Little 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
entrusted 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;' specialities which made a deep
impression on the lady thus distinguished.

Whether Miss Tox conceived that having been selected by the Fates
to welcome the little Dombey before he was born, in Kirby, Beard and
Kirby's Best Mixed Pins, it therefore naturally devolved upon her to
greet him with all other forms of welcome in all other early stages
of his existence--or whether her overflowing goodness induced her to
volunteer into the domestic militia as a substitute in some sort for his
deceased Mama--or whether she was conscious of any other motives--are
questions which in this stage of the Firm's history herself only could
have solved. Nor have they much bearing on the fact (of which there
is no doubt), that Miss Tox's constancy and zeal were a heavy
discouragement to Richards, who lost flesh hourly under her patronage,
and was in some danger of being superintended to death.

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 toilette,
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
uphill 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.'

'Well,' said Mr Dombey, 'I believe it. It does Miss Tox credit.'

'And as to anything in the shape of a token, my dear Paul,' pursued
his sister, 'all I can say is that anything 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
connexion 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 faltered again, as not quite comfortably feeling her way;
'perhaps that is a reason why you might have the less objection to
allowing Miss Tox to be godmother to the dear thing, if it were only as
deputy and proxy for someone else. That it would be received as a great
honour 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 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 anything, 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 would still say I never thought it was. And 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.'

Mr Dombey walked to the window and back again.

'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed her
colours 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 recognised any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me
superior to Miss Tox's. But I do not. I recognise 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 common-place
aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek for their
children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope. So that
Paul's infancy and childhood pass 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
daresay.'

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 anybody 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 without 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. He had already laid his
hand upon the bellrope to convey his usual summons to Richards, when his
eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his deceased wife, which had
been taken, among other things, from a cabinet in her chamber. It was
not the first time that his eye had lighted on it He carried the key
in his pocket; and he brought it to his table and opened it now--having
previously locked the room door--with a well-accustomed hand.

From beneath a leaf of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one
letter that remained entire. Involuntarily holding his breath as he
opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something of
his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand,
and read it through.

He read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity
to every syllable. Otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed
unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed
no sign of emotion to escape him. When he had read it through, he
folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into
fragments. Checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put
them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances
of being re-united and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for
little Paul, he sat solitary, all the evening, in his cheerless room.

There was anything 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 anybody 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 towards 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.

'My dear,' retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: 'Her Mama, all over!'

'In-deed!' 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.'

Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of commiseration.

'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 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
dear 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--'

'Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox.

'Like the ivy,' Mrs Chick assented. 'Never! 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 daresay 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 common-place piece of folly
enough, compared with whom her sister-in-law had been a very angel of
womanly intelligence and gentleness--to patronise 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 caution 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
leant 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.

'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 repeated her supplication, with a frightened look,
and 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 sleeping, laid her down by his side. She crept as
near 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 daresay.'

Dreaming, perhaps, of loving tones for ever silent, of loving eyes for
ever closed, of loving arms again wound round her, and relaxing in that
dream within the dam which no tongue can relate. Seeking, perhaps--in
dreams--some natural comfort for a heart, deeply and sorely wounded,
though so young a child's: and finding it, perhaps, in dreams, if not
in waking, cold, substantial truth. 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 despatched 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.'

'Yes, Miss,' said Towlinson.

'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, Towlinson,' 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 magistrate, 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 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 discriminating in her wrath, 'and really feel it as a
honour 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 further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that never
ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is rundown, 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 bedclothes, 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-grey 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 bookcase, 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 anything 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 seaweed, 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 offence 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 honour 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 shutting-up; she curtseyed 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
this time in lighter mourning than at first, there was enough in the
appearance of the bereaved children to make the day no brighter. The
baby too--it might have been Miss Tox's nose--began to cry. Thereby, as
it happened, preventing Mr Chick from the awkward fulfilment of a very
honest purpose he had; which was, to make much of Florence. For this
gentleman, insensible to the superior claims of a perfect Dombey
(perhaps on account of having the honour to be united to a Dombey
himself, and being familiar with excellence), really liked her, and
showed that he liked her, and was about to show it in his own way now,
when Paul cried, and his helpmate stopped him short--

'Now Florence, child!' said her aunt, briskly, 'what are you doing,
love? Show yourself to him. Engage his attention, my dear!'

The atmosphere became or might have become colder and colder, when Mr
Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping her
hands, and standing on tip-toe before the throne of his son and heir,
lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her. Some
honest act of Richards's may have aided the effect, but he did look
down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he
followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry to
him, he sprang up and crowed lustily--laughing outright when she ran in
upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands, while she
smothered him with kisses.

Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the
relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were
unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the
children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so
fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the laughing
eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet his.

It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute's pause and
silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his hat
and gloves. 'Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss Tox's.
You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very careful.'

In Mr Dombey's carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick, Richards,
and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan Nipper and the
owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without intermission, as
a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the large face of that
gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled that he was putting up
in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment for herself.

Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the
amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss
Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief difference
between the christening party and a party in a mourning coach consisted
in the colours of the carriage and horses.

Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous beadle.
Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and standing near
him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A beadle less
gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life; the beadle of
our business and our bosoms.

Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey's arm,
and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and
a Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn
institution, 'Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?' 'Yes, I will.'

'Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,' whispered the
beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.

Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet 'into my grave?' so chill and
earthy was the place. The tall, shrouded pulpit and reading desk; the
dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the galleries,
and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the shadow of the
great grim organ; the dusty matting and cold stone slabs; the grisly
free seats in the aisles; and the damp corner by the bell-rope, where
the black trestles used for funerals were stowed away, along with some
shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of deadly-looking rope; the
strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and the cadaverous light; were
all in unison. It was a cold and dismal scene.

'There's a wedding just on, Sir,' said the beadle, 'but it'll be over
directly, if you'll walk into the westry here.'

Before he turned again to lead the way, he gave Mr Dombey a bow and a
half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered to
have had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife, and
hoped he had enjoyed himself since.

The very wedding looked dismal as they passed in front of the altar. The
bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a superannuated beau
with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in its blank companion, was giving
away the lady, while the friends were shivering. In the vestry the fire
was smoking; and an over-aged and over-worked and under-paid attorney's
clerk, 'making a search,' was running his forefinger down the parchment
pages of an immense register (one of a long series of similar volumes)
gorged with burials. Over the fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults
underneath the church; and Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of
it aloud, by way of enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs
Dombey's tomb in full, before he could stop himself.

After another cold interval, a wheezy little pew-opener afflicted with
an asthma, appropriate to the churchyard, if not to the church, summoned
them to the font--a rigid marble basin which seemed to have been playing
a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact pedestal, and
to have been just that moment caught on the top of it. Here they waited
some little time while the marriage party enrolled themselves; and
meanwhile the wheezy little pew-opener--partly in consequence of her
infirmity, and partly that the marriage party might not forget her--went
about the building coughing like a grampus.

Presently the clerk (the only cheerful-looking object there, and he was
an undertaker) came up with a jug of warm water, and said something, as
he poured it into the font, about taking the chill off; which millions
of gallons boiling hot could not have done for the occasion. Then the
clergyman, an amiable and mild-looking young curate, but obviously
afraid of the baby, appeared like the principal character in a
ghost-story, 'a tall figure all in white;' at sight of whom Paul rent
the air with his cries, and never left off again till he was taken out
black in the face.

Even when that event had happened, to the great relief of everybody,
he was heard under the portico, during the rest of the ceremony, now
fainter, now louder, now hushed, now bursting forth again with an
irrepressible sense of his wrongs. This so distracted the attention of
the two ladies, that Mrs Chick was constantly deploying into the centre
aisle, to send out messages by the pew-opener, while Miss Tox kept her
Prayer-book open at the Gunpowder Plot, and occasionally read responses
from that service.

During the whole of these proceedings, Mr Dombey remained as impassive
and gentlemanly as ever, and perhaps assisted in making it so cold, that
the young curate smoked at the mouth as he read. The only time that he
unbent his visage in the least, was when the clergyman, in delivering
(very unaffectedly and simply) the closing exhortation, relative to the
future examination of the child by the sponsors, happened to rest his
eye on Mr Chick; and then Mr Dombey might have been seen to express by a
majestic look, that he would like to catch him at it.

It might have been well for Mr Dombey, if he had thought of his own
dignity a little less; and had thought of the great origin and purpose
of the ceremony in which he took so formal and so stiff a part, a little
more. His arrogance contrasted strangely with its history.

When it was all over, he again gave his arm to Miss Tox, and conducted
her to the vestry, where he informed the clergyman how much pleasure
it would have given him to have solicited the honour of his company
at dinner, but for the unfortunate state of his household affairs. The
register signed, and the fees paid, and the pew-opener (whose cough was
very bad again) remembered, and the beadle gratified, and the sexton
(who was accidentally on the doorsteps, looking with great interest at
the weather) not forgotten, they got into the carriage again, and drove
home in the same bleak fellowship.

There they found Mr Pitt turning up his nose at a cold collation, set
forth in a cold pomp of glass and silver, and looking more like a dead
dinner lying in state than a social refreshment. On their arrival Miss
Tox produced a mug for her godson, and Mr Chick a knife and fork and
spoon in a case. Mr Dombey also produced a bracelet for Miss Tox; and,
on the receipt of this token, Miss Tox was tenderly affected.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, 'will you take the bottom of the table, if
you please? What have you got there, Mr John?'

'I have got a cold fillet of veal here, Sir,' replied Mr Chick, rubbing
his numbed hands hard together. 'What have you got there, Sir?'

'This,' returned Mr Dombey, 'is some cold preparation of calf's head, I
think. I see cold fowls--ham--patties--salad--lobster. Miss Tox will do
me the honour of taking some wine? Champagne to Miss Tox.'

There was a toothache in everything. The wine was so bitter cold that it
forced a little scream from Miss Tox, which she had great difficulty in
turning into a 'Hem!' The veal had come from such an airy pantry, that
the first taste of it had struck a sensation as of cold lead to Mr
Chick's extremities. Mr Dombey alone remained unmoved. He might have
been hung up for sale at a Russian fair as a specimen of a frozen
gentleman.

The prevailing influence was too much even for his sister. She made
no effort at flattery or small talk, and directed all her efforts to
looking as warm as she could.

'Well, Sir,' said Mr Chick, making a desperate plunge, after a long
silence, and filling a glass of sherry; 'I shall drink this, if you'll
allow me, Sir, to little Paul.'

'Bless him!' murmured Miss Tox, taking a sip of wine.

'Dear little Dombey!' murmured Mrs Chick.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, with severe gravity, 'my son would feel and
express himself obliged to you, I have no doubt, if he could appreciate
the favour you have done him. He will prove, in time to come, I trust,
equal to any responsibility that the obliging disposition of his
relations and friends, in private, or the onerous nature of our
position, in public, may impose upon him.'

The tone in which this was said admitting of nothing more, Mr Chick
relapsed into low spirits and silence. Not so Miss Tox, who, having
listened to Mr Dombey with even a more emphatic attention than usual,
and with a more expressive tendency of her head to one side, now leant
across the table, and said to Mrs Chick softly:

'Louisa!'

'My dear,' said Mrs Chick.

'Onerous nature of our position in public may--I have forgotten
the exact term.'

'Expose him to,' said Mrs Chick.

'Pardon me, my dear,' returned Miss Tox, 'I think not. It was more
rounded and flowing. Obliging disposition of relations and friends in
private, or onerous nature of position in public--may--impose upon him!'

'Impose upon him, to be sure,' said Mrs Chick.

Miss Tox struck her delicate hands together lightly, in triumph; and
added, casting up her eyes, 'eloquence indeed!'

Mr Dombey, in the meanwhile, had issued orders for the attendance of
Richards, who now entered curtseying, but without the baby; Paul being
asleep after the fatigues of the morning. Mr Dombey, having delivered a
glass of wine to this vassal, addressed her in the following words: Miss
Tox previously settling her head on one side, and making other little
arrangements for engraving them on her heart.

'During the six months or so, Richards, which have seen you an inmate
of this house, you have done your duty. Desiring to connect some little
service to you with this occasion, I considered how I could best effect
that object, and I also advised with my sister, Mrs--'

'Chick,' interposed the gentleman of that name.

'Oh, hush if you please!' said Miss Tox.

'I was about to say to you, Richards,' resumed Mr Dombey, with an
appalling glance at Mr John, 'that I was further assisted in my
decision, by the recollection of a conversation I held with your husband
in this room, on the occasion of your being hired, when he disclosed to
me the melancholy fact that your family, himself at the head, were sunk
and steeped in ignorance.'

Richards quailed under the magnificence of the reproof.

'I am far from being friendly,' pursued Mr Dombey, 'to what is called by
persons of levelling sentiments, general education. But it is necessary
that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to know their
position, and to conduct themselves properly. So far I approve of
schools. Having the power of nominating a child on the foundation of an
ancient establishment, called (from a worshipful company) the Charitable
Grinders; where not only is a wholesome education bestowed upon the
scholars, but where a dress and badge is likewise provided for them;
I have (first communicating, through Mrs Chick, with your family)
nominated your eldest son to an existing vacancy; and he has this day, I
am informed, assumed the habit. The number of her son, I believe,' said
Mr Dombey, turning to his sister and speaking of the child as if he were
a hackney-coach, is one hundred and forty-seven. Louisa, you can tell
her.'

'One hundred and forty-seven,' said Mrs Chick 'The dress, Richards, is
a nice, warm, blue baize tailed coat and cap, turned up with orange
coloured binding; red worsted stockings; and very strong leather
small-clothes. One might wear the articles one's self,' said Mrs Chick,
with enthusiasm, 'and be grateful.'

'There, Richards!' said Miss Tox. 'Now, indeed, you may be proud. The
Charitable Grinders!'

'I am sure I am very much obliged, Sir,' returned Richards faintly, 'and
take it very kind that you should remember my little ones.' At the same
time a vision of Biler as a Charitable Grinder, with his very small legs
encased in the serviceable clothing described by Mrs Chick, swam before
Richards's eyes, and made them water.

'I am very glad to see you have so much feeling, Richards,' said Miss
Tox.

'It makes one almost hope, it really does,' said Mrs Chick, who prided
herself on taking trustful views of human nature, 'that there may yet be
some faint spark of gratitude and right feeling in the world.'

Richards deferred to these compliments by curtseying and murmuring
her thanks; but finding it quite impossible to recover her spirits from
the disorder into which they had been thrown by the image of her son in
his precocious nether garments, she gradually approached the door and
was heartily relieved to escape by it.

Such temporary indications of a partial thaw that had appeared with her,
vanished with her; and the frost set in again, as cold and hard as ever.
Mr Chick was twice heard to hum a tune at the bottom of the table, but
on both occasions it was a fragment of the Dead March in Saul. The party
seemed to get colder and colder, and to be gradually resolving itself
into a congealed and solid state, like the collation round which it was
assembled. At length Mrs Chick looked at Miss Tox, and Miss Tox returned
the look, and they both rose and said it was really time to go. Mr
Dombey receiving this announcement with perfect equanimity, they took
leave of that gentleman, and presently departed under the protection of
Mr Chick; who, when they had turned their backs upon the house and left
its master in his usual solitary state, put his hands in his pockets,
threw himself back in the carriage, and whistled 'With a hey ho chevy!'
all through; conveying into his face as he did so, an expression of such
gloomy and terrible defiance, that Mrs Chick dared not protest, or in
any way molest him.

Richards, though she had little Paul on her lap, could not forget her
own first-born. She felt it was ungrateful; but the influence of the
day fell even on the Charitable Grinders, and she could hardly help
regarding his pewter badge, number one hundred and forty-seven, as,
somehow, a part of its formality and sternness. She spoke, too, in the
nursery, of his 'blessed legs,' and was again troubled by his spectre in
uniform.

'I don't know what I wouldn't give,' said Polly, 'to see the poor little
dear before he gets used to 'em.'

'Why, then, I tell you what, Mrs Richards,' retorted Nipper, who had
been admitted to her confidence, 'see him and make your mind easy.'

'Mr Dombey wouldn't like it,' said Polly.

'Oh, wouldn't he, Mrs Richards!' retorted Nipper, 'he'd like it very
much, I think when he was asked.'

'You wouldn't ask him, I suppose, at all?' said Polly.

'No, Mrs Richards, quite contrairy,' returned Susan, 'and them two
inspectors Tox and Chick, not intending to be on duty tomorrow, as I
heard 'em say, me and Miss Floy will go along with you tomorrow morning,
and welcome, Mrs Richards, if you like, for we may as well walk there as
up and down a street, and better too.'

Polly rejected the idea pretty stoutly at first; but by little and
little she began to entertain it, as she entertained more and more
distinctly the forbidden pictures of her children, and her own home.
At length, arguing that there could be no great harm in calling for a
moment at the door, she yielded to the Nipper proposition.

The matter being settled thus, little Paul began to cry most piteously,
as if he had a foreboding that no good would come of it.

'What's the matter with the child?' asked Susan.

'He's cold, I think,' said Polly, walking with him to and fro, and
hushing him.

It was a bleak autumnal afternoon indeed; and as she walked, and hushed,
and, glancing through the dreary windows, pressed the little fellow
closer to her breast, the withered leaves came showering down.

Paul thrives, and Miss Tox takes an active interest in his growth, endearing herself to Mr. Dombey as a result. Mrs. Chick suggests that Miss Tox be made Paul's godmother, and Mr. Dombey agrees, although he makes it clear that he does not want anyone to ever act as a rival for Paul's affection and chooses Miss Tox because she is inoffensive and uninteresting. The night, Miss Tox and Mrs. Chick sit in the nursery and discuss Florence, who they believe will never gain her father's affection. Waking up and overhearing this, Florence is distressed and asks to be put in bed with her brother, because she clings to the fact that at least Paul loves her. After Miss Tox and Mrs. Chick leave, Miss Nipper expresses her anger at them for so blatantly favoring Paul. Shortly afterwards on a cold and dismal day, Paul's christening takes place. As part of the celebrations, Mr. Dombey announces that he has paid for Polly's eldest son to attend a charity school known as the Charitable Grinders. While Polly tries to be grateful, she is saddened to think of her son, whom she has not seen for a long time. Nipper suggests that she, Richards, and Florence go to visit Richards's family. Richards hesitates, but then agrees


Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for
the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have
abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for
leave to see number one hundred and forty-seven, under the awful shadow
of Mr Dombey's roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in favour
of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could bear the
disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude, could not
abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts in the way
of this second thought, and stimulated the original intention with so
many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr Dombey's stately
back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his daily road towards
the City, his unconscious son was on his way to Staggs's Gardens.

This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the
inhabitants of Staggs's Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a
designation which the Strangers' Map of London, as printed (with a
view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs,
condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two
nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards carrying
Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the hand, and
giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she considered it
wholesome to administer.

The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the
whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible
on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and
stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of
earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking,
propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and
jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural
hill; there, confused treasures of iron soaked and rusted in something
that had accidentally become a pond. Everywhere were bridges that led
nowhere; thoroughfares that were wholly impassable; Babel towers
of chimneys, wanting half their height; temporary wooden houses
and enclosures, in the most unlikely situations; carcases of ragged
tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of
scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and
tripods straddling above nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes
and substances of incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places,
upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering
in the water, and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and
fiery eruptions, the usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their
contributions of confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved
within dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames
came issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and
wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood.

In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress; and,
from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly away,
upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement.

But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or two
bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a little,
but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of it. A
bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting nothing
at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that might be rash
enterprise--and then it hoped to sell drink to the workmen. So, the
Excavators' House of Call had sprung up from a beer-shop; and the
old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the Railway Eating House,
with a roast leg of pork daily, through interested motives of a similar
immediate and popular description. Lodging-house keepers were favourable
in like manner; and for the like reasons were not to be trusted. The
general belief was very slow. There were frowzy fields, and
cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens,
and summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the
Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of
lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded
cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts,
and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses,
and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance.
Nothing was the better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable
waste ground lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it
to scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours.

Staggs's Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of
houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off
with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes;
with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into the
gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept fowls
and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat), dried
clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's Gardens
derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs, who had
built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste for the
country, held that it dated from those rural times when the antlered
herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had resorted to its
shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens was regarded by
its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by Railroads; and so
confident were they generally of its long outliving any such ridiculous
inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the corner, who was
understood to take the lead in the local politics of the Gardens, had
publicly declared that on the occasion of the Railroad opening, if ever
it did open, two of his boys should ascend the flues of his dwelling,
with instructions to hail the failure with derisive cheers from the
chimney-pots.

To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been
carefully concealed from Mr Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now
borne by Fate and Richards

'That's my house, Susan,' said Polly, pointing it out.

'Is it, indeed, Mrs Richards?' said Susan, condescendingly.

'And there's my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare' cried Polly,
'with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!'

The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly's impatience,
that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing on Jemima,
changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable astonishment
of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys seemed to have
fallen from the clouds.

'Why, Polly!' cried Jemima. 'You! what a turn you have given me! who'd
have thought it! come along in Polly! How well you do look to be sure!
The children will go half wild to see you Polly, that they will.'

That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the
way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in the
chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately the
centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks close
to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to Polly, she
was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was not until she
was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all about her flushed
face, and her new christening attire was very much dishevelled, that any
pause took place in the confusion. Even then, the smallest Toodle but
one remained in her lap, holding on tight with both arms round her neck;
while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on the back of the chair, and
made desperate efforts, with one leg in the air, to kiss her round the
corner.

'Look! there's a pretty little lady come to see you,' said Polly; 'and
see how quiet she is! what a beautiful little lady, ain't she?'

This reference to Florence, who had been standing by the door not
unobservant of what passed, directed the attention of the younger
branches towards her; and had likewise the happy effect of leading to
the formal recognition of Miss Nipper, who was not quite free from a
misgiving that she had been already slighted.

'Oh do come in and sit down a minute, Susan, please,' said Polly. 'This
is my sister Jemima, this is. Jemima, I don't know what I should ever do
with myself, if it wasn't for Susan Nipper; I shouldn't be here now but
for her.'

'Oh do sit down, Miss Nipper, if you please,' quoth Jemima.

Susan took the extreme corner of a chair, with a stately and ceremonious
aspect.

'I never was so glad to see anybody in all my life; now really I never
was, Miss Nipper,' said Jemima.

Susan relaxing, took a little more of the chair, and smiled graciously.

'Do untie your bonnet-strings, and make yourself at home, Miss Nipper,
please,' entreated Jemima. 'I am afraid it's a poorer place than you're
used to; but you'll make allowances, I'm sure.'

The black-eyed was so softened by this deferential behaviour, that
she caught up little Miss Toodle who was running past, and took her to
Banbury Cross immediately.

'But where's my pretty boy?' said Polly. 'My poor fellow? I came all
this way to see him in his new clothes.'

'Ah what a pity!' cried Jemima. 'He'll break his heart, when he hears
his mother has been here. He's at school, Polly.'

'Gone already!'

'Yes. He went for the first time yesterday, for fear he should lose any
learning. But it's half-holiday, Polly: if you could only stop till he
comes home--you and Miss Nipper, leastways,' said Jemima, mindful in
good time of the dignity of the black-eyed.

'And how does he look, Jemima, bless him!' faltered Polly.

'Well, really he don't look so bad as you'd suppose,' returned Jemima.

'Ah!' said Polly, with emotion, 'I knew his legs must be too short.'

'His legs is short,' returned Jemima; 'especially behind; but they'll get
longer, Polly, every day.'

It was a slow, prospective kind of consolation; but the cheerfulness and
good nature with which it was administered, gave it a value it did not
intrinsically possess. After a moment's silence, Polly asked, in a more
sprightly manner:

'And where's Father, Jemima dear?'--for by that patriarchal appellation,
Mr Toodle was generally known in the family.

'There again!' said Jemima. 'What a pity! Father took his dinner with
him this morning, and isn't coming home till night. But he's always
talking of you, Polly, and telling the children about you; and is the
peaceablest, patientest, best-temperedest soul in the world, as he
always was and will be!'

'Thankee, Jemima,' cried the simple Polly; delighted by the speech, and
disappointed by the absence.

'Oh you needn't thank me, Polly,' said her sister, giving her a sounding
kiss upon the cheek, and then dancing little Paul cheerfully. 'I say the
same of you sometimes, and think it too.'

In spite of the double disappointment, it was impossible to regard in
the light of a failure a visit which was greeted with such a reception;
so the sisters talked hopefully about family matters, and about Biler,
and about all his brothers and sisters: while the black-eyed, having
performed several journeys to Banbury Cross and back, took sharp note
of the furniture, the Dutch clock, the cupboard, the castle on
the mantel-piece with red and green windows in it, susceptible of
illumination by a candle-end within; and the pair of small black velvet
kittens, each with a lady's reticule in its mouth; regarded by the
Staggs's Gardeners as prodigies of imitative art. The conversation soon
becoming general lest the black-eyed should go off at score and turn
sarcastic, that young lady related to Jemima a summary of everything
she knew concerning Mr Dombey, his prospects, family, pursuits, and
character. Also an exact inventory of her personal wardrobe, and some
account of her principal relations and friends. Having relieved her mind
of these disclosures, she partook of shrimps and porter, and evinced a
disposition to swear eternal friendship.

Little Florence herself was not behind-hand in improving the occasion;
for, being conducted forth by the young Toodles to inspect some
toad-stools and other curiosities of the Gardens, she entered with them,
heart and soul, on the formation of a temporary breakwater across a
small green pool that had collected in a corner. She was still busily
engaged in that labour, when sought and found by Susan; who, such was
her sense of duty, even under the humanizing influence of shrimps,
delivered a moral address to her (punctuated with thumps) on her
degenerate nature, while washing her face and hands; and predicted that
she would bring the grey hairs of her family in general, with sorrow to
the grave. After some delay, occasioned by a pretty long confidential
interview above stairs on pecuniary subjects, between Polly and Jemima,
an interchange of babies was again effected--for Polly had all this
time retained her own child, and Jemima little Paul--and the visitors
took leave.

But first the young Toodles, victims of a pious fraud, were deluded into
repairing in a body to a chandler's shop in the neighbourhood, for the
ostensible purpose of spending a penny; and when the coast was quite
clear, Polly fled: Jemima calling after her that if they could only go
round towards the City Road on their way back, they would be sure to
meet little Biler coming from school.

'Do you think that we might make time to go a little round in that
direction, Susan?' inquired Polly, when they halted to take breath.

'Why not, Mrs Richards?' returned Susan.

'It's getting on towards our dinner time you know,' said Polly.

But lunch had rendered her companion more than indifferent to this grave
consideration, so she allowed no weight to it, and they resolved to go
'a little round.'

Now, it happened that poor Biler's life had been, since yesterday
morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. The
youth of the streets could not endure it. No young vagabond could be
brought to bear its contemplation for a moment, without throwing himself
upon the unoffending wearer, and doing him a mischief. His social
existence had been more like that of an early Christian, than an
innocent child of the nineteenth century. He had been stoned in the
streets. He had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud;
violently flattened against posts. Entire strangers to his person had
lifted his yellow cap off his head, and cast it to the winds. His legs
had not only undergone verbal criticisms and revilings, but had been
handled and pinched. That very morning, he had received a perfectly
unsolicited black eye on his way to the Grinders' establishment, and
had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old Grinder
of savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he
didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel
cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination.

Thus it fell out that Biler, on his way home, sought unfrequented
paths; and slunk along by narrow passages and back streets, to avoid
his tormentors. Being compelled to emerge into the main road, his ill
fortune brought him at last where a small party of boys, headed by a
ferocious young butcher, were lying in wait for any means of pleasurable
excitement that might happen. These, finding a Charitable Grinder in
the midst of them--unaccountably delivered over, as it were, into their
hands--set up a general yell and rushed upon him.

But it so fell out likewise, that, at the same time, Polly, looking
hopelessly along the road before her, after a good hour's walk, had said
it was no use going any further, when suddenly she saw this sight. She
no sooner saw it than, uttering a hasty exclamation, and giving Master
Dombey to the black-eyed, she started to the rescue of her unhappy
little son.

Surprises, like misfortunes, rarely come alone. The astonished Susan
Nipper and her two young charges were rescued by the bystanders from
under the very wheels of a passing carriage before they knew what had
happened; and at that moment (it was market day) a thundering alarm of
'Mad Bull!' was raised.

With a wild confusion before her, of people running up and down, and
shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad bulls
coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers being torn
to pieces, Florence screamed and ran. She ran till she was exhausted,
urging Susan to do the same; and then, stopping and wringing her hands
as she remembered they had left the other nurse behind, found, with a
sensation of terror not to be described, that she was quite alone.

'Susan! Susan!' cried Florence, clapping her hands in the very ecstasy
of her alarm. 'Oh, where are they? where are they?'

'Where are they?' said an old woman, coming hobbling across as fast as
she could from the opposite side of the way. 'Why did you run away from
'em?'

'I was frightened,' answered Florence. 'I didn't know what I did. I
thought they were with me. Where are they?'

The old woman took her by the wrist, and said, 'I'll show you.'

She was a very ugly old woman, with red rims round her eyes, and a mouth
that mumbled and chattered of itself when she was not speaking. She was
miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. She seemed to
have followed Florence some little way at all events, for she had lost
her breath; and this made her uglier still, as she stood trying to
regain it: working her shrivelled yellow face and throat into all sorts
of contortions.

Florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street, of
which she had almost reached the bottom. It was a solitary place--more a
back road than a street--and there was no one in it but her-self and the
old woman.

'You needn't be frightened now,' said the old woman, still holding her
tight. 'Come along with me.'

'I--I don't know you. What's your name?' asked Florence.

'Mrs Brown,' said the old woman. 'Good Mrs Brown.'

'Are they near here?' asked Florence, beginning to be led away.

'Susan ain't far off,' said Good Mrs Brown; 'and the others are close to
her.'

'Is anybody hurt?' cried Florence.

'Not a bit of it,' said Good Mrs Brown.

The child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the old
woman willingly; though she could not help glancing at her face as
they went along--particularly at that industrious mouth--and wondering
whether Bad Mrs Brown, if there were such a person, was at all like her.

They had not gone far, but had gone by some very uncomfortable places,
such as brick-fields and tile-yards, when the old woman turned down a
dirty lane, where the mud lay in deep black ruts in the middle of the
road. She stopped before a shabby little house, as closely shut up as
a house that was full of cracks and crevices could be. Opening the door
with a key she took out of her bonnet, she pushed the child before her
into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags of different
colours lying on the floor; a heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust
or cinders; but there was no furniture at all, and the walls and ceiling
were quite black.

The child became so terrified the she was stricken speechless, and
looked as though about to swoon.

'Now don't be a young mule,' said Good Mrs Brown, reviving her with a
shake. 'I'm not a going to hurt you. Sit upon the rags.'

Florence obeyed her, holding out her folded hands, in mute supplication.

'I'm not a going to keep you, even, above an hour,' said Mrs Brown.
'D'ye understand what I say?'

The child answered with great difficulty, 'Yes.'

'Then,' said Good Mrs Brown, taking her own seat on the bones, 'don't
vex me. If you don't, I tell you I won't hurt you. But if you do, I'll
kill you. I could have you killed at any time--even if you was in your
own bed at home. Now let's know who you are, and what you are, and all
about it.'

The old woman's threats and promises; the dread of giving her offence;
and the habit, unusual to a child, but almost natural to Florence now,
of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, and feared, and hoped;
enabled her to do this bidding, and to tell her little history, or what
she knew of it. Mrs Brown listened attentively, until she had finished.

'So your name's Dombey, eh?' said Mrs Brown.

'I want that pretty frock, Miss Dombey,' said Good Mrs Brown, 'and that
little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and anything else you can spare.
Come! Take 'em off.'

Florence obeyed, as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping,
all the while, a frightened eye on Mrs Brown. When she had divested
herself of all the articles of apparel mentioned by that lady, Mrs B.
examined them at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with their
quality and value.

'Humph!' she said, running her eyes over the child's slight figure, 'I
don't see anything else--except the shoes. I must have the shoes, Miss
Dombey.'

Poor little Florence took them off with equal alacrity, only too glad
to have any more means of conciliation about her. The old woman then
produced some wretched substitutes from the bottom of the heap of rags,
which she turned up for that purpose; together with a girl's cloak,
quite worn out and very old; and the crushed remains of a bonnet that
had probably been picked up from some ditch or dunghill. In this
dainty raiment, she instructed Florence to dress herself; and as such
preparation seemed a prelude to her release, the child complied with
increased readiness, if possible.

In hurriedly putting on the bonnet, if that may be called a bonnet which
was more like a pad to carry loads on, she caught it in her hair which
grew luxuriantly, and could not immediately disentangle it. Good
Mrs Brown whipped out a large pair of scissors, and fell into an
unaccountable state of excitement.

'Why couldn't you let me be!' said Mrs Brown, 'when I was contented? You
little fool!'

'I beg your pardon. I don't know what I have done,' panted Florence. 'I
couldn't help it.'

'Couldn't help it!' cried Mrs Brown. 'How do you expect I can help
it? Why, Lord!' said the old woman, ruffling her curls with a furious
pleasure, 'anybody but me would have had 'em off, first of all.'

Florence was so relieved to find that it was only her hair and not
her head which Mrs Brown coveted, that she offered no resistance or
entreaty, and merely raised her mild eyes towards the face of that good
soul.

'If I hadn't once had a gal of my own--beyond seas now--that was proud
of her hair,' said Mrs Brown, 'I'd have had every lock of it. She's far
away, she's far away! Oho! Oho!'

Mrs Brown's was not a melodious cry, but, accompanied with a wild
tossing up of her lean arms, it was full of passionate grief, and
thrilled to the heart of Florence, whom it frightened more than ever.
It had its part, perhaps, in saving her curls; for Mrs Brown, after
hovering about her with the scissors for some moments, like a new kind
of butterfly, bade her hide them under the bonnet and let no trace of
them escape to tempt her. Having accomplished this victory over herself,
Mrs Brown resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short black
pipe, mowing and mumbling all the time, as if she were eating the stem.

When the pipe was smoked out, she gave the child a rabbit-skin to carry,
that she might appear the more like her ordinary companion, and told her
that she was now going to lead her to a public street whence she could
inquire her way to her friends. But she cautioned her, with threats of
summary and deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, not to talk to
strangers, nor to repair to her own home (which may have been too near
for Mrs Brown's convenience), but to her father's office in the City;
also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the
clock struck three. These directions Mrs Brown enforced with assurances
that there would be potent eyes and ears in her employment cognizant
of all she did; and these directions Florence promised faithfully and
earnestly to observe.

At length, Mrs Brown, issuing forth, conducted her changed and ragged
little friend through a labyrinth of narrow streets and lanes and
alleys, which emerged, after a long time, upon a stable yard, with a
gateway at the end, whence the roar of a great thoroughfare made itself
audible. Pointing out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the
clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, after making a
parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her
own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade her go and do it:
remembering that she was watched.

With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked
back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low wooden
passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist
of Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often looked back
afterwards--every minute, at least, in her nervous recollection of the
old woman--she could not see her again.

Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more
and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks appeared to
have made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the
steeples rang out three o'clock; there was one close by, so she couldn't
be mistaken; and--after often looking over her shoulder, and often going
a little way, and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful
spies of Mrs Brown should take offence--she hurried off, as fast as she
could in her slipshod shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.

All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to Dombey
and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So
she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as
she generally made inquiry of children--being afraid to ask grown
people--she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking
her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry
for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees, towards the
heart of that great region which is governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.

Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and
confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she
had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such
an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and
what was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her
weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping
to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed
her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that
she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too,
called to her aid all the firmness and self-reliance of a character that
her sad experience had prematurely formed and tried: and keeping the end
she had in view steadily before her, steadily pursued it.

It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started
on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangour
of a narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into a kind
of wharf or landing-place upon the river-side, where there were a great
many packages, casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of wooden
scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which, looking
at the neighbouring masts and boats, a stout man stood whistling, with
his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets, as if his day's
work were nearly done.

'Now then!' said this man, happening to turn round. 'We haven't got
anything for you, little girl. Be off!'

'If you please, is this the City?' asked the trembling daughter of the
Dombeys.

'Ah! It's the City. You know that well enough, I daresay. Be off! We
haven't got anything for you.'

'I don't want anything, thank you,' was the timid answer. 'Except to
know the way to Dombey and Son's.'

The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed surprised
by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, rejoined:

'Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son's?'

'To know the way there, if you please.'

The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of his
head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.

'Joe!' he called to another man--a labourer--as he picked it up and put
it on again.

'Joe it is!' said Joe.

'Where's that young spark of Dombey's who's been watching the shipment
of them goods?'

'Just gone, by t'other gate,' said Joe.

'Call him back a minute.'

Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned
with a blithe-looking boy.

'You're Dombey's jockey, ain't you?' said the first man.

'I'm in Dombey's House, Mr Clark,' returned the boy.

'Look'ye here, then,' said Mr Clark.

Obedient to the indication of Mr Clark's hand, the boy approached
towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with
her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief
of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey's end, felt
reassured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner, ran
eagerly up to him, leaving one of the slipshod shoes upon the ground and
caught his hand in both of hers.

'I am lost, if you please!' said Florence.

'Lost!' cried the boy.

'Yes, I was lost this morning, a long way from here--and I have had my
clothes taken away, since--and I am not dressed in my own now--and my
name is Florence Dombey, my little brother's only sister--and, oh dear,
dear, take care of me, if you please!' sobbed Florence, giving full vent
to the childish feelings she had so long suppressed, and bursting into
tears. At the same time her miserable bonnet falling off, her hair
came tumbling down about her face: moving to speechless admiration
and commiseration, young Walter, nephew of Solomon Gills, Ships'
Instrument-maker in general.

Mr Clark stood rapt in amazement: observing under his breath, I never
saw such a start on this wharf before. Walter picked up the shoe, and
put it on the little foot as the Prince in the story might have fitted
Cinderella's slipper on. He hung the rabbit-skin over his left arm;
gave the right to Florence; and felt, not to say like Richard
Whittington--that is a tame comparison--but like Saint George of
England, with the dragon lying dead before him.

'Don't cry, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, in a transport of enthusiasm.
'What a wonderful thing for me that I am here! You are as safe now as if
you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a man-of-war.
Oh, don't cry.'

'I won't cry any more,' said Florence. 'I am only crying for joy.'

'Crying for joy!' thought Walter, 'and I'm the cause of it! Come along,
Miss Dombey. There's the other shoe off now! Take mine, Miss Dombey.'

'No, no, no,' said Florence, checking him in the act of impetuously
pulling off his own. 'These do better. These do very well.'

'Why, to be sure,' said Walter, glancing at her foot, 'mine are a mile
too large. What am I thinking about! You never could walk in mine! Come
along, Miss Dombey. Let me see the villain who will dare molest you
now.'

So Walter, looking immensely fierce, led off Florence, looking very
happy; and they went arm-in-arm along the streets, perfectly indifferent
to any astonishment that their appearance might or did excite by the
way.

It was growing dark and foggy, and beginning to rain too; but they cared
nothing for this: being both wholly absorbed in the late adventures of
Florence, which she related with the innocent good faith and confidence
of her years, while Walter listened as if, far from the mud and grease
of Thames Street, they were rambling alone among the broad leaves and
tall trees of some desert island in the tropics--as he very likely
fancied, for the time, they were.

'Have we far to go?' asked Florence at last, lilting up her eyes to her
companion's face.

'Ah! By-the-bye,' said Walter, stopping, 'let me see; where are we? Oh!
I know. But the offices are shut up now, Miss Dombey. There's nobody
there. Mr Dombey has gone home long ago. I suppose we must go home too?
or, stay. Suppose I take you to my Uncle's, where I live--it's very near
here--and go to your house in a coach to tell them you are safe, and
bring you back some clothes. Won't that be best?'

'I think so,' answered Florence. 'Don't you? What do you think?'

As they stood deliberating in the street, a man passed them, who glanced
quickly at Walter as he went by, as if he recognised him; but seeming to
correct that first impression, he passed on without stopping.

'Why, I think it's Mr Carker,' said Walter. 'Carker in our House. Not
Carker our Manager, Miss Dombey--the other Carker; the Junior--Halloa!
Mr Carker!'

'Is that Walter Gay?' said the other, stopping and returning. 'I
couldn't believe it, with such a strange companion.'

As he stood near a lamp, listening with surprise to Walter's hurried
explanation, he presented a remarkable contrast to the two youthful
figures arm-in-arm before him. He was not old, but his hair was white;
his body was bent, or bowed as if by the weight of some great trouble:
and there were deep lines in his worn and melancholy face. The fire of
his eyes, the expression of his features, the very voice in which he
spoke, were all subdued and quenched, as if the spirit within him lay
in ashes. He was respectably, though very plainly dressed, in black; but
his clothes, moulded to the general character of his figure, seemed
to shrink and abase themselves upon him, and to join in the sorrowful
solicitation which the whole man from head to foot expressed, to be left
unnoticed, and alone in his humility.

And yet his interest in youth and hopefulness was not extinguished
with the other embers of his soul, for he watched the boy's earnest
countenance as he spoke with unusual sympathy, though with an
inexplicable show of trouble and compassion, which escaped into his
looks, however hard he strove to hold it prisoner. When Walter, in
conclusion, put to him the question he had put to Florence, he still
stood glancing at him with the same expression, as if he had read some
fate upon his face, mournfully at variance with its present brightness.

'What do you advise, Mr Carker?' said Walter, smiling. 'You always give
me good advice, you know, when you do speak to me. That's not often,
though.'

'I think your own idea is the best,' he answered: looking from Florence
to Walter, and back again.

'Mr Carker,' said Walter, brightening with a generous thought, 'Come!
Here's a chance for you. Go you to Mr Dombey's, and be the messenger of
good news. It may do you some good, Sir. I'll remain at home. You shall
go.'

'I!' returned the other.

'Yes. Why not, Mr Carker?' said the boy.

He merely shook him by the hand in answer; he seemed in a manner ashamed
and afraid even to do that; and bidding him good-night, and advising him
to make haste, turned away.

'Come, Miss Dombey,' said Walter, looking after him as they turned away
also, 'we'll go to my Uncle's as quick as we can. Did you ever hear Mr
Dombey speak of Mr Carker the Junior, Miss Florence?'

'No,' returned the child, mildly, 'I don't often hear Papa speak.'

'Ah! true! more shame for him,' thought Walter. After a minute's pause,
during which he had been looking down upon the gentle patient little
face moving on at his side, he said, 'The strangest man, Mr Carker
the Junior is, Miss Florence, that ever you heard of. If you could
understand what an extraordinary interest he takes in me, and yet how he
shuns me and avoids me; and what a low place he holds in our office, and
how he is never advanced, and never complains, though year after year
he sees young men passed over his head, and though his brother (younger
than he is), is our head Manager, you would be as much puzzled about him
as I am.'

As Florence could hardly be expected to understand much about it, Walter
bestirred himself with his accustomed boyish animation and restlessness
to change the subject; and one of the unfortunate shoes coming off again
opportunely, proposed to carry Florence to his uncle's in his arms.
Florence, though very tired, laughingly declined the proposal, lest
he should let her fall; and as they were already near the wooden
Midshipman, and as Walter went on to cite various precedents, from
shipwrecks and other moving accidents, where younger boys than he had
triumphantly rescued and carried off older girls than Florence, they
were still in full conversation about it when they arrived at the
Instrument-maker's door.

'Holloa, Uncle Sol!' cried Walter, bursting into the shop, and speaking
incoherently and out of breath, from that time forth, for the rest of
the evening. 'Here's a wonderful adventure! Here's Mr Dombey's daughter
lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a
woman--found by me--brought home to our parlour to rest--look here!'

'Good Heaven!' said Uncle Sol, starting back against his favourite
compass-case. 'It can't be! Well, I--'

'No, nor anybody else,' said Walter, anticipating the rest. 'Nobody
would, nobody could, you know. Here! just help me lift the little sofa
near the fire, will you, Uncle Sol--take care of the plates--cut some
dinner for her, will you, Uncle--throw those shoes under the grate. Miss
Florence--put your feet on the fender to dry--how damp they are--here's
an adventure, Uncle, eh?--God bless my soul, how hot I am!'

Solomon Gills was quite as hot, by sympathy, and in excessive
bewilderment. He patted Florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed
her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief
heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes, and
ears, and had no clear perception of anything except that he was being
constantly knocked against and tumbled over by that excited young
gentleman, as he darted about the room attempting to accomplish twenty
things at once, and doing nothing at all.

'Here, wait a minute, Uncle,' he continued, catching up a candle, 'till
I run upstairs, and get another jacket on, and then I'll be off. I say,
Uncle, isn't this an adventure?'

'My dear boy,' said Solomon, who, with his spectacles on his forehead
and the great chronometer in his pocket, was incessantly oscillating
between Florence on the sofa, and his nephew in all parts of the
parlour, 'it's the most extraordinary--'

'No, but do, Uncle, please--do, Miss Florence--dinner, you know, Uncle.'

'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Solomon, cutting instantly into a leg of mutton,
as if he were catering for a giant. 'I'll take care of her, Wally! I
understand. Pretty dear! Famished, of course. You go and get ready. Lord
bless me! Sir Richard Whittington thrice Lord Mayor of London.'

Walter was not very long in mounting to his lofty garret and descending
from it, but in the meantime Florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk
into a doze before the fire. The short interval of quiet, though only
a few minutes in duration, enabled Solomon Gills so far to collect his
wits as to make some little arrangements for her comfort, and to darken
the room, and to screen her from the blaze. Thus, when the boy returned,
she was sleeping peacefully.

'That's capital!' he whispered, giving Solomon such a hug that it
squeezed a new expression into his face. 'Now I'm off. I'll just take a
crust of bread with me, for I'm very hungry--and don't wake her, Uncle
Sol.'

'No, no,' said Solomon. 'Pretty child.'

'Pretty, indeed!' cried Walter. 'I never saw such a face, Uncle Sol. Now
I'm off.'

'That's right,' said Solomon, greatly relieved.

'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, putting his face in at the door.

'Here he is again,' said Solomon.

'How does she look now?'

'Quite happy,' said Solomon.

'That's famous! now I'm off.'

'I hope you are,' said Solomon to himself.

'I say, Uncle Sol,' cried Walter, reappearing at the door.

'Here he is again!' said Solomon.

'We met Mr Carker the Junior in the street, queerer than ever. He bade
me good-bye, but came behind us here--there's an odd thing!--for when we
reached the shop door, I looked round, and saw him going quietly away,
like a servant who had seen me home, or a faithful dog. How does she
look now, Uncle?'

'Pretty much the same as before, Wally,' replied Uncle Sol.

'That's right. Now I am off!'

And this time he really was: and Solomon Gills, with no appetite for
dinner, sat on the opposite side of the fire, watching Florence in
her slumber, building a great many airy castles of the most fantastic
architecture; and looking, in the dim shade, and in the close vicinity
of all the instruments, like a magician disguised in a Welsh wig and a
suit of coffee colour, who held the child in an enchanted sleep.

In the meantime, Walter proceeded towards Mr Dombey's house at a pace
seldom achieved by a hack horse from the stand; and yet with his head
out of window every two or three minutes, in impatient remonstrance
with the driver. Arriving at his journey's end, he leaped out, and
breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, followed him straight
into the library, we there was a great confusion of tongues, and where
Mr Dombey, his sister, and Miss Tox, Richards, and Nipper, were all
congregated together.

'Oh! I beg your pardon, Sir,' said Walter, rushing up to him, 'but I'm
happy to say it's all right, Sir. Miss Dombey's found!'

The boy with his open face, and flowing hair, and sparkling eyes,
panting with pleasure and excitement, was wonderfully opposed to Mr
Dombey, as he sat confronting him in his library chair.

'I told you, Louisa, that she would certainly be found,' said Mr Dombey,
looking slightly over his shoulder at that lady, who wept in company
with Miss Tox. 'Let the servants know that no further steps are
necessary. This boy who brings the information, is young Gay, from the
office. How was my daughter found, Sir? I know how she was lost.' Here
he looked majestically at Richards. 'But how was she found? Who found
her?'

'Why, I believe I found Miss Dombey, Sir,' said Walter modestly, 'at
least I don't know that I can claim the merit of having exactly found
her, Sir, but I was the fortunate instrument of--'

'What do you mean, Sir,' interrupted Mr Dombey, regarding the boy's
evident pride and pleasure in his share of the transaction with an
instinctive dislike, 'by not having exactly found my daughter, and by
being a fortunate instrument? Be plain and coherent, if you please.'

It was quite out of Walter's power to be coherent; but he rendered
himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated
why he had come alone.

'You hear this, girl?' said Mr Dombey sternly to the black-eyed. 'Take
what is necessary, and return immediately with this young man to fetch
Miss Florence home. Gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow.'

'Oh! thank you, Sir,' said Walter. 'You are very kind. I'm sure I was
not thinking of any reward, Sir.'

'You are a boy,' said Mr Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; 'and what
you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You
have done well, Sir. Don't undo it. Louisa, please to give the lad some
wine.'

Mr Dombey's glance followed Walter Gay with sharp disfavour, as he left
the room under the pilotage of Mrs Chick; and it may be that his mind's
eye followed him with no greater relish, as he rode back to his Uncle's
with Miss Susan Nipper.

There they found that Florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined, and
greatly improved the acquaintance of Solomon Gills, with whom she was on
terms of perfect confidence and ease. The black-eyed (who had cried so
much that she might now be called the red-eyed, and who was very silent
and depressed) caught her in her arms without a word of contradiction or
reproach, and made a very hysterical meeting of it. Then converting the
parlour, for the nonce, into a private tiring room, she dressed her,
with great care, in proper clothes; and presently led her forth, as like
a Dombey as her natural disqualifications admitted of her being made.

'Good-night!' said Florence, running up to Solomon. 'You have been very
good to me.'

Old Sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grand-father.

'Good-night, Walter! Good-bye!' said Florence.

'Good-bye!' said Walter, giving both his hands.

'I'll never forget you,' pursued Florence. 'No! indeed I never will.
Good-bye, Walter!'

In the innocence of her grateful heart, the child lifted up her face to
his. Walter, bending down his own, raised it again, all red and burning;
and looked at Uncle Sol, quite sheepishly.

'Where's Walter?' 'Good-night, Walter!' 'Good-bye, Walter!' 'Shake hands
once more, Walter!' This was still Florence's cry, after she was shut up
with her little maid, in the coach. And when the coach at length
moved off, Walter on the door-step gaily returned the waving of her
handkerchief, while the wooden Midshipman behind him seemed, like
himself, intent upon that coach alone, excluding all the other passing
coaches from his observation.

In good time Mr Dombey's mansion was gained again, and again there was
a noise of tongues in the library. Again, too, the coach was ordered
to wait--'for Mrs Richards,' one of Susan's fellow-servants ominously
whispered, as she passed with Florence.

The entrance of the lost child made a slight sensation, but not much. Mr
Dombey, who had never found her, kissed her once upon the forehead, and
cautioned her not to run away again, or wander anywhere with treacherous
attendants. Mrs Chick stopped in her lamentations on the corruption of
human nature, even when beckoned to the paths of virtue by a Charitable
Grinder; and received her with a welcome something short of the
reception due to none but perfect Dombeys. Miss Tox regulated her
feelings by the models before her. Richards, the culprit Richards, alone
poured out her heart in broken words of welcome, and bowed herself over
the little wandering head as if she really loved it.

'Ah, Richards!' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh. 'It would have been much
more satisfactory to those who wish to think well of their fellow
creatures, and much more becoming in you, if you had shown some
proper feeling, in time, for the little child that is now going to be
prematurely deprived of its natural nourishment.

'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common
fountain!'

'If it was my ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had your
reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders'
dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.'

For the matter of that--but Mrs Chick didn't know it--he had been pretty
well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its
retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs
and blows.

'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son--my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not
to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel Miss
Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a happy and
fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that occurrence, I never
could have known--and from your own lips too--of what you had been
guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young person,' here Miss
Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so much younger, and necessarily influenced
by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have the goodness to direct that this
woman's coach is paid to'--Mr Dombey stopped and winced--'to Staggs's
Gardens.'

Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, and
crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a
dagger in the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how
the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger,
and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or
from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through him, as he
thought of what his son might do.

His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor Paul
had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, for he
had lost his second mother--his first, so far as he knew--by a stroke
as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the beginning of
his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried herself to sleep
so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. But that is quite
beside the question. Let us waste no words about it.

The next day, Florence, Paul, Nipper, and Richards set off for Stagg's Garden, a working class neighborhood in Camden Town. Polly is delighted to be reunited with her children, and they all enjoy a pleasant visit. However, because Polly's eldest son Biler has not yet come home from school, they take a longer route on the walk back hoping to run into him. Other neighborhood children are bullying Biler, and Polly hurries to help him. At the same time, there is a warning cry that a bull is on the loose. Florence panics and runs, only to realize she has lost sight of Nipper and Richards. An old woman who introduces herself as Old Mrs. Brown offers to help her, but takes her instead to a strange, run down house. Mrs. Brown steals all of Florence's expensive clothing, giving her cheap rags to put on instead, and then leaves her in the street. Florence starts trying to navigate her way to her father's office. She stops at a loading dock to ask the way; at that time Walter happens to be there, supervising a shipment. Florence explains who she is, and Walter immediately takes charge of her. By this time, it is evening and the offices are closed, so Walter suggests they go to his uncle's house. As they have this conversation, Walter recognizes Mr. Carker, who also works at the firm. Walter suggests that Carker go tell Mr. Dombey that his daughter has been found, but Carker declines. Walter leaves Florence safely with his uncle and goes to the Dombey house to report that Florence is safe. Nipper brings Florence back to the house where she receives a cool welcome. As punishment, Richards is fired, although Nipper is allowed to stay

The opening chapters introduce the web of characters whose lives will intersect over the course of the novel. Several of the major themes immediately become clear. A number of different family dynamics are presented and contrasted. Mr. Dombey is able to give his children economic privilege and elevated social standing, but he also sees them as projections of his own ego. He values his infant son because of the potential for continuing a family legacy, and is not only disinterested in, but also actively jealous of Florence. On the other hand, the Toodle family, or Uncle Sol and his nephew Walter, while in much more precarious economic straits, and in fact dependent on the Dombeys for their income, show much more genuine love. The idea of families being created from unlikely combinations of individuals, which will reoccur as eclectic groups of characters form bonds throughout the novel, takes root as it becomes clear that Susan Nipper and Richards are the ones actually providing love to Florence and Paul. At the same time, their position as working-class employees ensures that they are viewed with suspicion: Mr. Dombey insists on isolating Richards from her family, and even renaming her, because he fears what influence she might have on Paul. Efforts to insulate the Dombey children, however, prove unsuccessful. There is an irony to the impetus for the catastrophic expedition to Stagg's Garden: a misguided belief on Dombey's part that he is benefiting Biler Toodle by providing him with some form of education only makes his mother more aware of the poignancy of him growing up without her. Not only the decision to leave the Dombey mansion, but also to take the children to a working class neighborhood, would be a direct reflection of Dombey's worst fears for his son. And while Florence does indeed have a traumatic experience, her horizon is also permanently broadened by the contact she makes with Walter and his uncle. Without this serendipity, she would almost certainly never have encountered someone from so far outside of her own social position. Despite Dombey's attempts to control his children, just as he controls his business, the complex social and economic web around him will still impact his life.