florence, and Susan, and now here's another little stranger."

"A female stranger?" inquires the Captain.

"Yes, Captain Gills," says Mr. Toots, "and I'm glad of it. The oftener we can repeat that most extraordinary woman, my opinion is, the better!"

"Stand by!" says the Captain, turning to the old casebottle with no throat-for it is evening, and the Midshipman's usual moderate provision of pipes and glasses is on the board. "Here's to her, and may she have ever so many more!"

"Thank'ee, Captain Gills," says the delighted Mr. Toots. "I echo the sentiment. If you'll allow me, as my so doing cannot be unpleasant to anybody, under the circumstances, I think I'll take a pipe.

Mr. Toots begins to smoke, accordingly, and in the openness of his heart is very loquacious.

"Of all the remarkable instances that that delightful woman has given of her excellent sense, Captain Gills and Mr. Sols," says Toots, "I think none is more remarkable than the perfection with which she has understood my devotion to Miss Dombey."

Both his auditors assent.

"Because, you know," says Mr. Toots, "I have never changed my sentiments towards Miss Dombey. They are the same as ever. She is the same bright vision to me, at present, that she was before I made Walter's acquaintance. When Mrs. Toots and myself first began to talk of-in short, of the tender passion, you know, Captain Gills."

"Ay, ay, my lad," says the Captain, "as makes us all slue round-for which you'll overhaul the book-”

"I shall certainly do so, Captain Gills," says Mr. Toots, with great earnestness; "when we first began to mention such subjects, I explained that I was what you may call a Blighted. Flower, you know."

The Captain approves of this figure greatly; and murmurs that no flower as blows, is like the rose.

"But Lord bless me," pursues Mr. Toots, "she was as entirely conscious of the state of my feelings as I was myself,