with a laugh, and a clap of her hands. grown tame since he has been well off!

"Sprightly Rob has There's no harm in it." "No, there's no harm in it, I know," returned Rob, with the same distrustful glance at the packer's and the bottle-maker's, and the church; "but blabbing, if it's only about the number of buttons on my master's coat, won't do. I tell you it won't do with him. A cove had better drown himself. He says so. I shouldn't have so much as told you what his name was, if you hadn't known it. Talk about somebody else."

As Rob took another cautious survey of the yard, the old woman made a secret motion to her daughter. It was momentary, but the daughter, with a slight look of intelligence, withdrew her eyes from the boy's face, and sat folded in her cloak as before.

"Rob, lovey?" said the old woman, beckoning him to the other end of the bench. "You were always a pet and favorite of mine. Now, weren't you? Don't you know you were?" "Yes, Misses Brown," replied the Grinder, with a very bad

grace.

"And you could leave me!" said the old woman, flinging her arms about his neck. "You could go away, and grow almost out of knowledge, and never come to tell your poor old friend how fortunate you were, proud lad! Oho, Oho!"

"Oh here's a dreadful go for a cove that's got a master wide awake in the neighborhood!" exclaimed the wretched Grinder. "To be howled over like this here!"

"Won't you come and see me, Robby ?" cried Mrs. Brown. "Oho, won't you ever come and see me?"

"Yes, I tell you! Yes, I will!" returned the Grinder.

"That's my own Rob! That's my lovey!" said Mrs. Brown, drying the tears upon her shrivelled face, and giving him a tender squeeze. "At the old place, Rob?"

"Yes," replied the Grinder.

"Soon, Robby dear?" cried Mrs. Brown; "and often?" "Yes. Yes. Yes," replied Rob. "I will, indeed, upon my soul and body."

"And then," said Mrs. Brown, with her arms uplifted towards the sky, and her head thrown back and shaking, "if he's true to

his word, I'll never come a-near him, though I know where he is, and never breathe a syllable about him! Never!"

This ejaculation seemed a drop of comfort to the miserable Grinder, who shook Mrs. Brown by the hand upon it, and implored her, with tears in his eyes, to leave a cove and not destroy his prospects. Mrs. Brown, with another fond embrace, assented; but in the act of following her daughter, turned back, with her finger stealthily raised, and asked in a hoarse whisper for some money.

"A shilling, dear!" she said, with her eager, avaricious face, "or sixpence! for old acquaintance sake. I'm so poor. And my handsome gal"-looking over her shoulder-" She's my gal, Rob-half starves me.'

But as the reluctant Grinder put it in her hand, her daughter, coming quietly back, caught the hand in her's, and twisted out the coin.

"What," she said, first, and to the last. here. Take it!"

"mother! always money! money from the Do you mind so little what I said but now?

The old woman uttered a moan as the money was restored, but without in any other way opposing its restoration, hobbled at her daughter's side out of the yard, and along the bye street upon which it opened. The astonished and dismayed Rob staring after them, saw that they stopped, and fell to earnest conversation very soon; and more than once observed a darkly threatening action of the younger woman's hand (obviously having reference to some one of whom they spoke), and a crooning feeble imitation of it on the part of Mrs. Brown, that made him earnestly hope he might not be the subject of their discourse.

With the present consolation that they were gone, and with the prospective comfort that Mrs. Brown could not live for ever, and was not likely to live long to trouble him, the Grinder, not otherwise regretting his misdeeds than as they were attended with such disagreeable incidental consequences, composed his ruffled features to a more serene expression by thinking of the admirable manner in which he had disposed of Captain Cuttle (a reflection that seldom failed to put him in a flow of spirits), and went to the Dombey Counting House to receive his master's orders.

There, his master, so subtle and vigilant of eye, that Rob quaked before him, more than half expecting to be taxed with Mrs. Brown, gave him the usual morning's box of papers for Mr. Dombey, and a note for Mrs. Dombey: merely nodding hist head as an enjoinder to be careful, and to use dispatch-a mysterious admonition, fraught in the Grinder's imagination with dismal warnings and threats; and more powerful with him than any words.

Alone again, in his own room, Mr. Carker applied himself to work, and worked all day. He saw many visitors; overlooked a number of documents; went in and out, to and from, sundry places of mercantile resort; and indulged in no more abstraction until the day's business was done. But, when the usual clearance of papers from his table was made at last, he fell into his thoughtful mood once more.

He was standing in his accustomed place and attitude, with his eyes intently fixed upon the ground, when his brother entered to bring back some letters that had been taken out in the course of the day. He put them quietly on the table, and was going immediately, when Mr. Carker, the Manager, whose eyes had rested on him, on his entrance, as if they had all this time had him for the subject of their contemplation, instead of the officefloor, said:

"Well, John Carker, and what brings you here?"

His brother pointed to the letters, and was again withdrawing. "I wonder," said the Manager, "that you can come and go, without inquiring how our master is."

"We had word this morning, in the counting-house, that Mr. Dombey was doing well," replied his brother.

"You are such a meek fellow," said the Manager, with a smile, "but you have grown so, in the course of years-that if any harm come to him, you'd be miserable, I dare swear

now."

"I should be truly sorry, James," returned the other.

"He would be sorry!" said the Manager, pointing at him, as if there were some other person present to whom he was appealing. "He would be truly sorry! This brother of mine! This junior of the place, this slighted piece of lumber, pushed aside with his face to the wall, like a rotten picture, and left so, for

Heaven knows how many years; he's all gratitude and respect, and devotion too, he would have me believe !"

"I would have you believe nothing, James," returned the other. "Be as just to me as you would to any other man below you. You ask a question, and I answer it."

“And have you nothing, Spaniel," said the Manager, with unusual irascibility, "to complain of in him? No proud treatment to resent, no insolence, no foolery of state, no exaction of any sort! What the devil! are you man or mouse?"

"It would be strange if any two persons could be together for so many years, especially as superior and inferior, without each having something to complain of in the other-as he thought, at all events," replied John Carker. "But apart from my history here"

"His history here!" exclaimed the Manager. "Why, there it is. The very fact that makes him an extreme case, puts him out of the whole chapter! Well ?"

"Apart from that, which, as you hint, gives me a reason to be thankful that I alone (happily for all the rest) possess, surely there is no one in the house who would not say and feel at least as much. You do not think that anybody here would be indifferent to a mischance or misfortune happening to the head of the house, or anything than truly sorry for it?"

"You have good reason to be bound to him too!" said the Manager, contemptuously. "Why, don't you believe that you are kept here, as a cheap example, and a famous instance of the clemency of Dombey and Son, redoundiag to the credit of the illustrious House ?"

"No," replied his brother, mildly, "I have long believed that I am kept here for more kind and disinterested reasons.

"But you were going," said the Manager, with the snarl of a tiger-cat, "to recite some Christian precept, I observed."

"Nay, James,” returned the other, "though the tie of brotherhood between us has been long broken and thrown away—” "Who broke it, good Sir?" said the Manager.

"I, by my misconduct. I do not charge it upon you.”

The Manager replied, with that mute action of his bristling. mouth, “Oh, you don't charge it upon me!" and bade him go on. "I say, though there is not that tie between us, do not, I

entreat, assail me with unnecessary taunts, or misinterpret what' I say, or would say. I was only going to suggest to you that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you, who have been selected here, above all others, for advancement, confidence, and distinction (selected, in the beginning, I know, for your great ability and trustfulness), and who communicate more freely with Mr. Dombey than any one, and stand, it may be said, on equal terms with him, and have been favored and enriched by him— that it would be a mistake to suppose that it is only you who are tender of his welfare and reputation. There is no one in the House, from yourself down to the lowest, I sincerely believe, who does not participate in that feeling."

"You lie!" said the Manager, red with sudden anger. "You're a hypocrite, John Carker, and you lie !”

"What do

"James!" cried the other, flushing in his turn. you mean by these insulting words? Why do you so basely use them to me, unprovoked?"

"I tell you," said the Manager, "that your hypocrisy and meekness—that all the hypocrisy and meekness of this place— is not worth that to me," snapping his thumb and finger, "and that I see through it as if it were air! There is not a man employed here, standing between myself and the lowest in place (of whom you are very considerate, and with reason, for he is not far off), who wouldn't be glad at heart to see his master humbled: who does not hate him, secretly who does not wish him evil rather than good: and who would not turn upon him, if he had the power and boldness. The nearer to his favor, the nearer to his insolence; the closer to him, the further from him. That's the creed here!"

"I don't know," said his brother, whose roused feelings had soon yielded to surprise, "who may have abused your ear with such representations; or why you have chosen to try me, rather than another. But that you have been trying me, and tampering with me, I am now sure. You have a different manner and a different aspect from any that I ever saw in you. I will only say to you, once more, you are deceived."

"I know I am," said the Manager. "I have told you so.' "Not by me," returned his brother. "By your informant, if you have one. If not, by your own thoughts and suspicions."