Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think they were making holiday indeed.

"Wal'r!" he said, arranging his hair (which was thin) with his hook, and then pointing it at the Instrument-maker, "Look at him! Love! Honor! And obey! Overhaul your catechism till you find that passage, and when found turn the leaf down. Success, my boy!"

He was so perfectly satisfied both with his quotation and his reference to it, that he could not help repeating the words again in a low voice, and saying he had forgotten 'em these forty year.

"But I never wanted two or three words in my life that I didn't know where to lay my hand upon 'em, Gills," he observed. "It comes of not wasting language as some do." The reflection perhaps reminded him that he had better, like young Norval's father, “increase his store." At any rate he became silent, and remained so, until old Sol went out into the shop to light it up, when he turned to Walter, and said, without any introductory remark:

"I suppose he could make a clock if he tried ?" "I shouldn't wonder, Captain Cuttle,” returned the boy.

"And it would go!" said Captain Cuttle, making a species of serpent in the air with his hook. "Lord, how that clock would go!"

For a moment or two he seemed quite lost in contemplating the pace of this ideal time-piece, and sat looking at the boy as if his face were the dial.

"Look

"But he's chock-full of science," he observed, waving his hook toward the stock in trade. 'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em. Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll do it for you."

It may be gathered from these remarks that Captain Cuttle's reverence for the stock of instruments was profound, and that his philosophy knew little or no distinction between trading in it and inventing it.

"Ah!" he said, with a sigh, "it's a fine thing to understand 'em. And yet it's a fine thing not to understand 'em. I hardly know which is best. It's so comfortable to sit here and feel that you might be weighed, measured, magnified, electrified, polarized, played the very devil with: and never know how."

Nothing short of the wonderful Madeira, combined with the occasion (which rendered it desirable to improve and expand Walter's mind), could have ever loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to this prodigious oration. He seemed quite amazed himself at the manner in which it opened up to view the sources of the taciturn delight he had had in eating Sunday dinners in that parlor for ten years. Becoming a sadder and a wiser man, he mused and held his peace.

"Come!" cried the subject of his admiration, returning. "Before you have your glass of grog, Ned, we must finish the bottle."

"Stand by!" said Ned, filling his glass. "Give the boy some more."

"No more, thank'ee, uncle!"

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Yes, yes," said Sol, "a little more.

We'll finish the bottle, to the House, Ned-Walter's house. Why it may be his house one of these days, in part. Who knows? Sir Richard Whittington married his master's daughter."

"Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London, and when you are old you will never depart from it," interposed the captain. "Wal'r! Overhaul the book, my lad."

"And although Mr. Dombey hasn't a daughter," Sol began.

"Yes, yes, he has, uncle," said the boy, reddening and laughing.

"Has he?" cried the old man. "Indeed I think he has too."

"Some of

"Oh! I know he has," said the boy. 'em were talking about it in the office to-day. And they do say, uncle and Captain Cuttle," lowering his voice, "that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's left, unnoticed, among the servants, and that his mind's so set all the while upon having his son in the House, that although he's only a baby now, he is going to have balances struck oftener than formerly, and the books kept closer than they used to | be, and has even been seen (when he thought he wasn't), walking in the Docks, looking at his ships and property and all that, as if he was exulting like, over what he and his son will possess together. That's what they say. Of course I don't know."

"He knows all about her already, you see," said the Instrument-maker.

"Nonsense, uncle," cried the boy, still reddening and laughing, boy-like. "How can I help hearing what they tell me?"

"The Son's a little in our way at present, I'm afraid, Ned," said the old man, humoring the joke. "Very much," said the captain.

"Nevertheless, we'll drink him," pursued Sol. "So, here's to Dombey and Son."

L

CHAPTER V.

PAUL'S PROGRESS AND CHRISTENING. ITTLE PAUL suffering no contamination, from the blood of the Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so far appreciated by Mr. Dombey that he began to regard her as a woman of great natural good sense, whose feelings did her credit and deserved encouragement. He was so lavish of this condescension, that he not only bowed to her, in a particular manner, on several occasions, but even intrusted such stately recognitions of her to his sister as "pray tell your friend, Louisa, that she is very good," or "mention to Miss Tox, Louisa, that I am obliged to her;" specialties which made a deep impression on the lady thus distinguished.

Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs. Chick, that "nothing could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of that sweet child;" and an observer of Miss Tox's proceedings might have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and toilet, she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of infantine doses of physic awakened all the active sympathy of her character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither she had fled in modesty), when Mr. Dombey was introduced into the nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation for bed, taking a short walk up-hill over Richards's gown, in a short and airy linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant present as to be unable to refrain from crying out, "Is he not beautiful, Mr. Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, sir!" and then almost sinking behind the closet door with confusion and blushes.

"Louisa," said Mr. Dombey, one day to his sister, "I really think I must present your friend with some little token, on the occasion of Paul's christening She has exerted herself so warmly in the child's behalf from the first, and seems to understand her position so thoroughly (a very rare merit in this world, I am sorry to say), that it would really be agreeable to me to notice her."

Let it be no detraction from the merits of Miss Tox, to hint that in Mr. Dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. It was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before him.

"My dear Paul," returned his sister, "you do Miss Tox but justice, as a man of your penetration was sure, I knew, to do. I believe if there are three words in the English language for which she has a respect amounting almost to veneration, those words are, Dombey and Son."

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less objection to allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as deputy and proxy for some one else. That it would be received as a great honor and distinction, Paul, I need not say."

"Louisa," said Mr. Dombey, after a short pause, "it is not to be supposed-"

"Certainly not," cried Mrs. Chick, hastening to anticipate a refusal, "I never thought it was.” Mr. Dombey looked at her impatiently. "Don't flurry me, my dear Paul," said his sister; "for that destroys me. I am far from strong. I have not been quite myself since poor dear Fanny departed."

Mr. Dombey glanced at the pocket-handkerchief which his sister applied to her eyes, and resumed: "It is not to be supposed, I say—"

"And I say," murmured Mrs. Chick, "that I never thought it was.”

"Good Heaven, Louisa!" said Mr. Dombey.

"No, my dear Paul," she remonstrated with tearful dignity, "I must really be allowed to speak. I am not so clever, or so reasoning, or so eloquent, or so any thing, as you are. I know that very well. So much the worse for me. But if they were the last words I had to utter-and last words should be very solemn to you and me, Paul, after poor dear Fanny-I should still say I never thought it was. what is more," added Mrs. Chick with increased dignity, as if she had withheld her crushing argument until now, "I never did think it was."

And

Mr. Dombey walked to the window and back again. "It is not to be supposed, Louisa," he said (Mrs. Chick had nailed her colors to the mast, and repeated "I know it isn't," but he took no notice of it), "but that there are many persons who, supposing that I recognized any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me superior to Miss Tox's. But I do not. I recognize no such thing. Paul and myself will be able, when the time comes, to hold our own-the house, in other words, will be able to hold its own, and maintain its own, and hand down its own of itself, and without any such commonplace aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek for their children, I can afford to despise; being above

"And as to any thing in the shape of a token, my dear Paul," pursued his sister, "all I can say is that any thing you give Miss Tox will be hoarded and prized, I am sure, like a relic. But there is a way, my dear Paul, of showing your sense of Miss Tox's friendliness in a still more flattering and acceptable manner, if you should be so inclined."

"How is that?" asked Mr. Dombey. "Godfathers, of course," continued Mrs. Chick," are important in point of connection and influence." "I don't know why they should be, to my son," said Mr. Dombey, coldly.

"Very true, my dear Paul," retorted Mrs. Chick, with an extraordinary show of animation, to cover the suddenness of her conversion; "and spoken like yourself. I might have expected nothing else from you. I might have known that such would have been your opinion. Perhaps ;" here Mrs. Chick flattered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way; "perhaps that is a reason why you might have the

away well, and I see him becoming qualified without waste of time for the career on which he is destined to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends he pleases in after life, when he is actively maintaining—and extending, if that is possible— the dignity and credit of the Firm. Until then, I am enough for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no wish that people should step in between us. I would much rather show my sense of the obliging conduct of a deserving person like your friend. Therefore let it be so; and your husband and myself will do well enough for the other sponsors, I dare say."

In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and grandeur, Mr. Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his breast. An indescribable distrust of any body stepping in between himself and his son; a haughty dread of having any rival or partner in the boy's respect and deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired, that he was not infallible in his power of bending and binding human wills; as sharp a jealousy of any second check or

cross; these were, at that time, the master-keys of his soul. In all his life, he had never made a friend. His cold and distant nature had neither sought one, nor found one. And now, when that nature concentrated its whole force so strongly on a partial scheme of parental interest and ambition, it seemed as if its icy current, instead of being released by this influence, and running clear and free, had thawed for but an instant to admit its burden, and then frozen with it into one unyielding block.

Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her insignificance, Miss Tox was from that hour chosen and appointed to office; and Mr. Dombey further signified his pleasure that the ceremony, already long delayed, should take place with out further postponement. His sister, who had been far from anticipating so signal a success, withdrew as soon as she could, to communicate it to her best of friends; and Mr. Dombey was left alone in his library.

There was any thing but solitude in the nursery; for there, Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the disgust of Miss Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every opportunity of making wry faces behind the door. Her feelings were so much excited on the occasion, that she found it indispensable to afford them this relief, even without having the comfort of any audience or sympathy whatever. As the knight-errants of old relieved their minds by carving their mistress's names in deserts, and wildernesses, and other savage places | where there was no probability of there ever being any body to read them, so did Miss Susan Nipper curl her snub-nose into drawers and wardrobes, put away winks of disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into stone pitchers, and contradict and call names out in the passage.

The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young lady's sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of undressing, airy exercise, supper, and bed; and then sat down to tea before the fire. The two children now lay, through the good offices of Polly, in one room; and it was not until the ladies were established at their tea-table that, happening to look toward the little beds, they thought of Florence.

"How sound she sleeps!" said Miss Tox. "Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the course of the day," returned Mrs. Chick, "playing about little Paul so much." "She is a curious child," said Miss Tox.

gain on her papa in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is so very unlike a Dombey ?" Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument as that, at all.

"And the child, you see," said Mrs. Chick, in deep confidence, "has poor Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after life, I'll venture to say. Never! She'll never wind and twine herself about her papa's heart like-"

"Never!

"Like the ivy?" suggested Miss Tox. "Like the ivy," Mrs. Chick assented. She'll never glide and nestle into the bosom of her papa's affections like-the-"

"Startled fawn?" suggested Miss Tox.

"Like the startled fawn," said Mrs. Chick. "Never! Poor Fanny! Yet, how I loved her!"

"You must not distress yourself, my dear," said Miss Tox, in a soothing voice. "Now really! You have too much feeling."

"We have all our faults," said Mrs. Chick, weeping, and shaking her head. "I dare say we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I was. Far from it. Yet how I loved her!"

What a satisfaction it was to Mrs. Chick-a commonplace piece of folly enough, compared with whom her sister-in-law had been a very angel of womanly intelligence and gentleness-to patronize and be tender to the memory of that lady: in exact pursuance of her conduct to her in her lifetime and to thoroughly believe herself, and take herself in, and make herself uncommonly comfortable on the strength of her toleration! What a mighty pleasant virtue toleration should be when we are right, to be so very pleasant when we are wrong, and quite unable to demonstrate how we come to be invested with the privilege of exercising it!

Mrs. Chick was yet drying her eyes and shaking her head, when Richards made bold to cantion her that Miss Florence was awake and sitting in her bed. She had risen, as the nurse said, and the lashes of her eyes were wet with tears. But no one saw them glistening save Polly. No one else leaned over her, and whispered soothing words to her, or was near enough to hear the flutter of her beating heart. "Oh! dear nurse!". said the child, looking earnestly up in her face, "let me lie by my brother!" Why, my pet?" said Richards.

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"Oh! I think he loves me," cried the child, wildly. "Let me lie by him. Pray do!"

Mrs. Chick interposed with some motherly words about going to sleep like a dear, but Florence re

"Indeed!" said Miss Tox. "Ah dear me!"

A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though she had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.

"Florence will never, never, never, be a Dombey," said Mrs. Chick, "not if she lives to be a thousand years old."

in a voice broken by sobs and tears.

"I'll not wake him," she said, covering her face and hanging down her head. "I'll only touch him with my hand, and go to sleep. Oh, pray, pray, let me lie by my brother to-night, for I believe he's fond of me!"

Richards took her without a word, and carrying her to the little bed in which the infant was sleep

"I quite fret and worry myself about her," said Mrs. Chick, with a sigh of modest merit. "I really don't see what is to become of her when she grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't

him as she could without disturbing his rest; and stretching out one arm so that it timidly embraced his neck, and hiding her face on the other, over which her damp and scattered hair fell loose, lay motionless.

"Poor little thing," said Miss Tox; "she has been dreaming, I dare say."

This trivial incident had so interrupted the current of conversation, that it was difficult of resumption; and Mrs. Chick moreover had been so affected by the contemplation of her own tolerant nature, that she was not in spirits. The two friends accordingly soon made an end of their tea, and a servant was dispatched to fetch a hackney cabriolet for Miss Tox. Miss Tox had great experience in hackney cabs, and her starting in one was generally a work of time, as she was systematic in the preparatory arrangements.

"Have the goodness, if you please, Towlinson," said Miss Tox, "first of all, to carry out a pen and ink and take his number legibly."

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istrate, and that if he gives her any of his impertinence he will be punished terribly. You can pretend to say that, if you please, Towlinson, in a friendly way, and because you know it was done to another man, who died."

"Certainly, miss," said Towlinson.

"And now good-night to my sweet, sweet, sweet, godson," said Miss Tox, with a soft shower of kisses at each repetition of the adjective; "and Louisa, my dear friend, promise me to take a little something warm before you go to bed, and not to distress yourself!"

It was with extreme difficulty that Nipper the black-eyed, who looked on steadfastly, contained herself at this crisis, and, until the subsequent departure of Mrs. Chick. But the nursery being at length

"Yes, miss," said Towlinson.

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"Then, if you please, Towlinson," said Miss Tox, "have the goodness to turn the cushion. Which," said Miss Tox apart to Mrs. Chick, "is generally damp, my dear."

"Yes, miss," said Towlinson.

"I'll trouble you also, if you please," said Miss Tox, "with this card and this shilling. He's to drive to the card, and is to understand that he will not on any account have more than the shilling." "No, miss," said Towlinson.

"And I'm sorry to give you so much trouble, Towlinson," said Miss Tox, looking at him pensively." "Not at all, miss," said Towlinson.

"Mention to the man, then, if you please, Towlinson," said Miss Tox, "that the lady's uncle is a mag

free of visitors, she made herself some recompense for her late restraint.

"You might keep me in a strait-waistcoat for six weeks," said Nipper," and when I got it off I'd only be more aggravated, who ever heard the like of them two Griffins, Mrs. Richards?"

"And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!" said Polly.

"Oh you beauties!" cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door by which the ladies had departed. "Never be a Dombey won't she? It's to be hoped she won't; we don't want any more such-one's enough."

"Don't wake the children, Susan dear," said Polly. "I'm very much beholden to you, Mrs. Richards," said Susan, who was not by any means discrimina

ting in her wrath, "and really feel it as a honor to receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter. Mrs. Richards, if there's any other orders you can give me, pray mention 'em."

"Nonsense; orders," said Polly.

"Oh! bless your heart, Mrs. Richards," cried Susan, "temporaries always orders permanencies here, didn't you know that, why wherever was you born, Mrs. Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs. Richards," pursued Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely," and whenever, and however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind, please, that it's one thing to give orders, and quite another thing to take 'em. A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head foremost into five-and-forty feet of water, Mrs. Richards, but a person may be very far from diving."

"There now," said Polly, "you're angry because you're a good little thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me, because there's nobody else."

"It's very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken, Mrs. Richards," returned Susan, slightly mollified," when their child's made as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes its friends farther; but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that never ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is run down, the case is very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you naughty, sinful child, if you don't shut your eyes this minute, I'll call in them hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat you up alive!"

Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge by covering her head with the bed-clothes, and making three or four angry dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her mouth, and sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening.

Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, "to take a deal of notice for his age,” he took as little notice of all this as of the preparations for his christening on the next day but one, which nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that of his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he, on the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its importance; being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and unusually inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed him to go out.

It happened to be an iron-gray autumnal day, with a shrewd east wind blowing-a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr. Dombey represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard and cold as the weather; and when he looked out through the glass room, at the trees in the little garden, their brown and yellow leaves came fluttering down, as if he blighted them.

Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning, like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size, and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked, in their cold, hard, slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that was a freezer. The book-case, glazed

and locked, repudiated all familiarities. Mr. Pitt, in bronze on the top, with no trace of his celestial origin about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an enchanted Moor. A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr. Dombey and his portrait at one blow, seemed fraught with melancholy meditations.

The stiff and stark fire-irons appeared to claim a nearer relationship than any thing else there to Mr. Dombey, with his buttoned coat, his white cravat, his heavy gold watch-chain, and his creaking boots. But this was before the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Chick, his lawful relatives, who soon presented themselves.

"My dear Paul," Mrs. Chick murmured, as she embraced him, "the beginning, I hope, of many joyful days!"

"Thank you, Louisa," said Mr. Dombey, grimly. "How do you do, Mr. John ?"

"How do you do, sir?" said Chick.

He gave Mr. Dombey his hand, as if he feared it might electrify him. Mr. Dombey took it as if it were a fish, or sea-weed, or some such clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with exalted politeness.

"Perhaps, Louisa," said Mr. Dombey, slightly turning his head in his cravat, as if it were a socket, "you would have preferred a fire?"

"Oh, my dear Paul, no," said Mrs. Chick, who had much ado to keep her teeth from chattering; "not for me."

"Mr. John," said Mr. Dombey, "you are not sensible of any chill?"

Mr. John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which had given Mrs. Chick so much offense on a former occasion, protested that he was perfectly comfortable.

He added, in a low voice, "With my tiddle tol toor rul"-when he was providentially stopped by Towlinson, who announced:

"Miss Tox!"

And enter that fair enslaver, with a blue nose and indescribably frosty face, referable to her being very thinly clad in a maze of fluttering odds and ends, to do honor to the ceremony.

"How do you do, Miss Tox ?" said Mr. Dombey.

Miss Tox, in the midst of her spreading gauzes, went down altogether like an opera-glass shuttingup; she courtesied so low, in acknowledgment of Mr. Dombey's advancing a step or two to meet her.

“I can never forget this occasion, sir," said Miss Tox, softly. "Tis impossible. My dear Louisa, I can hardly believe the evidence of my senses."

If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was a very cold day. That was quite clear. She took an early opportunity of promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly chafing it with her pocket-handkerchief, lest, by its very low temperature, it should disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to kiss it.

The baby soon appeared, carried in great glory by Richards; while Florence, in custody of that active young constable, Susan Nipper, brought up the rear. Though the whole nursery party were dressed by