go? He knows where to go, I suppose, having been a man of business all his life. Very good. Then why not go there?"

Mrs. Chick, after forging this powerful chain of reasoning, remains silent for a minute to admire it.

"Besides," says the discreet lady, with an argumentative air,' "who ever heard of such obstinacy as his staying shut up here through all these dreadful disagreeables? It's not as if there was no place for him to go to. Of course he could have come to our house. He knows he is at home there, I suppose. Mr. Chick has perfectly bored about it, and I said with my own lips, 'Why surely, Paul, you don't imagine that because your affairs have got into this state, you are the less at home to such near re latives as ourselves? You don't imagine that we are like the rest of the world?' But no; here he stays all through, and here he is. Why, good gracious me, suppose the house was to be let! what would he do then? He couldn't remain here then. If he attempted to do so, there would be an ejectment, an action for Doe, and all sorts of things; and then he must go. Then why not go at first instead of at last? And that brings me back to what I said just now, and I naturally ask what is to be the end of it?"

"I know what's to be the end of it, as far as I am concerned," replies Mrs. Pipchin," and that's enough for me. I'm going to take myself off in a jiffy."

"In a which, Mrs. Pipchin ?" says Mrs. Chick.

"In a jiffy," retorts Mrs. Pipchin, sharply.

"Ah, well! really I can't blame you, Mrs. Pipchin," says Mrs. Chick with frankness.

"It would be pretty much the same to me, if you could," replies the sardonic Pipchin. "At any rate I'm going. I can't stop here. I should be dead in a week. I had to cook my own pork chop yesterday, and I'm not used to it. My constitution will be giving way next. Besides, I had a very fair connexion at Brighton when I came here-little Pankey's folks alone were worth a good eighty pounds a year to me—and I can't afford to throw it away. I've written to my niece, and she expects me by

this time."

"Have you spoken to my brother ?" inquires Mrs. Chick.

Oh, yes, it's very easy to say speak to him," retorts Mrs.

Pipchin. "How is it done! I called out to him, yesterday, that I was no use here, and that he had better let me send for Mrs. Richards. He grunted something or other that meant yes, and I sent. Grunt indeed! If he had been Mr. Pipchin he'd have had some reason to grunt. Yah! I've no patience with it!"

Here this exemplary female, who has pumped up so much fortitude and virtue from the depths of the Peruvian mines, rises from her cushioned property to see Mrs. Chick to the door. Mrs. Chick, deploring to the last the peculiar character of her brother, noiselessly retires, much occupied with her own sagacity and clearness of head.

In the dusk of the evening, Mr. Toodle, being off duty, arrives with Polly and a box, and leaves them, with a sounding kiss, in the hall of the empty house, the retired character of which affects Mr. Toodle's spirits strongly.

"I tell you what, Polly my dear," says Mr. Toodle, "being now an ingein-driver and well to do in the world, I shouldn't allow of your coming here to be made dull-like, if it warn't for favors past. And favors past, Polly, is never to be forgot. To them which is in adversity, besides, your face is a cord❜l. So let's have another kiss on it, my dear. You wish no better than to do a right act, I know; and my views is, that it's right and dutiful to do this. Good night, Polly!"

Mrs. Pipchin by this time looms dark in her black bombazeen skirts, black bonnet, and shawl; and has her personal property packed up; and has her chair (late a favorite chair of Mr. Dombey's, and the dead bargain of the sale) ready near the street door; and is only waiting for a fly-van, going to-night to Brighton on private service, which is to call for her, by private contract, and convey her home.

Presently it comes. Mrs. Pipchin's wardrobe being handed in and stowed away, Mrs. Pipchin's chair is next handed in, and placed in a convenient corner among certain trusses of hay; it being the intention of the amiable woman to occupy the chair during her journey. Mrs. Pipchin herself is next handed in, and grimly takes her seat. There is a snaky gleam in her hard grey eye, as of anticipated rounds of buttered toast, relays of hot chops, worryings and quellings of young children, sharp snappings at

poor Berry, and all the other delights of her Ogress's castle. Mrs. Pipchin almost laughs as the Fly Van drives off, and she composes her black bombazeen skirts, and settles herself among the cushions of her easy chair.

The house is such a ruin that the rats have fled, and there is not one left.

But Polly, though alone in the deserted mansion-for there is no companionship in the shut-up rooms in which its late master hides his head-is not alone long. It is night; and she is sitting at work in the housekeeper's room, trying to forget what a lonely house it is, and what a history belongs to it; when there is a knock at the hall door, as loud sounding as any knock can be, striking into such an empty place. Opening it, she returns across the echoing hall, accompanied by a female figure in a close black bonnet. It is Miss Tox, and Miss Tox's eyes are red.

"Oh, Polly," says Miss Tox, "when I looked in to have a little lesson with the children just now, I got the message that you left for me; and as soon as I could recover my spirits at all, I came on after you. Is there no one here but you?"

"Ah! not a soul," says Polly.

"Have you seen him ?" whispers Miss Tox.

"Bless you," returns Polly, "no; he has not been seen this many a day. They tell me he never leaves his room."

“Is he said to be ill ?" inquires Miss Tox.

"No, ma'am, not that I know of," returns Polly, "except in his mind. He must be very bad there, poor gentleman!"

Miss Tox's sympathy is such that she can scarcely speak. She is no chicken, but she has not grown tough with age and celibacy. Her heart is very tender, her compassion very genuine, her homage very real. Beneath the locket with the fishy-eye in it, Miss Tox bears better qualities than many a less whimsical outside; such qualities as will outlive, by many courses of the sun, the best outsides and brightest husks that fall in the harvest of the great reaper.

It is long before Miss Tox goes away, and before Polly, with a candle flaring on the blank stairs, looks after her, for company, down the street, and feels unwilling to go back into the dreary house, and jar its emptiness with the heavy fastenings of the

door, and glide away to bed. But all this Polly does; and in the morning sets in one of those darkened rooms such matters as she has been advised to prepare, and then retires and enters them no more until next morning at the same hour. There are bells there, but they never ring; and though she can sometimes hear a footfall going to and fro, it never comes out.

Miss Tox returns early in the day. It then begins to be Miss Tox's occupation to prepare little dainties—or what are such to her to be carried into these rooms next morning. She derives so much satisfaction from the pursuit, that she enters on it regularly from that time; and brings daily in her little basket, various choice condiments selected from the scanty stores of the deceased owner of the powdered head and pigtail. She likewise brings, in sheets of curl paper, morsels of cold meat, tongues of sheep, halves of fowls, for her own dinner; and sharing these collations with Polly, passes the greater part of her time in the ruined house that the rats have fled from: hiding, in a fright, at every sound, stealing in and out like a criminal; only desiring to be true to the fallen object of her admiration, unknown to him, unknown to all the world but one poor simple woman.

The Major knows it; but no one is the wiser for that, though the Major is much the merrier. The Major, in a fit of curiosity, has charged the Native to watch the house sometimes, and find out what becomes of Dombey. The Native has reported Miss Tox's fidelity, and the Major has nearly choked himself dead with laughter. He is permanently bluer from that hour, and constantly wheezes to himself, his lobster eyes starting out of his head, "Damme me, Sir, the woman's a born idiot!"

And the ruined man. How does he pass the hours alone? "Let him remember it in that room, years to come!" He did remember it. It was heavy on his mind now; heavier than all the rest.

Let him remember it in that room, years to come. The rain that falls upon the roof, the wind that mourns outside the door, may have foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that room, years to come!

He did remember it. In the miserable night he thought of it; in the dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunt.