With another of those wild cries, she went running out into the room from which she had come; but immediately, in her uncertain mood returned, and creeping up to Harriet, said

"That's what Alice bade me tell you, deary. That's all. I found it out when I began to ask who she was, and all about her, away in Warwickshire there, one summer time. Such relations was no good to me, then. They wouldn't have owned me, and had nothing to give me. I should have asked 'em, maybe, for a little money, afterwards, if it hadn't been for my Alice; she'd a'most have killed me, if I had, I think. She was as proud as t' other in her way," said the old woman, touching the face of her daughter fearfully, and withdrawing her hand, " for all she's so quiet now; but she'll shame 'em with her good looks, yet. Ha, ha! She'll shame 'em, will my handsome daughter!"

Her laugh, as she retreated, was worse than her cry; worse than the burst of imbecile lamentation in which it ended; worse than the doting air with which she sat down in her old seat, and stared out at the darkness.

The eyes of Alice had all this time been fixed on Harriet, whose hand she had never released. She said now:

"I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard so much, in my wrong-doing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown, the harvest grew. I somehow made it out that when ladies had bad homes and mothers, they went wrong in their way, too; but that their way was not so foul a one as mine, and they had need to bless God for it. That is all past. It is like a dream, now, which I cannot quite remember or understand. It has been more and more like a dream, every day, since you began to sit here, and to read to me. I only tell it you, as I can recollect it. you read to me a little more?"

Will

Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice detained it for a moment.

"You will not forget my mother? I forgive her, if I have any I know that she forgives me, and is sorry in her heart. You will not forget her?"

cause.

"Never, Alice!"

"A moment yet.

Lay my head so, dear, that as you read, I may see the words in your kind face."

Harriet complied and read-read the eternal book for all the weary, and the heavy-laden; for all the wretched, fallen, and neglected of this earth-read the blessed history, in which the blind, lame, palsied beggar, the criminal, the woman stained with. shame, the shunned of all our dainty clay, has each a portion, that no human pride, indifference, or sophistry through all the ages that this world shall last, can take away, or by the thousandth atom of a grain reduce-read the ministry of Him, who, through the round of human life, and all its hopes and griefs, from birth to death, from infancy to age, had sweet compassion for, and interest in, its every scene and stage, its every suffering and sorrow.

"I shall come," said Harriet, when she shut the book, very early in the morning."

The lustrous eyes, yet fixed upon her face, closed for a moment, then opened; and Alice kissed, and blessed her.

The same eyes followed her to the door; and in their light, and on the tranquil face, there was a smile when it was closed.

They never turned away. She laid her hand upon her breast, murmuring the sacred name that had been read to her; and life passed from her face, like light removed.

Nothing lay there any longer, but the ruin of the mortal house on which the rain had beaten, and the black hair that had fluttered in the wintry wind.

CHAPTER LIX.

Retribution.

CHANGES have come again upon the great house in the long dull street, once the scene of Florence's childhood and loneliness. It is a great house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches in the roof, or shattered windows, or dilapidated walls; but it is a ruin none the less, and the rats fly from it.

Mr. Towlinson and company are, at first, incredulous in respect of the shapeless rumors that they hear. Cook says our people's credit ain't so easy shook as that comes to, thank God; and Mr. Towlinson expects to hear it reported next, that the Bank of England's a-going to break, or the jewels in the Tower to be sold up. But, next come the Gazette, and Mr. Perch; and Mr. Perch brings Mrs. Perch to talk it over in the kitchen, and to spend a pleasant evening.

As soon as there is no doubt about it, Mr. Towlinson's main anxiety is that the failure should be a good round one-not less than a hundred thousand pound. Mr. Perch don't think himself that a hundred thousand pound will nearly cover it. The women, led by Mrs. Perch and Cook, often repeat 66 a hun-dred thou-sand pound!" with awful satisfaction- —as if handling the words were like handling the money; and the housemaid, who has her eye on Mr. Towlinson, wishes she had only a hundredth part of the sum to bestow on the man of her choice. Mr. Towlinson, still mindful of his old wrong, opines that a foreigner would hardly know what to do with so much money, unless he spent it on his whiskers; which bitter sarcasm causes the housemaid to withdraw in tears.

But not to remain long absent; for Cook, who has the reputation of being extremely good-hearted, says, whatever they do, let 'em stand by one another now, Towlinson, for there's no tell

ing how soon they may be divided. They have been in that house (says Cook) through a funeral, a wedding, and a runningaway; and let it not be said that they couldn't agree among themselves at such a time as the present. Mrs. Perch is immensely affected by this moving address, and openly remarks that Cook is an angel. Mr. Towlinson replies to Cook, far be it from him to stand in the way of that good feeling which he could wish to see; and adjourning in quest of the housemaid, and presently returning with that young lady on his arm, informs the kitchen that foreigners is only his fun, and that him and Anne have now resolved to take one another for better for worse, and to settle in Oxford Market in the general green grocery and herb and leech line, where your kind favors is particular requested. This announcement is received with acclamation; and Mrs. Perch, projecting her soul into futurity, says, "girls," in Cook's ear, in a solemn whisper.

Misfortune in the family without feasting, in these lower regions, couldn't be. Therefore Cook tosses up a hot dish or two for supper, and Mr. Towlinson compounds a lobster salad to be devoted to the same hospitable purpose. Even Mrs. Pipchin, agitated by the occasion, rings her bell, and sends down word that she requests to have that little bit of sweetbread that was left, warmed up for her supper, and sent to her on a tray with about a quarter of a tumbler-full of mulled sherry; for she feels poorly. There is a little talk about Mr. Dombey, but very little. It is chiefly speculation as to how long he has known that this was going to happen. Cook says shrewdly, "Oh a long time, bless you! Take your oath of that.” And reference being made to Mr. Perch, he confirms her view of the case. Somebody wonders what he'll do, and whether he'll go out in any situation. Mr. Towlinson thinks not, and hints at a refuge in one of them genteel almshouses of the better kind. "Ah! Where he'll have his little garden, you know," says Cook, plaintively, "and bring up sweet-peas in the spring." "Exactly so," says Mr. Towlinson, "and be one of the Brethren of something or another." "We

are all brethren," says Mrs. Perch, in a pause of her drink. Except the sisters," says Mr. Perch. "How are the mighty

66

fallen!" remarks Cook.

"Pride shall have a fall, and it always

was and will be so!" observes the housemaid.

It is wonderful how good they feel, in making these reflections; and what a Christian unanimity they are sensible of, in bearing the common shock with resignation. There is only one interruption to this excellent state of mind, which is occasioned by a young kitchenmaid of inferior rank-in black stockings—who, having sat with her mouth open for a long time, unexpectedly discharges from it words to this effect, "Suppose the wages shouldn't be paid!" The company sit for a moment speechless; but Cook, recovering first, turns upon the young woman, and requests to know how she dares insult the family, whose bread she eats, by such a dishonest supposition, and whether she thinks that anybody, with a scrap of honor left, could deprive poor servants of their pittance ? "Because if that is your religious feelings, Mary Daws," says Cook, warmly, "I don't know where you mean to go to."

Mr. Towlinson don't know either; nor anybody; and the young kitchenmaid, appearing not to know exactly herself, and scouted by the general voice, is covered with confusion as with a garment.

After a few days, strange people begin to call at the house, and to make appointments with one another in the dining-room, as if they lived there. Especially, there is a gentleman, of a Mosaic Arabian cast of countenance, with a very massive watch-guard, who whistles in the drawing-room, and, while he is waiting for the other gentleman who always has pen and ink in his pocket, asks Mr. Towlinson (by the easy name of "Old Cock”), if he happens to know what the figure of them crimson and gold hangings might have been, when new bought. The callers and appointments in the dining-room become more numerous every day, and every gentleman seems to have pen and ink in his pocket, and to have some occasion to use it. At last it is said that there is going to be a Sale; and then more people arrive, with pen and ink in their pockets, commanding a detachment of men with carpet bags, who immediately begin to pull up the carpets, and knock the furniture about, and to print off thousands of im pressions of their shoes upon the hall and staircase.