Do you know, then,' pursued Carker, 'that I have not found my friend -
our friend, I ought rather to call him - '
     'Meaning  Dombey,  Sir?'  cried  the Major.  'You see  me,  Mr  Carker,
standing here! J. B.?'
     He was puffy enough to  see, and blue enough; and  Mr Carker  intimated
the he had that pleasure.
     'Then you see a  man, Sir, who would go through fire and water to serve
Dombey,' returned Major Bagstock.
     Mr Carker smiled, and said he was sure of it. 'Do you  know, Major,' he
proceeded: 'to resume where I left off' that I have not found our  friend so
attentive to business today, as usual?'
     'No?' observed the delighted Major.
     'I have found him a little abstracted, and  with his attention disposed
to wander,' said Carker.
     'By Jove, Sir,' cried the Major, 'there's a lady in the case.'
     'Indeed,  I begin  to  believe  there really is,'  returned  Carker; 'I
thought you might be jesting when you seemed  to hint  at it; for I know you
military men -
     The Major gave  the horse's cough, and shook his head and shoulders, as
much as to say, 'Well! we are gay  dogs, there's no denying.' He then seized
Mr Carker by the  button-hole, and with starting eyes  whispered in his ear,
that  she was a woman  of extraordinary charms, Sir.  That she  was a  young
widow, Sir. That she was  of a fine family, Sir. That Dombey  was  over head
and ears in love with her,  Sir, and that it would be  a good match  on both
sides;  for she had  beauty,  blood, and talent, and Dombey had fortune; and
what more could any couple have? Hearing Mr Dombey's  footsteps without, the
Major cut himself short  by saying, that  Mr  Carker would  see her tomorrow
morning, and would judge for himself; and between his mental excitement, and
the exertion of saying all this in  wheezy  whispers, the Major sat gurgling
in the throat and watering at the eyes, until dinner was ready.
     The  Major, like some other noble animals, exhibited himself  to  great
advantage at feeding-time. On this occasion, he shone resplendent at one end
of the table, supported by the milder  lustre  of Mr Dombey  at  the  other;
while Carker on  one  side  lent  his ray to either light, or suffered it to
merge into both, as occasion arose.
     During the first course or two,  the Major  was usually grave; for  the
Native,  in obedience  to general orders,  secretly issued, collected  every
sauce  and cruet round him, and gave him a great deal  to do, in taking  out
the stoppers, and mixing up  the contents in  his plate. Besides  which, the
Native had private zests and  flavours on a side-table, with which the Major
daily scorched himself; to say nothing of strange machines  out of which  he
spirited unknown liquids into the Major's drink. But on this occasion, Major
Bagstock, even amidst these many occupations, found time  to be social;  and
his  sociality consisted  in excessive slyness for the  behoof of Mr Carker,
and the betrayal of Mr Dombey's state of mind.
     'Dombey,' said the Major, 'you don't eat; what's the matter?'
     'Thank you,' returned the gentleman, 'I am  doing very well; I  have no
great appetite today.'
     'Why, Dombey, what's become of it?' asked  the Major. 'Where's it gone?
You haven't left it with our friends, I'll swear, for I can answer for their
having none to-day at  luncheon. I  can answer for one of  'em, at  least: I
won't say which.'
     Then  the Major winked at Carker, and became so frightfully  sly,  that
his dark attendant was obliged to pat him on the back, without orders, or he
would probably have disappeared under the table.
     In a later stage of the dinner:  that is to say, when the  Native stood
at the Major's elbow ready to serve the first bottle of champagne: the Major
became still slyer.
     'Fill this to  the brim, you scoundrel,' said the Major, holding up his
glass.  'Fill Mr  Carker's to  the brim too. And Mr Dombey's  too.  By  Gad,
gentlemen,'  said the Major, winking  at  his  new  friend, while Mr  Dombey
looked into his  plate with a conscious air, 'we'll consecrate this glass of
wine  to  a Divinity whom Joe is proud to know, and at a distance humbly and
reverently to admire. Edith,' said the Major, 'is her name; angelic Edith!'
     'To angelic Edith!' cried the smiling Carker.
     'Edith, by all means,' said Mr Dombey.
     The  entrance  of the  waiters  with new  dishes caused the Major to be
slyer  yet,  but in a more serious vein.  'For though  among  ourselves, Joe
Bagstock  mingles jest  and earnest on this subject, Sir,'  said the  Major,
laying his finger on his lips, and speaking half apart to  Carker, 'he holds
that name too  sacred  to be  made the property of these fellows,  or of any
fellows. Not a word!, Sir' while they are here!'
     This was respectful  and becoming  on  the Major's  part, and Mr Dombey
plainly  felt it so.  Although embarrassed  in  his own  frigid way, by  the
Major's allusions,  Mr  Dombey  had no objection to  such rallying,  it  was
clear, but  rather courted  it.  Perhaps the Major  had been pretty near the
truth, when  he  had  divined that  morning  that the  great man who was too
haughty  formally to consult with, or confide in his prime minister, on such
a  matter,  yet wished him  to  be fully possessed of it. Let this be how it
may,  he  often  glanced  at  Mr  Carker  while  the  Major  plied his light
artillery, and seemed watchful of its effect upon him.
     But  the  Major, having secured an attentive listener, and a smiler who
had not his match in all  the world - 'in short,  a devilish intelligent and
able fellow,' as he often afterwards declared - was not going to let him off
with a  little slyness personal to Mr Dombey. Therefore,  on  the removal of
the cloth, the Major developed himself as a choice spirit in the broader and
more comprehensive range  of  narrating  regimental  stories,  and  cracking
regimental  jokes, which he  did  with such prodigal exuberance, that Carker
was (or feigned  to be) quite  exhausted with laughter and admiration: while
Mr  Dombey  looked on over his starched cravat, like the Major's proprietor,
or like a stately showman who was glad to see his bear dancing well.
     When the Major was  too hoarse with meat and drink, and the display  of
his social powers, to render himself intelligible any longer, they adjourned
to coffee.  After which, the Major inquired of Mr Carker  the Manager,  with
little apparent hope of an answer in the affirmative, if he played picquet.
     'Yes, I play picquet a little,' said Mr Carker.
     'Backgammon, perhaps?' observed the Major, hesitating.
     'Yes, I play backgammon a little too,' replied the man of teeth.
     'Carker  plays at all games, I believe,' said Mr Dombey, laying himself
on a sofa  like a man of wood, without a hinge or a joint in him; 'and plays
them well.'
     In sooth, he played  the two in  question, to such perfection, that the
Major was astonished, and asked him, at random, if he played chess.
     'Yes,  I  play  chess  a little,' answered  Carker. 'I  have  sometimes
played, and won a game - it's a mere trick - without seeing the board.'
     'By Gad, Sir!' said the Major,  staring, 'you are a contrast to Dombey,
who plays nothing.'
     'Oh! He!' returned the Manager.  'He  has never had occasion to acquire
such little arts. To men like me, they  are sometimes useful. As at present,
Major Bagstock, when they enable me to take a hand with you.'
     It  might be only  the  false  mouth, so smooth and wide; and yet there
seemed to lurk beneath the humility and subserviency of this short speech, a
something like a snarl; and, for  a moment, one might  have thought that the
white teeth  were prone to bite the hand they  fawned  upon. But  the  Major
thought nothing about it;  and Mr Dombey  lay meditating with his  eyes half
shut, during the whole of the play, which lasted until bed-time.
     By that time, Mr Carker,  though the winner, had mounted high into  the
Major's good opinion, insomuch that when he  left the Major at his  own room
before going to bed, the Major as a special attention, sent the Native - who
always  rested  on a mattress spread upon  the ground at his master's door -
along the gallery, to light him to his room in state.
     There  was a  faint blur  on  the  surface of the mirror in Mr Carker's
chamber, and its reflection was, perhaps, a false  one. But it  showed, that
night, the  image  of a  man,  who  saw, in his  fancy,  a  crowd of  people
slumbering on the ground at his feet, like the  poor Native at his  master's
door:  who picked his way among them: looking  down, maliciously enough: but
trod upon no upturned face - as yet.

        CHAPTER 27.
     Deeper Shadows

     Mr Carker the Manager rose  with the lark, and went out, walking in the
summer day. His  meditations - and he  meditated with contracted brows while
he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as  the lark, or to  mount
in  that direction; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth, and
looked about, among the dust and worms. But there was not a bird in the air,
singing  unseen,  farther  beyond the reach of  human eye  than  Mr Carker's
thoughts. He had his face  so  perfectly under control, that  few could  say
more, in  distinct terms, of its expression, than that it smiled or that  it
pondered. It pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper
in  thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell
into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark came headlong
down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped among the green wheat
near him,  rippling  in the breath of the morning like a river, he sprang up
from his  reverie, and looked round with a sudden smile, as courteous and as
soft as if he had had numerous observers  to propitiate; nor did he relapse,
after  being  thus awakened; but clearing his face,  like one  who bethought
himself that it might otherwise wrinkle and  tell tales, went smiling on, as
if for practice.
     Perhaps with  an eye to first impressions, Mr Carker was very carefully
and  trimly  dressed,  that morning.  Though always somewhat formal, in  his
dress, in imitation of the great man whom he served, he stopped short of the
extent of  Mr Dombey's stiffness: at  once perhaps because he knew it  to be
ludicrous, and  because in doing so he found another means of expressing his
sense of  the difference and distance between them. Some people  quoted  him
indeed, in this respect, as a  pointed commentary, and not a flattering one,
on his icy patron - but the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr Carker
was not accountable for its bad propensity.
     Clean and florid:  with his light complexion, fading as it were, in the
sun, and his dainty step enhancing  the softness of  the turf: Mr Carker the
Manager strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided among avenues of
trees, until it was time  to return to breakfast. Taking a  nearer way back,
Mr Carker pursued it, airing his teeth, and said aloud as he did so, 'Now to
see the second Mrs Dombey!'
     He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered  it by a pleasant walk,
where there  was  a deep shade of leafy  trees, and  where there were a  few
benches here and  there for those who chose to rest. It not being a place of
general resort at any  hour, and wearing  at that  time of the still morning
the air of being quite deserted and retired, Mr Carker had it, or thought he
had it, all to himself. So, with the whim of  an idle man, to whom there yet
remained twenty minutes for  reaching a  destination easily able in ten,  Mr
Carker threaded the great boles of the trees, and  went passing  in and out,
before this one and  behind that, weaving  a chain of footsteps on the  dewy
ground.
     But  he  found  he  was mistaken in supposing there was no one  in  the
grove, for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree,  on  which  the
obdurate  bark was knotted and overlapped like the  hide of a  rhinoceros or
some kindred monster of  the  ancient  days  before  the Flood,  he  saw  an
unexpected figure sitting on a  bench near at  hand, about which, in another
moment, he would have wound the chain he was making.
     It was that of a lady, elegantly dressed and very  handsome, whose dark
proud eyes were fixed  upon the ground, and in whom some passion or struggle
was raging. For as  she sat looking down, she held a corner of her under lip
within her mouth, her bosom heaved, her nostril quivered, her head trembled,
indignant tears were on her cheek,  and  her foot was set  upon the  moss as
though  she would have crushed it into nothing. And yet almost the self-same
glance  that  showed him this,  showed him the self-same lady rising with  a
scornful  air  of weariness and lassitude, and  turning  away  with  nothing
expressed in face or figure but careless beauty and imperious disdain.
     A withered and very ugly old woman, dressed not so much like a gipsy as
like  any  of that  medley race of  vagabonds who tramp  about the  country,
begging,  and stealing, and tinkering, and weaving rushes,  by turns, or all
together,  had been observing the lady, too; for,  as  she rose, this second
figure strangely confronting the first,  scrambled up from the ground  - out
of it, it almost appeared - and stood in the way.
     'Let  me  tell  your  fortune, my  pretty  lady,'  said the old  woman,
munching with her jaws, as if the Death's Head beneath  her yellow skin were
impatient to get out.
     'I can tell it for myself,' was the reply.
     'Ay, ay, pretty lady; but not right. You didn't tell  it right when you
were  sitting there. I see you! Give me a piece of  silver, pretty lady, and
I'll tell your fortune true. There's riches, pretty lady, in your face.'
     'I know,' returned the lady, passing her with a dark smile, and a proud
step. 'I knew it before.
     'What! You won't give me nothing?' cried the old woman. 'You won't give
me nothing to tell your fortune, pretty lady? How  much will you  give me to
tell  it, then? Give me something, or I'll call it  after  you!' croaked the
old woman, passionately.
     Mr Carker, whom  the lady was about to pass close, slinking against his
tree as  she crossed  to gain  the  path,  advanced so  as  to meet her, and
pulling off his hat as she  went by, bade the old woman hold her peace.  The
lady acknowledged his interference with an inclination of the head, and went
her way.
     'You give me something  then, or I'll call it after  her!' screamed the
old  woman,  throwing  up  her  arms,  and   pressing  forward  against  his
outstretched  hand.  'Or  come,'  she  added,  dropping her voice  suddenly,
looking at him earnestly,  and seeming  in a moment  to forget the object of
her wrath, 'give me something, or I'll call it after you! '
     'After me,  old lady!'  returned the Manager, putting  his hand in  his
pocket.
     'Yes,' said the woman, steadfast in  her scrutiny, and  holding out her
shrivelled hand. 'I know!'
     'What do you know?' demanded  Carker, throwing her  a shilling. 'Do you
know who the handsome lady is?'
     Munching like that sailor's wife of yore, who had chestnuts In her lap,
and scowling like the witch who asked for some in vain, the old woman picked
the shilling  up, and going backwards, like a crab, or like a heap of crabs:
for  her alternately expanding and contracting hands might  have represented
two of that species, and her creeping face, some half-a-dozen more: crouched
on the veinous root of  an  old  tree,  pulled  out a short  black pipe from
within the crown of her  bonnet,  lighted  it  with a  match, and  smoked in
silence, looking fixedly at her questioner.
     Mr Carker laughed, and turned upon his heel.
     'Good!' said the old woman. 'One child dead, and  one child living: one
wife dead, and one wife coming. Go and meet her!'
     In  spite of himself,  the Manager looked round again, and stopped. The
old woman, who had not removed her pipe, and was munching and mumbling while
she smoked, as if  in conversation with an  invisible familiar, pointed with
her finger in the direction he was going, and laughed.
     'What was that you said, Beldamite?' he demanded.
     The woman  mumbled, and chattered, and smoked, and still pointed before
him; but remained silent Muttering a farewell that was not complimentary, Mr
Carker pursued his way;  but as he turned out of that place, and looked over
his  shoulder  at  the root  of the  old tree, he could yet see  the  finger
pointing before him, and  thought he heard the woman screaming, 'Go and meet
her!'
     Preparations  for a  choice repast were completed,  he  found,  at  the
hotel; and Mr Dombey, and the Major,  and the  breakfast, were  awaiting the
ladies. Individual constitution has much to do with the development  of such
facts,  no doubt; but  in this case,  appetite carried  it  hollow  over the
tender  passion; Mr  Dombey being  very  cool  and collected, and  the Major
fretting and fuming in a state of violent heat and irritation. At length the
door was thrown open by  the  Native, and,  after a  pause, occupied  by her
languishing along the gallery, a very blooming, but not very  youthful lady,
appeared.
     'My dear Mr Dombey,' said the lady, 'I am afraid we are late, but Edith
has  been out already looking  for a favourable point of view  for a sketch,
and  kept  me  waiting  for her. Falsest of  Majors,' giving  him her little
finger, 'how do you do?'
     'Mrs Skewton,'  said Mr Dombey, 'let me gratify  my friend  Carker:' Mr
Dombey  unconsciously emphasised the word friend, as saying "no really; I do
allow him to  take credit for that distinction:" 'by presenting him to  you.
You have heard me mention Mr Carker.'
     'I am charmed, I am sure,' said Mrs Skewton, graciously.
     Mr Carker was charmed, of course. Would he have been more charmed on Mr
Dombey's  behalf, if Mrs Skewton had been  (as he at first supposed her) the
Edith whom they had toasted overnight?
     'Why, where,  for Heaven's  sake, is  Edith?'  exclaimed  Mrs  Skewton,
looking round.  'Still at the door, giving Withers orders about the mounting
of those drawings! My dear Mr Dombey, will you have the kindness -
     Mr  Dombey  was  already  gone  to seek her.  Next moment  he returned,
bearing on his arm the same elegantly dressed and very handsome lady whom Mr
Carker had encountered underneath the trees.
     'Carker - ' began Mr Dombey. But their recognition of each other was so
manifest, that Mr Dombey stopped surprised.
     'I am obliged to the  gentleman,' said Edith, with a stately bend, 'for
sparing me some annoyance from an importunate beggar just now.'
     'I am obliged to my good fortune,' said Mr Carker, bowing low, 'for the
opportunity of rendering so slight a service to one whose servant I am proud
to be.'
     As her eye  rested  on  him for an  instant,  and then  lighted on  the
ground,  he saw in  its bright and searching glance  a suspicion that he had
not come up at the moment of his interference, but had secretly observed her
sooner. As he saw that, she saw in his eye that her distrust was not without
foundation.
     'Really,'  cried  Mrs  Skewton,  who  had  taken  this  opportunity  of
inspecting  Mr Carker through  her  glass,  and satisfying  herself (as  she
lisped audibly to the Major) that he was all heart; 'really now, this is one
of  the most  enchanting coincidences that  I  ever heard  of. The idea!  My
dearest Edith, there is such an obvious destiny in it, that really one might
almost be  induced to cross one's arms upon one's frock, and say, like those
wicked   Turks,   there   is   no   What's-his-name   but   Thingummy,   and
What-you-may-call-it is his prophet!'
     Edith designed  no revision  of this  extraordinary quotation from  the
Koran, but Mr Dombey felt it necessary to offer a few polite remarks.
     'It gives me great pleasure,' said Mr Dombey, with  cumbrous gallantry,
'that a  gentleman so nearly connected with myself as Carker is, should have
had the honour and  happiness  of  rendering the  least  assistance  to  Mrs
Granger.'  Mr  Dombey bowed to  her. 'But  it  gives  me  some  pain, and it
occasions  me to be really  envious of Carker;' he unconsciously laid stress
on  these  words,  as sensible  that  they  must  appear  to  involve a very
surprising proposition; 'envious  of Carker, that I had not that  honour and
that happiness myself.'  Mr Dombey bowed  again. Edith, saving for a curl of
her lip, was motionless.
     'By the  Lord, Sir,' cried the  Major, bursting into speech at sight of
the waiter, who was come to announce breakfast, 'it's an extraordinary thing
to me that no one can  have the  honour and  happiness of shooting all  such
beggars through the head without being brought to book for it. But here's an
arm for  Mrs Granger  if  she'll do J. B. the honour to accept  it;  and the
greatest  service Joe can  render you, Ma'am, just now, is, to lead you into
table!'
     With this, the Major gave his arm  to Edith; Mr Dombey led the way with
Mrs Skewton; Mrs Carker went last, smiling on the party.
     'I am quite rejoiced,  Mr Carker,' said the lady-mother, at  breakfast,
after another  approving survey of  him through  her  glass, 'that  you have
timed your  visit  so  happily, as  to  go with us  to-day.  It is the  most
enchanting expedition!'
     'Any expedition would be enchanting in such society,' returned  Carker;
'but I believe it is, in itself, full of interest.'
     'Oh!' cried  Mrs Skewton, with  a faded little scream  of rapture, 'the
Castle is charming! - associations of the Middle Ages - and all that - which
is so truly exquisite. Don't you dote upon the Middle Ages, Mr Carker?'
     'Very much, indeed,' said Mr Carker.
     'Such charming  times!' cried Cleopatra. 'So full of faith! So vigorous
and  forcible! So  picturesque! So perfectly  removed  from  commonplace! Oh
dear! If they would only leave us  a little more of  the poetry of existence
in these terrible days!'
     Mrs  Skewton  was looking sharp after  Mr Dombey all  the time she said
this, who was  looking at Edith: who was listening,  but who never lifted up
her eyes.
     'We are dreadfully real, Mr Carker,' said Mrs Skewton; 'are we not?'
     Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than Cleopatra,
who had as much that was false about her as could well go to the composition
of anybody  with a real individual existence. But Mr Carker commiserated our
reality  nevertheless,  and agreed that  we were  very hardly  used in  that
regard.
     'Pictures  at the  Castle, quite divine!'  said  Cleopatra. 'I hope you
dote upon pictures?'
     'I assure you, Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, with  solemn encouragement
of  his Manager, 'that Carker  has a  very good taste for pictures;  quite a
natural  power of appreciating them. He is a very creditable artist himself.
He will be delighted, I am sure, with Mrs Granger's taste and skill.'
     'Damme,  Sir!' cried Major  Bagstock, 'my opinion is,  that  you're the
admirable Carker, and can do anything.'
     'Oh!' smiled Carker,  with humility, 'you are much too  sanguine, Major
Bagstock.  I  can do  very  little. But  Mr  Dombey is  so  generous in  his
estimation of any  trivial  accomplishment  a man like  myself may  find  it
almost necessary to  acquire, and to which, in his very different sphere, he
is  far  superior,  that - ' Mr  Carker shrugged his shoulders,  deprecating
further praise, and said no more.
     All this time, Edith never  raised her  eyes, unless to glance  towards
her mother when that  lady's fervent  spirit  shone forth  in  words. But as
Carker ceased, she looked at Mr Dombey for a  moment. For a moment only; but
with a  transient gleam of  scornful wonder on her  face, not  lost  on  one
observer, who was smiling round the board.
     Mr  Dombey  caught  the  dark  eyelash  in  its  descent, and took  the
opportunity of arresting it.
     'You have been to Warwick often, unfortunately?' said Mr Dombey.
     'Several times.'
     'The visit will be tedious to you, I am afraid.'
     'Oh no; not at all.'
     'Ah!  You are like  your  cousin Feenix,  my dearest Edith,'  said  Mrs
Skewton.  'He has been  to Warwick Castle fifty  times, if he has been there
once; yet if he came to Leamington  to-morrow - I wish he would, dear angel!
- he would make his fifty-second visit next day.'
     'We are all  enthusiastic,  are we not, Mama?' said Edith, with  a cold
smile.
     'Too much so, for our  peace, perhaps,  my  dear,' returned her mother;
'but we won't complain. Our own  emotions  are our  recompense. If,  as your
cousin Feenix says, the sword wears out the what's-its-name
     'The scabbard, perhaps,' said Edith.
     'Exactly - a little too  fast, it is because it  is bright and glowing,
you know, my dearest love.'
     Mrs  Skewton  heaved a gentle sigh, supposed to  cast  a shadow on  the
surface  of  that  dagger  of  lath, whereof  her  susceptible bosom was the
sheath:  and leaning her head on  one side, in the Cleopatra manner,  looked
with pensive affection on her darling child.
     Edith  had turned her  face towards  Mr Dombey when he first  addressed
her, and had remained  in that attitude, while  speaking  to her mother, and
while her  mother  spoke to her, as though offering him her attention, if he
had anything  more to say. There was something in the  manner of this simple
courtesy: almost  defiant, and giving it the character of being  rendered on
compulsion, or  as a matter of traffic to  which  she  was a reluctant party
again not lost upon that  same observer  who was smiling round the board. It
set  him  thinking of her  as he had first seen her,  when she had  believed
herself to be alone among the trees.
     Mr  Dombey  having nothing else  to say, proposed - the breakfast being
now finished, and  the Major gorged,  like any Boa  Constrictor  - that they
should start. A  barouche being in waiting, according to  the orders of that
gentleman, the two ladies,  the Major and himself,  took  their seats in it;
the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr Towlinson being left behind;
and Mr Carker, on horseback, brought up  the rear. Mr Carker cantered behind
the carriage.  at the  distance of  a hundred  yards or  so, and watched it,
during all the ride,  as if he were  a cat, indeed, and its four  occupants,
mice. Whether  he  looked to  one side of the  road, or to the other -  over
distant landscape, with  its  smooth undulations,  wind-mills,  corn, grass,
bean fields,  wild-flowers,  farm-yards, hayricks,  and  the spire among the
wood -  or upwards in  the sunny air, where butterflies  were sporting round
his head, and  birds were pouring  out their songs -  or downward, where the
shadows of the branches interlaced, and made a trembling carpet  on the road
- or onward, where  the overhanging trees formed aisles and arches, dim with
the softened light that steeped through leaves - one  corner of his  eye was
ever on the formal head of Mr Dombey, addressed towards him, and the feather
in the bonnet, drooping so neglectfully and scornfully between them; much as
he had seen the haughty eyelids droop; not least so, when the  face met that
now  fronting  it.  Once, and once  only, did his  wary glance release these
objects; and that  was,  when a leap over a low hedge, and a gallop across a
field,  enabled him to anticipate the carriage coming by the road, and to be
standing  ready, at the journey's end, to hand the ladies out. Then, and but
then, he met her glance for  an instant in her  first surprise; but when  he
touched her,  in alighting,  with his  soft  white hand,  it  overlooked him
altogether as before.
     Mrs Skewton was bent on taking charge of Mr Carker herself, and showing
him the beauties of the Castle. She was determined to have his arm, and  the
Major's  too.  It  would do that incorrigible  creature:  who  was the  most
barbarous infidel in  point of  poetry: good  to  be in such  company.  This
chance arrangement left Mr Dombey at liberty  to escort Edith: which he did:
stalking before them through the apartments with a gentlemanly solemnity.
     'Those darling byegone times, Mr Carker,' said  Cleopatra,  'with their
delicious  fortresses,  and  their  dear old  dungeons, and their delightful
places  of  torture, and  their  romantic vengeances, and  their picturesque
assaults  and  sieges, and everything  that  makes life truly charming!  How
dreadfully we have degenerated!'
     'Yes, we have fallen off deplorably,' said Mr Carker.
     The peculiarity  of their  conversation was, that Mrs Skewton, in spite
of her ecstasies, and Mr  Carker, in spite of his urbanity, were both intent
on watching Mr  Dombey and Edith.  With all their conversational endowments,
they spoke somewhat distractedly, and at random, in consequence.
     'We have no Faith  left, positively,'  said Mrs Skewton,  advancing her
shrivelled ear;  for Mr Dombey was saying  something to Edith.  'We have  no
Faith in the dear old Barons, who were the most delightful creatures - or in
the dear old Priests, who were the most warlike of men - or even in the days
of that inestimable Queen Bess, upon the wall there, which were so extremely
golden. Dear creature! She was all Heart And that charming father of hers! I
hope you dote on Harry the Eighth!'
     'I admire him very much,' said Carker.
     'So bluff!' cried Mrs Skewton, 'wasn't he?  So burly. So truly English.
Such a picture,  too,  he makes,  with his dear  little peepy  eyes, and his
benevolent chin!'
     'Ah,  Ma'am!'  said  Carker,  stopping  short;  'but  if  you speak  of
pictures,  there's a composition! What gallery in the world  can produce the
counterpart of that?'
     As  the smiling gentleman thus spake,  he pointed through  a doorway to
where Mr Dombey and Edith were standing alone in the centre of another room.
     They were not interchanging a word or a look. Standing together, arm in
arm, they had the appearance of  being more divided  than if seas had rolled
between them.  There was  a difference  even in  the pride of  the two, that
removed them farther from each  other, than if one had been the proudest and
the  other  the  humblest  specimen   of  humanity  in  all   creation.  He,
self-important, unbending,  formal, austere. She, lovely and graceful, in an
uncommon degree, but totally regardless  of herself and  him  and everything
around, and spurning her  own  attractions with her haughty brow and lip, as
if  they  were a badge  or livery she hated.  So  unmatched  were  they, and
opposed, so forced  and linked  together by a chain which adverse hazard and
mischance had forged:  that fancy  might  have imagined the pictures  on the
walls around them, startled by the  unnatural  conjunction, and observant of
it in their several  expressions. Grim knights and warriors looked  scowling
on them.  A churchman, with his hand upraised, denounced the mockery of such
a  couple coming to  God's  altar. Quiet waters in  landscapes, with the sun
reflected  in their depths, asked,  if better  means of  escape  were not at
hand,  was  there no drowning left? Ruins cried, 'Look here, and see what We
are,  wedded to uncongenial  Time!' Animals,  opposed by nature, worried one
another, as  a moral to them.  Loves and  Cupids  took to flight afraid, and
Martyrdom had no such torment in its painted history of suffering.
     Nevertheless, Mrs  Skewton was  so  charmed  by the  sight to which  Mr
Carker  invoked  her attention, that she could not refraIn from saying, half
aloud, how  sweet, how very full  of soul it was! Edith, overhearing, looked
round, and flushed indignant scarlet to her hair.
     'My  dearest Edith knows I was admiring  her!' said  Cleopatra, tapping
her, almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. 'Sweet pet!'
     Again Mr Carker saw  the strife he had witnessed  so unexpectedly among
the trees. Again he saw  the haughty languor and indifference  come over it,
and hide it like a cloud.
     She did not raise her eyes to him; but  with a slight peremptory motion
of them,  seemed  to  bid her  mother  come  near.  Mrs  Skewton  thought it
expedient to understand  the  hint,  and advancing  quickly,  with  her  two
cavaliers, kept near her daughter from that time,
     Mr Carker  now, having nothing  to distract  his  attention,  began  to
discourse upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them out to Mr
Dombey:  speaking  with  his  usual  familiar  recognition  of  Mr  Dombey's
greatness,  and  rendering homage  by  adjusting his eye-glass  for  him, or
finding out the right place in his  catalogue, or holding his  stick, or the
like. These services  did not so much originate with Mr Carker, in truth, as
with  Mr Dombey himself, who was  apt to assert his chieftainship by saying,
with subdued  authority, and in an easy way - for him - 'Here,  Carker, have
the goodness to assist me, will you?' which the smiling gentleman always did
with pleasure.
     They made the  tour of the  pictures, the  walls, crow's  nest, and  so
forth; and as they were still one  little party, and the Major was rather in
the shade: being  sleepy during the  process of digestion: Mr  Carker became
communicative  and  agreeable. At first, he addressed himself  for the  most
part  to Mrs Skewton; but as  that sensitive lady was in such ecstasies with
the  works  of art, after the first quarter  of  an hour, that she could  do
nothing but  yawn (they  were  such perfect inspirations,  she observed as a
reason for  that  mark of  rapture), he  transferred  his attentions  to  Mr
Dombey. Mr Dombey said little  beyond an  occasional 'Very true, Carker,' or
'Indeed, Carker,' but he tacitly encouraged Carker to proceed, and  inwardly
approved of his behaviour very much: deeming it as well that somebody should
talk, and thinking that his remarks, which were, as one might  say, a branch
of  the  parent  establishment,  might amuse  Mrs  Granger. Mr  Carker,  who
possessed an excellent discretion, never took the liberty of addressing that
lady, direct; but she seemed to listen, though she never looked at him;  and
once or twice, when  he was emphatic in his peculiar  humility, the twilight
smile stole over her face, not as a light, but as a deep black shadow.
     Warwick  Castle being at  length pretty  well exhausted,  and the Major
very much so: to say  nothing of Mrs Skewton, whose peculiar  demonstrations
of  delight had become very frequent Indeed: the carriage  was  again put In
requisition,  and  they  rode  to  several admired  points  of  view  In the
neighbourhood. Mr  Dombey ceremoniously  observed  of one of  these, that  a
sketch,  however  slight,  from  the  fair hand  of Mrs  Granger, would be a
remembrance  to  him of that agreeable  day:  though he wanted no artificial
remembrance, he was sure (here Mr Dombey made another of his bows), which he
must always  highly value. Withers the lean having Edith's sketch-book under
his arm, was immediately called upon by Mrs Skewton to produce the same: and
the carriage stopped, that Edith might make the drawing, which Mr Dombey was
to put away among his treasures.
     'But I am afraid I trouble you too much,' said Mr Dombey.
     'By no means.  Where  would  you  wish it  taken  from?'  she answered,
turning to him with the same enforced attention as before.
     Mr  Dombey,  with another  bow, which cracked the starch in his cravat,
would beg to leave that to the Artist.
     'I would rather you chose for yourself,' said Edith.
     'Suppose  then,' said  Mr Dombey, 'we say from here. It appears  a good
spot for the purpose, or - Carker, what do you think?'
     There  happened to  be in the foreground,  at some little  distance,  a
grove of  trees,  not unlike that In which  Mr Carker had  made his chain of
footsteps  in  the  morning,  and  with  a  seat  under  one  tree,  greatly
resembling, in the general character of  its situation, the point  where his
chain had broken.
     'Might I venture to suggest to Mrs Granger,' said Carker, 'that that is
an interesting - almost a curious - point of view?'
     She followed the direction of his riding-whip with her eyes, and raised
them quickly to his face. It was the second glance they  had exchanged since
their introduction; and would have been exactly like the first, but that its
expression was plainer.
     'Will you like that?' said Edith to Mr Dombey.
     'I shall be charmed,' said Mr Dombey to Edith.
     Therefore the carriage was driven to the spot where Mr Dombey was to be
charmed;  and  Edith,  without  moving  from   her  seat,  and  openIng  her
sketch-book with her usual proud indifference, began to sketch.
     'My  pencils are  all pointless,' she said,  stopping and turning  them
over.
     'Pray allow  me,' said Mr Dombey. 'Or Carker  will do  it better, as he
understands these things. Carker, have  the goodness to see to these pencils
for Mrs Granger.
     Mr Carker rode up close to the carriage-door on Mrs Granger's side, and
letting the rein  fall on his horse's neck,  took the  pencils from her hand
with a smile and a bow, and sat in the saddle leisurely mending them. Having
done so, he begged  to be allowed to hold  them, and  to hand them to her as
they were  required;  and  thus Mr Carker,  with  many commendations  of Mrs
Granger's extraordinary skill - especially  in  trees -  remained - close at
her side, looking over the drawing as she made it. Mr Dombey in the meantime
stood bolt upright in the carriage like  a highly respectable ghost, looking
on too; while Cleopatra and the Major dallied as two ancient doves might do.
     'Are you satisfied with that, or shall I finish it a little more?' said
Edith, showing the sketch to Mr Dombey.
     Mr Dombey begged that it might not be touched; it was perfection.
     'It is most extraordinary,' said Carker, bringing every  one of his red
gums to bear upon his praise. 'I was not prepared for anything so beautiful,
and so unusual altogether.'
     This might have applied to the sketcher no less than to the sketch; but
Mr Carker's  manner was openness itself -  not as to his mouth alone, but as
to his whole  spirit. So it continued to be while the drawing was laid aside
for Mr Dombey, and while the sketching materials were put up; then he handed
in the pencils (which were received with  a  distant  acknowledgment of  his
help, but without a  look), and tightening his rein, fell back, and followed
the carriage again.
     Thinking, perhaps,  as he rode,  that even this trivial sketch had been
made and delivered to its owner, as if it had been bargained for and bought.
Thinking,  perhaps,  that  although  she  had  assented  with  such  perfect
readiness  to  his  request, her  haughty  face,  bent over the  drawing, or
glancing at the distant  objects represented  in it, had been the  face of a
proud  woman,  engaged in a  sordid  and  miserable  transaction.  Thinking,
perhaps, of such things: but smiling certainly, and while he seemed  to look
about him freely, in enjoyment of the  air and exercise, keeping always that
sharp corner of his eye upon the carriage.
     A stroll among the haunted  ruins of Kenilworth, and more rides to more
points of  view:  most of  which, Mrs Skewton reminded Mr Dombey, Edith  had
already sketched, as he  had seen in looking  over her drawings: brought the
day's expedition to a close. Mrs Skewton and Edith were driven  to their own
lodgings; Mr Carker  was graciously invited by  Cleopatra  to return thither
with Mr Dombey and the Major, in the evening, to hear some of Edith's music;
and the three gentlemen repaired to their hotel to dinner.
     The dinner was the counterpart of  yesterday's,  except that  the Major
was twenty-four hours more triumphant and less mysterious. Edith was toasted
again. Mr Dombey was again agreeably embarrassed. And Mr  Carker was full of
interest and praise.
     There were no other  visitors at Mrs  Skewton's.  Edith's drawings were
strewn  about  the  room, a little more abundantly than usual  perhaps;  and
Withers,  the wan page,  handed  round a  little  stronger tea. The harp was
there; the piano was  there; and  Edith sang and  played. But even the music
was  played  by  Edith  to  Mr  Dombey's  order,  as it were,  in  the  same
uncompromising way. As thus.
     'Edith, my dearest love,' said Mrs Skewton, half an hour after tea, 'Mr
Dombey is dying to hear you, I know.'
     'Mr Dombey has life  enough left to say so for himself, Mama, I have no
doubt.'
     'I shall be immensely obliged,' said Mr Dombey.
     'What do you wish?'
     'Piano?' hesitated Mr Dombey.
     'Whatever you please. You have only to choose.
     Accordingly, she  began with the piano. It was  the same with the harp;
the same with her singing;  the same with the  selection of the  pieces that
she sang  and played. Such frigid and  constrained, yet  prompt and  pointed
acquiescence with  the wishes  he imposed upon her, and on no one else,  was
sufficiently  remarkable to penetrate through all the  mysteries of picquet,
and  impress itself on Mr Carker's  keen attention. Nor did he lose sight of
the fact  that Mr Dombey was evidently proud of his power, and liked to show
it.
     Nevertheless, Mr Carker played so well - some games with the Major, and
some  with Cleopatra, whose  vigilance  of eye  in respect of Mr  Dombey and
Edith no lynx could have surpassed - that he even heightened his position in
the lady-mother's good graces; and when on taking leave he regretted that he
would be  obliged  to  return to  London  next  morning,  Cleopatra trusted:
community of feeling not being met with  every  day:  that it was  far  from
being the last time they would meet.
     'I  hope so,' said Mr Carker, with  an expressive look at the couple in
the distance, as he drew  towards  the door,  following the  Major. 'I think
so.'
     Mr Dombey, who  had taken a stately leave of  Edith, bent, or made some
approach to a bend, over Cleopatra's couch, and said, in a low voice:
     'I  have requested Mrs Granger's permission  to  call on  her to-morrow
morning  -  for a purpose - and she has appointed twelve o'clock. May I hope
to have the pleasure of finding you at home, Madam, afterwards?'
     Cleopatra was so much fluttered and moved, by hearing this,  of course,
incomprehensible speech,  that she could only shut her  eyes, and shake  her
head, and give Mr Dombey her hand; which Mr Dombey, not exactly knowing what
to do with, dropped.
     'Dombey, come along!' cried the Major, looking in at the  door. 'Damme,
Sir,  old Joe  has a great mind  to propose an alteration in the name of the
Royal  Hotel, and that it should be called  the  Three  Jolly Bachelors,  in
honour of ourselves  and Carker.' With this, the  Major slapped Mr Dombey on
the back, and winking over  his shoulder at  the  ladies, with  a  frightful
tendency of blood to the head, carried him off.
     Mrs  Skewton reposed on her sofa,  and Edith sat apart, by her harp, in
silence.  The  mother,  trifling  with  her  fan, looked stealthily  at  the
daughter more  than once,  but the daughter, brooding gloomily with downcast
eyes, was not to be disturbed.
     Thus they remained for a long hour, without a word, until Mrs Skewton's
maid appeared, according  to  custom, to prepare her gradually for night. At
night, she  should have been a  skeleton, with  dart  and hour-glass, rather
than  a woman, this attendant; for her touch was as  the touch of Death. The
painted  object shrivelled underneath her hand; the form collapsed, the hair
dropped off, the  arched dark eyebrows changed  to scanty tufts of grey; the
pale  lips  shrunk, the  skin  became  cadaverous  and loose;  an old, worn,
yellow, nodding  woman, with red eyes,  alone remained in Cleopatra's place,
huddled up, like a slovenly bundle, in a greasy flannel gown.
     The very voice was changed, as it addressed Edith, when they were alone
again.
     'Why don't you tell me,'  it said  sharply,  'that  he is  coming  here
to-morrow by appointment?'
     'Because you know it,' returned Edith, 'Mother.'
     The mocking emphasis she laid on that one word!
     'You know  he has bought me,' she resumed. 'Or that he will, to-morrow.
He has  considered of his bargain; he has shown it to his friend; he is even
rather proud  of it;  he thinks  that  it  will  suit  him,  and may be  had
sufficiently cheap; and he will  buy to-morrow.  God, that  I have lived for
this, and that I feel it!'
     Compress into one  handsome face the conscious  self-abasement, and the
burning indignation of a hundred women, strong in passion and  in pride; and
there it hid itself with two white shuddering arms.
     'What  do you  mean?' returned the  angry mother. 'Haven't you  from  a
child - '
     'A child!'  said  Edith, looking  at her,  'when  was I a  child?  What
childhood  did you ever  leave  to me? I was  a woman -  artful,  designing,
mercenary,  laying  snares  for men - before I  knew myself, or you, or even
understood the base and wretched aim of every new display I learnt  You gave
birth to a woman. Look upon her. She is in her pride tonight'
     And  as  she spoke,  she struck  her  hand upon her beautiful bosom, as
though she would have beaten down herself
     'Look  at  me,'  she said, 'who have  never known what it is to have an
honest  heart, and love. Look at me, taught to scheme and plot when children
play; and married in my youth - an old age of design - to one for whom I had
no feeling but  indifference. Look at me, whom he left a widow, dying before
his inheritance descended  to him - a  judgment on you! well deserved! - and
tell me what has been my life for ten years since.'
     'We have been making every effort to endeavour to secure to you a  good
establishment,' rejoined her mother. 'That has been  your  life. And now you
have got it.'
     'There is no slave in a  market: there is no horse in  a fair: so shown
and  offered  and examined  and paraded,  Mother, as  I have been,  for  ten
shameful years,' cried  Edith,  with a  burning brow,  and  the  same bitter
emphasis  on the one word. 'Is it not so? Have I been made  the bye-word  of
all kinds  of men?  Have fools,  have profligates, have boys,  have dotards,
dangled  after me, and one by  one rejected  me, and fallen off, because you
were too  plain with  all your cunning:  yes, and too true, with  all  those
false pretences:  until  we have almost come to be notorious? The licence of
look and touch,' she said, with flashing eyes,  'have I submitted to it,  in
half the  places of resort upon the map  of England? Have I been hawked  and
vended here and there, until the  last grain of  self-respect is dead within
me,  and I loathe myself? Has been my late childhood?  I had none before. Do
not tell me that I had, tonight of all nights in my life!'
     'You  might have been well married,' said  her mother, 'twenty times at
least, Edith, if you had given encouragement enough.'
     'No! Who takes me, refuse that I am, and as  I well deserve to be,' she
answered, raising her head, and trembling in  her energy of shame and stormy
pride, 'shall take me, as this  man does, with no art of  mine put forth  to
lure him. He sees me at the auction, and he thinks it  well  to buy  me. Let
him! When he came to view me - perhaps to  bid - he required to see the roll
of  my accomplishments. I gave it to him. When he  would have me show one of
them, to  justify his purchase to his men, I require of him to say  which he
demands, and  I exhibit it. I will do no more. He makes the purchase  of his
own will,  and with his own sense of its worth, and the  power of his money;
and I hope  it may never disappoint him. I have not vaunted and  pressed the
bargain; neither have you, so far as I have been able to prevent you.
     'You talk strangely to-night, Edith, to your own Mother.'
     'It  seems so  to me; stranger to me  than  you,' said  Edith.  'But my
education was completed long ago. I am too old now, and have fallen too low,
by degrees, to take a new course, and to stop yours, and to help myself. The
germ of all that purifies a woman's breast, and makes  it true and good, has
never stirred in mine, and I have nothing else  to sustain me when I despise
myself.'  There had been a touching  sadness in her voice, but it was  gone,
when she went on to say, with a curled lip, 'So, as we are genteel and poor,
I  am content that we  should be made rich by  these means; all I say is,  I
have kept the  only  purpose I  have had the strength to form - I had almost
said the power, with you at my  side, Mother - and have not tempted this man
on.'
     'This man! You speak,' said her mother, 'as if you hated him.'
     'And  you thought I loved him, did you not?' she answered, stopping  on
her  way  across  the room,  and  looking  round.  'Shall  I tell  you,' she
continued,  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  her mother,  'who  already knows  us
thoroughly,  and reads us right,  and  before  whom  I  have  even  less  of
self-respect or confidence  than  before my  own inward self; being so  much
degraded by his knowledge of me?'
     'This is an  attack, I suppose,' returned her mother coldly, 'on  poor,
unfortunate what's-his-name  - Mr  Carker!  Your  want of  self-respect  and
confidence,  my dear, in reference to that person (who is very agreeable, it
strikes me), is not likely to have much effect on your establishment. Why do
you look at me so hard? Are you ill?'
     Edith  suddenly let  fall her  face, as if it had been stung, and while
she  pressed  her  hands upon it, a  terrible tremble crept  over her  whole
frame.  It was quickly gone; and with her usual  step, she passed out of the
room.
     The maid  who should have been a  skeleton, then reappeared, and giving
one arm  to her mistress, who appeared to have taken off her manner with her
charms,  and to have put  on paralysis  with her flannel gown, collected the
ashes of Cleopatra, and carried them away in the other, ready for tomorrow's
revivification.

        CHAPTER 28.
     Alterations

     'So the day has come at length, Susan,'  said Florence to the excellent
Nipper, 'when we are going back to our quiet home!'
     Susan drew  in her  breath  with an  amount  of  expression  not easily
described,  further  relieving her  feelings  with a smart cough,  answered,
'Very quiet indeed, Miss Floy, no doubt. Excessive so.'
     'When I was a child,' said Florence, thoughtfully, and after musing for
some moments, 'did you ever see that gentleman who has  taken the trouble to
ride  down here  to  speak to  me, now  three  times - three times, I think,
Susan?'
     'Three  times, Miss,'  returned  the  Nipper. 'Once when  you was out a
walking with them Sket- '
     Florence gently looked at her, and Miss Nipper checked herself.
     'With Sir  Barnet and his  lady, I mean  to say, Miss,  and  the  young
gentleman. And two evenings since then.'
     'When  I was a child, and when  company used to come to visit Papa, did
you ever see that gentleman at home, Susan?' asked Florence.
     'Well, Miss,' returned  her maid, after considering, 'I really couldn't
say I ever did. When your  poor dear Ma died, Miss Floy, I was  very  new in
the family, you  see,  and  my element:' the Nipper bridled, as opining that
her merits had been  always  designedly extinguished by Mr Dombey: 'was  the
floor below the attics.'
     'To be sure,' said Florence, still thoughtfully; 'you are not likely to
have known who came to the house. I quite forgot.'
     'Not, Miss,  but what  we talked  about the  family and visitors,' said
Susan,  'and but  what I heard much said,  although  the  nurse  before  Mrs
Richards make  unpleasant remarks when I was in  company, and hint at little
Pitchers,  but that could  only be  attributed, poor thing,' observed Susan,
with  composed  forbearance, 'to habits of intoxication, for which  she  was
required to leave, and did.'
     Florence, who was  seated at her chamber window, with  her face resting
on her hand, sat looking out, and hardly seemed to hear what Susan said, she
was so lost in thought.
     'At all events, Miss,' said Susan, 'I remember very well that this same
gentleman, Mr Carker, was  almost, if not quite,  as great a gentleman  with
your Papa then, as he is now. It  used to be said in the  house then,  Miss,
that he was at  the head of  all your  Pa's affairs in the City, and managed
the  whole,  and that your  Pa minded  him more than anybody, which, begging
your pardon, Miss Floy, he might easy do, for he  never minded anybody else.
I knew that, Pitcher as I might have been.'
     Susan  Nipper,  with  an injured  remembrance of  the nurse  before Mrs
Richards, emphasised 'Pitcher' strongly.
     'And that Mr Carker  has not fallen off, Miss,'  she pursued, 'but  has
stood  his  ground, and  kept his  credit with your Pa, I  know from what is
always said among our  people by that Perch, whenever he comes to the house;
and  though  he's the weakest weed  in  the world, Miss Floy, and no one can
have  a  moment's patience with the man, he knows what goes on  in  the City
tolerable well, and says that  your Pa does  nothing without Mr  Carker, and
leaves all to Mr Carker, and acts according to Mr Carker, and has Mr  Carker
always  at his  elbow, and I do believe  that he believes  (that washiest of
Perches!) that after your Pa, the Emperor of India is the child unborn to Mr
Carker.'
     Not a word of this was lost on Florence, who, with an awakened interest
in Susan's speech, no longer gazed abstractedly on the prospect without, but
looked at her, and listened with attention.
     'Yes, Susan,' she said, when  that  young lady had concluded. 'He is in
Papa's confidence, and is his friend, I am sure.'
     Florence's mind ran high on this theme, and had  done for some days. Mr
Carker, in the two visits with  which he had followed up  his first one, had
assumed a  confidence between himself and  her - a right on his  part to  be
mysterious and stealthy, in telling her that the ship was still unheard of -
a kind of mildly restrained power and  authority  over her  - that made  her
wonder, and caused her  great uneasiness.  She had no means of repelling it,
or of freeing herself from the web he  was gradually winding about her;  for
that  would have  required some  art and  knowledge of the world, opposed to
such address as his; and Florence had none. True, he had said no more to her
than that there  was no  news of the ship, and that he feared the worst; but
how he came to know that she was interested  in the ship, and why he had the
right to signify his  knowledge to  her, so insidiously and darkly, troubled
Florence very much.
     This  conduct on  the  part  of  Mr  Carker,  and  her habit  of  often
considering it  with wonder and  uneasiness, began to  invest  him  with  an
uncomfortable   fascination   in  Florence's   thoughts.   A  more  distinct
remembrance of his features, voice, and manner: which she sometimes courted,
as a  means  of reducing him to  the level of a real  personage,  capable of
exerting no greater  charm over her than another:  did not  remove the vague
impression.  And yet he  never frowned,  or  looked upon her  with an air of
dislike or animosity, but was always smiling and serene.
     Again, Florence, in pursuit of her strong purpose with reference to her
father,  and  her  steady  resolution  to   believe  that  she  was  herself
unwittingly  to blame for their so cold  and distant relations, would recall
to  mind  that this gentleman was his confidential friend, and  would think,
with an anxious heart, could her struggling tendency to dislike and fear him
be a  part  of  that misfortune in  her, which had turned  her father's love
adrift, and left  her  so  alone? She  dreaded that it might  be;  sometimes
believed it was:  then she resolved that she would try to conquer this wrong
feeling;  persuaded  herself that  she  was  honoured  and encouraged by the
notice of her father's friend; and hoped that patient observation of him and
trust in him would lead her bleeding feet along that stony road  which ended
in her father's heart.
     Thus, with  no one  to advise her  - for she  could  advise with no one
without  seeming  to complain  against him -  gentle  Florence tossed on  an
uneasy sea  of doubt  and  hope; and Mr Carker, like  a scaly monster of the
deep, swam down below, and kept his shining eye upon her. Florence had a new
reason in all this for  wishing  to be at home again. Her  lonely  life  was
better  suited  to her course  of  timid  hope and  doubt;  and  she  feared
sometimes, that  in  her  absence  she might  miss  some hopeful  chance  of
testifying her affection for  her father. Heaven knows,  she  might have set
her mind at rest, poor child! on this  last point; but her slighted love was
fluttering  within her, and, even in her sleep, it flew away  in dreams, and
nestled, like a wandering bird come home, upon her father's neck.
     Of Walter she thought often. Ah! how often, when the  night was gloomy,
and the wind was blowing round the house! But hope was strong in her breast.
It is so difficult for the  young and ardent, even  with such  experience as
hers, to imagine youth and ardour quenched like a weak flame, and the bright
day of life merging into night, at noon, that hope was strong yet. Her tears
fell frequently for Walter's sufferings; but rarely for  his supposed death,
and never long.
     She had written to the old Instrument-maker, but had received no answer
to her note: which indeed required none. Thus matters stood with Florence on
the morning when she was going home, gladly, to her old secluded life.
     Doctor  and Mrs Blimber, accompanied  (much against his will) by  their
valued charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to Brighton, where that
young gentleman and his fellow-pilgrims to Parnassus were then, no doubt, in
the continual  resumption of their  studies. The  holiday time  was past and
over; most of  the juvenile  guests at the  villa had taken their departure;
and Florence's long visit was come to an end.
     There was one guest, however, albeit not resident within the house, who
had  been  very  constant  in his  attentions to the family, and  who  still
remained devoted to them. This  was Mr Toots, who after renewing, some weeks
ago,  the  acquaintance  he had  had the  happiness of forming with Skettles
Junior,  on  the  night when he  burst  the Blimberian bonds and soared into
freedom with  his ring  on, called regularly every  other  day,  and left  a
perfect  pack of cards at the  hall-door; so many indeed, that  the ceremony
was quite a deal on the part of Mr Toots, and a hand at whist on the part of
the servant.
     Mr  Toots, likewise, with  the  bold  and happy idea  of preventing the
family  from forgetting  him  (but  there  is reason to  suppose  that  this
expedient originated in the teeming brain of the Chicken), had established a
six-oared cutter, manned by aquatic friends of the  Chicken's and steered by
that illustrious  character  in person, who wore a bright red fireman's coat
for the purpose, and  concealed  the perpetual black eye  with which  he was
afflicted,  beneath  a  green shade.  Previous  to the  institution  of this
equipage, Mr Toots sounded the Chicken on a hypothetical case, as, supposing
the  Chicken  to  be  enamoured  of  a young  lady  named  Mary, and to have
conceived the intention of  starting a  boat of his own, what would he  call
that boat? The Chicken replied, with  divers strong  asseverations,  that he
would  either christen it Poll  or The  Chicken's Delight. Improving on this
idea,  Mr  Toots,  after deep  study  and the  exercise  of  much invention,
resolved  to  call his  boat The Toots's  Joy,  as a  delicate compliment to
Florence, of  which  no man  knowing  the  parties, could  possibly miss the
appreciation.
     Stretched on a crimson cushion in his gallant bark, with  his shoes  in
the air,  Mr Toots, in the exercise of his project, had come up  the  river,
day  after  day, and week after week, and  had flitted to and fro, near  Sir
Barnet's garden, and had caused his crew  to cut across and across the river
at  sharp angles,  for his  better  exhibition  to any lookers-out from  Sir
Barnet's windows, and had had such  evolutions performed by the  Toots's Joy
as had filled all the neighbouring part of the water-side with astonishment.
But whenever he saw anyone in Sir Barnet's garden on the brink of the river,
Mr  Toots  always  feigned  to  be  passing  there,  by  a  combination   of
coincidences of the most singular and unlikely description.
     'How are you, Toots?' Sir Barnet would  say,  waving his hand from  the
lawn, while the artful Chicken steered close in shore.
     'How de do, Sir Barnet?' Mr Toots would answer, What a surprising thing
that I should see you here!'
     Mr Toots,  in his sagacity, always  said this, as if,  instead of  that
being Sir Barnet's house,  it were some deserted edifice on the banks of the
Nile, or Ganges.
     'I never was so surprised!' Mr Toots  would  exclaim. - 'Is Miss Dombey
there?'
     Whereupon Florence would appear, perhaps.
     'Oh, Diogenes is quite well,  Miss Dombey,' Toots would  cry. 'I called
to ask this morning.'
     'Thank you very much!' the pleasant voice of Florence would reply.
     'Won't you  come  ashore,  Toots?' Sir Barnet  would say  then.  'Come!
you're in no hurry. Come and see us.'
     'Oh, it's  of no  consequence,  thank you!'  Mr  Toots would blushingly
rejoin. 'I thought  Miss  Dombey might like to know, that's  all. Good-bye!'
And poor  Mr Toots, who was dying to accept the  invitation, but hadn't  the
courage to do it, signed to the Chicken, with an aching heart, and away went
the Joy, cleaving the water like an arrow.
     The Joy was lying in  a state of extraordinary splendour, at the garden
steps, on the morning of Florence's  departure. When she went  downstairs to
take leave, after her talk  with  Susan, she found  Mr Toots awaiting her in
the drawing-room.
     'Oh,  how  de  do,  Miss  Dombey?'  said  the  stricken  Toots,  always
dreadfully disconcerted  when the desire of his heart was gained, and he was
speaking to her; 'thank you, I'm very well  indeed,  I hope you're the same,
so was Diogenes yesterday.'
     'You are very kind,' said Florence.
     'Thank you,  it's  of  no  consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'I  thought
perhaps you wouldn't mind, in  this fine weather, coming home by water, Miss
Dombey. There's plenty of room in the boat for your maid.'
     'I  am very  much obliged to you,' said Florence, hesitating. 'I really
am - but I would rather not.'
     'Oh, it's of no consequence,' retorted Mr Toots. 'Good morning.'
     'Won't you wait and see Lady Skettles?' asked Florence, kindly.
     'Oh no, thank you,' returned Mr Toots, 'it's of no consequence at all.'
     So  shy was  Mr Toots  on  such occasions,  and so flurried!  But  Lady
Skettles entering at the moment, Mr Toots was suddenly seized with a passion
for asking her how she did, and hoping she was very well; nor could Mr Toots
by any possibility  leave  off shaking  hands  with her,  until  Sir  Barnet
appeared: to whom he immediately clung with the tenacity of desperation.
     'We are  losing,  today,  Toots,'  said  Sir  Barnet,  turning  towards
Florence, 'the light of our house, I assure you'
     'Oh, it's  of  no  conseq -  I mean yes,  to  be  sure,'  faltered  the
embarrassed Mr Toots. 'Good morning!'
     Notwithstanding the emphatic nature of this farewell, Mr Toots, instead
of going away, stood leering about him, vacantly. Florence, to relieve  him,
bade adieu,  with many  thanks, to  Lady Skettles, and gave her  arm  to Sir
Barnet.
     'May I beg of you, my dear Miss Dombey,' said her host, as he conducted
her to the carriage, 'to present my best compliments to your dear Papa?'
     It was distressing to Florence to  receive the commission, for she felt
as  if she were imposing on  Sir Barnet by  allowing him to  believe  that a
kindness  rendered to her,  was  rendered to her father.  As  she  could not
explain, however, she bowed her  head and thanked him; and again she thought
that the dull home, free from such embarrassments, and such reminders of her
sorrow, was her natural and best retreat.
     Such of her late friends and companions as  were  yet remaining at  the
villa, came running from within, and from  the garden, to say good-bye. They
were all attached to her, and very earnest in taking leave of her.  Even the
household  were  sorry for  her  going, and  the  servants  came nodding and
curtseying round  the carriage  door. As  Florence looked round on the  kind
faces, and saw among them those of Sir Barnet and his lady, and of Mr Toots,
who was chuckling and  staring at her from a distance,  she was  reminded of
the  night when Paul and she  had come from Doctor Blimber's:  and when  the
carriage drove away, her face was wet with tears.
     Sorrowful  tears,  but tears of  consolation, too;  for all  the softer
memories connected with  the  dull old house to which she was returning made
it  dear to  her, as they rose up. How long it seemed since she had wandered
through the silent rooms: since she had last  crept, softly and afraid, into
those her  father occupied: since she had felt the solemn but  yet  soothing
influence of the beloved  dead in every action of her daily life!  This  new
farewell  reminded her, besides,  of her parting  with poor  Walter:  of his
looks and words that night: and of the gracious blending she  had noticed in
him,  of tenderness for those he  left behind, with courage and high spirit.
His little history was associated with the old house too, and  gave it a new
claim and hold  upon her heart. Even Susan  Nipper softened towards the home
of so  many years, as they were on their way towards  it. Gloomy as  it was,
and rigid justice as she rendered to its gloom, she forgave it a great deal.
'I  shall be glad to see it again, I  don't  deny, Miss,'  said the  Nipper.
'There ain't much in it to boast  of, but I wouldn't have it burnt or pulled
down, neither!'
     'You'll be glad to  go through  the old rooms, won't  you, Susan?' said
Florence, smiling.
     'Well, Miss,'  returned the Nipper, softening more and more towards the
house, as they approached it nearer, 'I won't deny but  what I shall, though
I shall hate 'em again, to-morrow, very likely.'
     Florence felt that,  for  her,  there was greater  peace within it than
elsewhere. It was better  and easier to keep her secret shut up there, among
the tall dark walls, than to carry it abroad into the light, and try to hide
it from a  crowd of happy eyes. It was  better  to  pursue  the study of her
loving  heart, alone, and find no new discouragements in loving hearts about
her. It was easier to hope, and pray, and love on, all uncared for, yet with
constancy and patience,  in  the  tranquil  sanctuary  of such remembrances:
although it mouldered,  rusted, and decayed about her: than  in a new scene,
let its gaiety  be what it would. She welcomed  back her old enchanted dream
of life, and longed for the old dark door to close upon her, once again.
     Full of  such  thoughts,  they turned into the long and  sombre street.
Florence was not on that side of the carriage which was nearest to her home,
and as  the distance lessened  between them and it,  she looked  out of  her
window for the children over the way.
     She was thus engaged, when an exclamation from Susan caused her to turn
quickly round.
     'Why, Gracious me!' cried Susan, breathless, 'where's our house!'
     'Our house!' said Florence.
     Susan, drawing in her head from the window,  thrust it  out again, drew
it  in  again as  the  carriage  stopped,  and  stared  at  her  mistress in
amazement.
     There was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all  round the house,  from
the basement to the roof. Loads of bricks and stones,  and heaps  of mortar,
and piles of wood, blocked up half the width and length  of the broad street
at  the side. Ladders were raised against the walls; labourers were climbing
up and down;  men were at work upon  the steps of  the scaffolding; painters
and decorators were busy inside; great rolls of  ornamental paper were being
delivered from a cart at the door; an  upholsterer's waggon also stopped the
way;  no furniture was to be  seen through the gaping and broken windows  in
any  of the  rooms; nothing but workmen, and the implements of their several
trades, swarming from the kitchens to the garrets. Inside and outside alike:
bricklayers, painters, carpenters, masons: hammer, hod, brush, pickaxe, saw,
and trowel: all at work together, in full chorus!
     Florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it  were, or  could
be the right  house, until she recognised Towlinson,  with a sun-burnt face,
standing at the door to receive her.
     'There is nothing the matter?' inquired Florence.
     'Oh no, Miss.'
     'There are great alterations going on.'
     'Yes, Miss, great alterations,' said Towlinson.
     Florence  passed him as  if she were in a dream, and  hurried upstairs.
The garish light was in the long-darkened drawing-room and  there were steps
and  platforms, and men In paper caps,  in the  high  places.  Her  mother's
picture was gone  with the rest of the moveables,  and on the mark where  it
had been, was scrawled  in chalk, 'this room in panel. Green and  gold.' The
staircase was a labyrinth of posts and planks like the outside of the house,
and  a  whole Olympus  of plumbers  and  glaziers was  reclining in  various
attitudes,  on  the skylight. Her own room was not yet  touched within,  but
there  were  beams  and  boards  raised  against it  without,  baulking  the
daylight. She  went up swiftly to that  other bedroom, where the  little bed
was;  and  a dark giant of a man with a pipe in his mouth, and his head tied
up in a pocket-handkerchief, was staring in at the window.
     It was here that Susan Nipper, who had been in quest of Florence, found
her, and said, would she go  downstairs  to her Papa, who wished to speak to
her.
     'At home! and wishing to speak to me!' cried Florence, trembling.
     Susan,  who  was  infinitely  more  distraught  than Florence  herself,
repeated  her errand; and Florence, pale  and  agitated, hurried down again,
without a moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down, would she dare
to kiss him? The longing of  her heart resolved  her, and  she  thought  she
would.
     Her father  might  have heard that heart  beat,  when it  came into his
presence. One instant, and it would have beat against his breast.
     But  he  was  not  alone.  There  were two ladies there;  and  Florence
stopped. Striving so hard with her emotion, that if  her brute friend Di had
not burst in and overwhelmed her with  his caresses as  a welcome home  - at
which  one of  the  ladies  gave  a little  scream,  and  that diverted  her
attention from herself - she would have swooned upon the floor.
     'Florence,' said her father, putting  out his hand:  so stiffly that it
held her off: 'how do you do?'
     Florence took the hand between  her own, and putting it timidly  to her
lips, yielded to  its withdrawal.  It touched the  door in shutting it, with
quite as much endearment as it had touched her.
     'What dog is that?' said Mr Dombey, displeased.
     'It is a dog, Papa - from Brighton.'
     'Well!'  said  Mr Dombey; and  a  cloud  passed  over his  face, for he
understood her.
     'He is  very good-tempered,' said Florence, addressing herself with her
natural grace and sweetness to the two  lady strangers.  'He is only glad to
see me. Pray forgive him.'
     She  saw  in  the glance they  interchanged,  that  the  lady  who  had
screamed, and  who was  seated, was old; and that  the other lady, who stood
near her Papa, was very beautiful, and of an elegant figure.
     'Mrs Skewton,' said her father,  turning  to the first, and holding out
his hand, 'this is my daughter Florence.'
     'Charming, I am  sure,' observed the lady, putting  up her  glass.  'So
natural! My darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you please.'
     Florence having done so,  turned towards  the other lady,  by  whom her
father stood waiting.
     'Edith,' said Mr Dombey,  'this is my daughter Florence. Florence, this
lady will soon be your Mama.'
     Florence started, and looked up at the beautiful  face in a conflict of
emotions, among which  the tears that name awakened, struggled  for a moment
with surprise, interest, admiration, and an  indefinable sort of fear.  Then
she  cried out, 'Oh, Papa, may you be happy! may you be very, very happy all
your life!' and then fell weeping on the lady's bosom.
     There was a  short silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had seemed
to hesitate whether or no she should  advance  to Florence, held  her to her
breast,  and pressed  the hand with which she clasped her, close  about  her
waist, as if to reassure her and comfort her. Not one word passed the lady's
lips. She bent her head down over Florence, and she kissed her on the cheek,
but she said no word.
     'Shall we go on through  the rooms,'  said Mr  Dombey, 'and see how our
workmen are doing? Pray allow me, my dear madam.'
     He said  this in offering his arm to  Mrs Skewton, who had been looking
at Florence through her glass, as though picturing to herself what she might
be made, by the infusion - from her own  copious storehouse, no doubt - of a
little more  Heart  and  Nature. Florence  was still sobbing  on  the lady's
breast, and  holding  to her,  when  Mr  Dombey was  heard  to say from  the
Conservatory:
     'Let us ask Edith. Dear me, where is she?'
     'Edith,  my  dear!' cried Mrs Skewton,  'where are you?  Looking for Mr
Dombey somewhere, I know. We are here, my love.'
     The beautiful lady released her hold of Florence, and pressing her lips
once  more  upon  her  face, withdrew hurriedly, and  joined them.  Florence
remained standing In the same place: happy, sorry, joyful, and in tears, she
knew not how, or how long, but all at once: when her new Mama came back, and
took her in her arms again.
     'Florence,' said  the lady, hurriedly, and looking into  her face  with
great earnestness. 'You will not begin by hating me?'
     'By  hating you, Mama?' cried Florence, winding her arm round her neck,
and returning the look.
     'Hush! Begin by thinking well  of me,' said the  beautiful lady. 'Begin
by believing that I will try to make you happy,  and that  I am  prepared to
love you, Florence. Good-bye. We shall meet again soon. Good-bye! Don't stay
here, now.'
     Again she pressed her to her breast she  had spoken in a  rapid manner,
but  firmly - and Florence  saw her rejoin  them in the other room.  And now
Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new and beautiful Mama,
how to gaIn her father's love; and in her sleep that  night, in her lost old
home, her own Mama smiled radiantly upon  the hope, and blessed it. Dreaming
Florence!

        CHAPTER 29.
     The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs Chick

     Miss  Tox, all  unconscious  of  any such rare appearances in connexion
with  Mr  Dombey's house,  as scaffoldings and ladders,  and  men with their
heads tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the windows like flying
genii  or strange  birds,  -  having breakfasted one  morning at  about this
eventful period of  time, on her customary viands;  to wit, one  French roll
rasped, one egg new laid (or  warranted to be), and one little  pot of  tea,
wherein  was infused  one little silver scoopful of that  herb  on behalf of
Miss Tox, and one little silver  scoopful on behalf of the teapot - a flight
of fancy in which good housekeepers delight; went upstairs to set  forth the
bird waltz on the harpsichord, to water and arrange  the plants, to dust the
nick-nacks,  and,  according  to  her  daily  custom,  to  make  her  little
drawing-room the garland of Princess's Place.
     Miss  Tox  endued  herself with  a pair of  ancient gloves,  like  dead
leaves, in which she  was  accustomed to  perform these avocations -  hidden
from human sight at other times in a table drawer - and went methodically to
work; beginning with the bird  waltz; passing,  by  a natural association of
ideas, to her bird - a  very high-shouldered canary, stricken in years,  and
much  rumpled, but a piercing singer, as Princess's Place well knew; taking,
next in order,  the little  china ornaments, paper fly-cages, and so  forth;
and coming round, in good time,  to the  plants, which generally required to
be snipped here and there with a pair of scissors, for some botanical reason
that was  very powerful with  Miss  Tox.  Miss Tox was slow in coming to the
plants, this morning. The weather was warm,  the  wind southerly; and  there
was  a sigh of the summer-time In Princess's Place,  that  turned Miss Tox's
thoughts upon the country. The pot-boy  attached to the Princess's Arms  had
come out  with  a can and trickled  water, in  a flowering pattern, all over
Princess's Place,  and  it  gave the weedy  ground a  fresh scent - quite  a
growing scent, Miss Tox said.  There was a tiny blink of sun peeping in from
the great street round the corner, and the smoky sparrows hopped over it and
back again, brightening  as they passed: or bathed in it, like a stream, and
became glorified sparrows,  unconnected with  chimneys. Legends in praise of
Ginger-Beer,  with pictorial representations of thirsty  customers submerged
in the effervescence,  or stunned by the  flying corks,  were conspicuous in
the window of the Princess's  Arms. They were making late hay, somewhere out
of town; and though the fragrance had a long  way to come,  and many counter
fragrances to  contend with among the dwellings  of the poor (may God reward
the  worthy gentlemen who stickle  for the Plague as part and parcel of  the
wisdom  of  our ancestors, and  who  do  their  little best  to  keep  those
dwellings  miserable!),  yet  it  was  wafted faintly into Princess's Place,
whispering of Nature and her  wholesome  air, as such things will, even unto
prisoners and captives, and those who  are desolate and  oppressed,  in very
spite of aldermen and knights to boot: at whose sage nod - and how they nod!
- the rolling world stands still!
     Miss Tox sat  down upon  the  window-seat, and thought of her good Papa
deceased -  Mr Tox,  of the Customs Department of the public service; and of
her childhood, passed at a seaport, among  a  considerable  quantity of cold
tar, and some rusticity. She fell into a softened remembrance of meadows, in
old time, gleaming  with buttercups,  like so many  inverted  firmaments  of
golden stars; and how  she had made chains  of dandelion-stalks for youthful
vowers of eternal constancy, dressed  chiefly in nankeen; and how soon those
fetters had withered and broken.
     Sitting on  the window-seat, and looking out upon  the sparrows and the
blink  of sun, Miss Tox thought likewise of her good Mama deceased  - sister
to  the owner  of the powdered  head and pigtail  - of her  virtues  and her
rheumatism.  And when a man with bulgy legs, and a rough  voice, and a heavy
basket on his  head that crushed  his  hat into  a  mere black muffin,  came
crying flowers  down  Princess's  Place,  making his timid little  roots  of
daisies  shudder in  the  vibration of every yell  he gave, as though he had
been an ogre, hawking little children,  summer recollections were so  strong
upon  Miss Tox,  that  she  shook  her  head,  and  murmured  she  would  be
comparatively old before she knew it - which seemed likely.
     In her pensive  mood, Miss Tox's thoughts went wandering on Mr Dombey's
track;  probably  because  the  Major  had  returned  home to  his  lodgings
opposite, and had just bowed to her from his window. What other reason could
Miss  Tox have for  connecting Mr Dombey with her summer  days and dandelion
fetters?  Was he  more cheerful? thought Miss Tox. Was he reconciled to  the
decrees of fate? Would he ever marry  again? and if yes, whom? What  sort of
person now!
     A flush - it  was warm weather - overspread Miss Tox's face, as,  while
entertaining these meditations, she turned her head,  and  was surprised  by
the  reflection of her thoughtful image In the  chimney-glass. Another flush
succeeded when  she saw a little carriage drive  into Princess's  Place, and
make  straight  for her  own door.  Miss Tox arose,  took  up  her  scissors
hastily, and so coming, at last, to the plants, was very busy with them when
Mrs Chick entered the room.
     'How is my sweetest friend!' exclaimed Miss Tox, with open arms.
     A  little stateliness  was mingled  with  Miss  Tox's sweetest friend's
demeanour, but she  kissed Miss  Tox, and  said, 'Lucretia, thank you, I  am
pretty well. I hope you are the same. Hem!'
     Mrs Chick  was labouring under a peculiar  little monosyllabic cough; a
sort of primer, or easy introduction to the art of coughing.
     'You call very early, and how kind that is, my dear!' pursued Miss Tox.
'Now, have you breakfasted?'
     'Thank  you,  Lucretia,' said  Mrs Chick, 'I  have.  I  took  an  early
breakfast' -  the  good lady  seemed  curious on the subject  of  Princess's
Place, and looked all round it as she spoke - 'with my brother, who has come
home.'
     'He is better, I trust, my love,' faltered Miss Tox.
     'He is greatly better, thank you. Hem!'
     'My dear Louisa must be careful of that cough' remarked Miss Tox.
     'It's nothing,' returned Mrs Chic 'It's  merely  change of weather.  We
must expect change.'
     'Of weather?' asked Miss Tox, in her simplicity.
     'Of everything'  returned Mrs Chick 'Of course we must. It's a world of
change. Anyone would surprise me  very  much,  Lucretia,  and would  greatly
alter my  opinion of their understanding, if they attempted to contradict or
evade  what is  so perfectly  evident.  Change!' exclaimed  Mrs  Chick, with
severe philosophy. 'Why, my gracious me, what is there that does not change!
even the  silkworm, who I  am  sure might be  supposed not to trouble itself
about  such   subjects,   changes   into  all  sorts  of  unexpected  things
continually.'
     'My   Louisa,'   said  the  mild  Miss  Tox,  'is  ever  happy  in  her
illustrations.'
     'You are so kind, Lucretia,' returned Mrs Chick, a little softened, 'as
to say so,  and to think so, I  believe. I hope neither of us  may ever have
any cause to lessen our opinion of the other, Lucretia.'
     'I am sure of it,' returned Miss Tox.
     Mrs  Chick  coughed as  before, and drew  lines on the  carpet with the
ivory end of her  parasol. Miss  Tox, who had experience of her fair friend,
and  knew  that under the pressure of any slight fatigue or vexation she was
prone to a discursive kind of irritability, availed herself of the pause, to
change the subject.
     'Pardon me, my dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'but have I caught sight of
the manly form of Mr Chick in the carriage?'
     'He is there,'  said Mrs  Chick, 'but  pray leave him there. He has his
newspaper,  and would be quite contented for  the next two hours. Go on with
your flowers, Lucretia, and allow me to sit here and rest.'
     'My  Louisa  knows,'  observed  Miss Tox, 'that  between  friends  like
ourselves, any approach to ceremony would  be out of the question. Therefore
- ' Therefore Miss  Tox finished  the sentence, not in words but action; and
putting on her  gloves again, which she had taken  off,  and  arming herself
once more with her scissors, began  to  snip and  clip among the leaves with
microscopic industry.
     'Florence has returned home also,' said Mrs Chick, after sitting silent
for some time, with her  head on one side, and her parasol  sketching on the
floor; 'and really Florence is a great deal too old now, to continue to lead
that solitary life to which she has been accustomed. Of course she is. There
can be no doubt about it.  I  should  have very little respect, indeed,  for
anybody who could advocate a different opinion. Whatever my wishes might be,
I could not  respect them. We cannot command our  feelings to such an extent
as that.'
     Miss Tox  assented,  without being particular as to the intelligibility
of the proposition.
     'If she's  a strange girl,'  said Mrs  Chick,  'and if  my brother Paul
cannot feel perfectly  comfortable in her society,  after all the sad things
that  have happened,  and  all the terrible disappointments  that have  been
undergone, then, what is the reply? That he must make  an effort. That he is
bound to make an effort. We have always been a family remarkable for effort.
Paul is at the head of the family; almost the only representative of it left
- for what am I - I am of no consequence - '
     'My dearest love,' remonstrated Miss Tox.
     Mrs Chick dried her eyes, which  were, for the moment, overflowing; and
proceeded:
     'And  consequently he is more than  ever bound to make an  effort.  And
though his having done  so, comes upon me with a sort of shock - for mine is
a very weak and foolish nature; which is anything but a blessing  I am sure;
I often wish my heart was a marble slab, or a paving-stone -
     'My sweet Louisa,' remonstrated Miss Tox again.
     'Still, it is a triumph to me to  know that  he is so true  to himself,
and to his name of Dombey; although, of course, I always knew he would be. I
only hope,' said Mrs Chick,  after  a  pause, 'that she may be worthy of the
name too.
     Miss Tox filled a little  green watering-pot from  a jug, and happening
to  look  up  when she  had done  so,  was so  surprised  by the  amount  of
expression Mrs Chick had conveyed into her face, and was bestowing upon her,
that she  put the little watering-pot  on the table for the present, and sat
down near it.
     'My dear Louisa,' said Miss Tox, 'will it be  the least satisfaction to
you,  if I venture to  observe  in reference  to that remark,  that I, as  a
humble  individual, think your sweet  niece  in  every way most  promising?~
'What do you mean, Lucretia?' returned Mrs Chick, with increased stateliness
of manner. 'To what remark of mine, my dear, do you refer?'
     'Her being worthy of her name, my love,' replied Miss Tox.
     'If,'  said Mrs  Chick,  with solemn patience,  'I  have  not expressed
myself with  clearness, Lucretia,  the  fault of course is  mine.  There is,
perhaps, no reason why I should express myself at  all,  except the intimacy
that  has  subsisted  between  us, and  which I very much hope,  Lucretia  -
confidently hope - nothing will occur to disturb.  Because, why should  I do
anything else? There is no reason; it would be absurd. But I wish to express
myself clearly,  Lucretia; and therefore to  go  back to that remark, I must
beg to say that it was not intended to relate to Florence, in any way.'
     'Indeed!' returned Miss Tox.
     'No,' said Mrs Chick shortly and decisively.
     'Pardon  me, my  dear,'  rejoined  her  meek friend; 'but I cannot have
understood it. I fear I am dull.'
     Mrs Chick looked round the room and over the way; at the plants, at the
bird, at  the  watering-pot, at almost everything within  view,  except Miss
Tox; and finally dropping her glance upon Miss Tox, for a moment, on its way
to the ground, said, looking meanwhile with elevated eyebrows at the carpet:
     'When I speak, Lucretia, of her being worthy of the name, I speak of my
brother Paul's second wife. I believe I have already said, in effect, if not
in  the very words I  now  use,  that it is his intention to marry a  second
wife.'
     Miss Tox left her seat in a hurry, and returned to her plants; clipping
among the stems and leaves, with as little favour as a  barber working at so
many pauper heads of hair.
     'Whether she  will be fully sensible of the distinction conferred  upon
her,' said  Mrs Chick, in a  lofty tone, 'is quite another question. I  hope
she may be. We are bound to think well of one another  in this world, and  I
hope she may  be. I have not been advised with  myself If I had been advised
with,  I  have no doubt  my  advice would have been cavalierly received, and
therefore it is infinitely better as it is. I much prefer it as it is.'
     Miss  Tox,  with head bent down,  still clipped among  the  plants. Mrs
Chick,  with energetic shakings of her own head from time to time, continued
to  hold  forth,  as if  in defiance  of  somebody. 'If my brother  Paul had
consulted with me, which  he sometimes  does -  or rather, sometimes used to
do; for he will naturally  do that no  more  now, and this is a circumstance
which  I  regard  as  a   relief  from  responsibility,'  said  Mrs   Chick,
hysterically,  'for I thank Heaven I am not jealous - ' here Mrs Chick again
shed tears: 'if my brother  Paul had come to me, and had said, "Louisa, what
kind of qualities would you advise me to look out for,  in a wife?" I should
certainly have answered, "Paul, you must have family, you must  have beauty,
you must  have dignity, you  must have connexion."  Those  are  the  words I
should  have   used.  You  might  have  led  me  to  the  block  immediately
afterwards,' said Mrs  Chick, as if that consequence were  highly  probable,
'but I  should have used them.  I  should  have said, "Paul! You  to marry a
second time  without  family! You to  marry  without  beauty!  You to  marry
without dignity!  You to  marry without connexion! There is  nobody  in  the
world, not mad,  who could dream of daring to entertain such a  preposterous
idea!"'
     Miss Tox stopped clipping; and with her head among the plants, listened
attentively. Perhaps Miss  Tox thought there was  hope in this exordium, and
the warmth of Mrs Chick.
     I should have adopted this  course of  argument,' pursued the  discreet
lady, 'because I trust  I am not a  fool. I make no claim to be considered a
person of  superior  intellect  -  though I believe  some  people have  been
extraordinary enough  to consider me  so;  one so little humoured  as  I am,
would very soon  be disabused  of  any such notion;  but I  trust I am not a
downright fool.  And to tell ME,' said  Mrs Chick  with  ineffable  disdain,
'that  my brother  Paul  Dombey  could  ever contemplate the possibility  of
uniting  himself to  anybody  -  I  don't care who' - she was more sharp and
emphatic in that short clause than in any other part of her discourse - 'not
possessing these requisites,  would be  to insult what understanding I  have
got,  as much as if I was to be told  that I was  born and bred an elephant,
which  I may be told next,'  said Mrs Chick,  with resignation. 'It wouldn't
surprise me at all. I expect it.'
     In the moment's silence that ensued, Miss Tox's scissors gave a  feeble
clip or two; but Miss Tox's face was still invisible, and Miss Tox's morning
gown was agitated. Mrs Chick looked sideways at her, through the intervening
plants,  and went  on to say,  in a  tone of bland  conviction,  and  as one
dwelling on a point of fact that hardly required to be stated:
     'Therefore, of course  my brother Paul has done what was to be expected
of him, and  what anybody might have foreseen he would do, if he entered the
marriage state  again. I  confess it takes me  rather  by  surprise, however
gratifying; because when Paul went out of town  I had no idea at all that he
would form any attachment  out  of town, and he certainly had no  attachment
when  he  left  here. However, it seems  to  be extremely desirable in every
point of view. I have  no  doubt the mother  is a  most  genteel and elegant
creature, and I have no right whatever to dispute  the policy of  her living
with them: which is Paul's affair,  not  mine  -  and  as  to Paul's choice,
herself, I have only seen her picture yet, but that is beautiful indeed. Her
name  is beautiful too,'  said  Mrs Chick, shaking her head with energy, and
arranging herself in her chair;  'Edith  is at  once uncommon, as it strikes
me, and distinguished. Consequently, Lucretia, I have  no doubt you  will be
happy to hear that the  marriage  is to take place immediately -  of course,
you  will:' great  emphasis again:  'and that  you are delighted  with  this
change in the  condition  of my brother, who has shown you a  great  deal of
pleasant attention at various times.'
     Miss  Tox made no verbal answer, but took  up the  little  watering-pot
with a trembling  hand, and  looked vacantly  round  as  if considering what
article of  furniture  would  be improved by  the contents.  The  room  door
opening at this crisis of Miss Tox's feelings, she  started,  laughed aloud,
and fell into  the arms  of the person entering; happily insensible alike of
Mrs Chick's indignant countenance and  of the  Major at his window over  the
way,  who had his double-barrelled eye-glass in full action,  and whose face
and figure were dilated with Mephistophelean joy.
     Not so the expatriated Native, amazed supporter of Miss  Tox's swooning
form, who, coming straight upstairs,  with a polite  inquiry  touching  Miss
Tox's health (in exact pursuance of the Major's malicious instructions), had
accidentally arrived  in the very nick of time  to catch the delicate burden
in his arms, and  to receive the content'  of the little watering-pot in his
shoe; both of which circumstances,  coupled with his consciousness of  being
closely watched by the wrathful Major, who had threatened the usual  penalty
in regard of every bone  in his  skin  in  case of  any failure, combined to
render him a moving spectacle of mental and bodily distress.
     For some moments, this afflicted  foreigner  remained clasping Miss Tox
to  his  heart, with an energy of  action  in remarkable opposition  to  his
disconcerted face, while that  poor lady trickled slowly  down upon  him the
very last sprinklings of  the  little watering-pot, as if he were a delicate
exotic (which indeed he was), and might be almost expected to blow while the
gentle  rain descended.  Mrs Chick, at length recovering sufficient presence
of mind to  interpose, commanded  him  to drop Miss  Tox upon  the sofa  and
withdraw;  and  the exile  promptly obeying, she  applied herself to promote
Miss Tox's recovery.
     But  none  of  that  gentle  concern which  usually  characterises  the
daughters of Eve in their tending of each other; none of that freemasonry in
fainting, by which they are generally bound together In a mysterious bond of
sisterhood;  was  visible  in  Mrs  Chick's  demeanour.   Rather  like   the
executioner who restores the victim to sensation previous to proceeding with
the torture (or was wont  to do so, in the good old times for which all true
men  wear perpetual mourning), did Mrs Chick administer the smelling-bottle,
the slapping  on the hands, the dashing of cold  water on the face, and  the
other proved remedies. And when, at length, Miss Tox opened  her  eyes,  and
gradually became restored to animation and consciousness, Mrs Chick drew off
as from a criminal,  and reversing  the precedent  of  the murdered  king of
Denmark, regarded her more in anger than In sorrow.'
     'Lucretia!' said Mrs Chick 'I will not attempt to disguise what I feel.
My eyes are  opened, all at once. I wouldn't have believed this, if  a Saint
had told it to me.
     'I am foolish to give way to faintness,' Miss Tox faltered. 'I shall be
better presently.'
     'You will be  better presently,  Lucretia!'  repeated  Mrs Chick,  with
exceeding  scorn.  'Do  you suppose  I am  blind?  Do you imagine I am in my
second childhood? No, Lucretia! I am obliged to you!'
     Miss  Tox  directed  an imploring, helpless  kind of  look  towards her
friend, and put her handkerchief before her face.
     'If anyone had told me this yesterday,' said Mrs  Chick,  with majesty,
'or  even half-an-hour ago, I should have been tempted, I almost believe, to
strike  them to the earth.  Lucretia Tox, my eyes are opened to  you all  at
once.  The scales:' here Mrs Chick cast down  an imaginary pair, such as are
commonly used in  grocers' shops: 'have fallen from my sight.  The blindness
of my confidence is past, Lucretia. It has been abused and played, upon, and
evasion is quite out of the question now, I assure you.
     'Oh! to what  do  you  allude  so  cruelly, my  love?'  asked Miss Tox,
through her tears.
     'Lucretia,' said Mrs Chick, 'ask your own heart. I must entreat you not
to  address  me by any  such  familiar term  as you  have just used, if  you
please. I have some self-respect left, though you may think otherwise.'
     'Oh, Louisa!' cried Miss Tox. 'How can you speak to me like that?'
     'How can I speak to you like that?' retorted Mrs Chick, who, in default
of  having  any  particular  argument  to   sustain  herself   upon,  relied
principally on such repetitions for  her most withering effects. 'Like that!
You may well say like that, indeed!'
     Miss Tox sobbed pitifully.
     'The  idea!' said  Mrs Chick, 'of  your having  basked  at my brother's
fireside, like  a serpent,  and wound  yourself, through me, almost into his
confidence, Lucretia, that you might, in secret, entertain designs upon him,
and dare to aspire to  contemplate the possibility of his uniting himself to
you! Why,  it  is  an idea,'  said  Mrs Chick, with sarcastic  dignity, 'the
absurdity of which almost relieves its treachery.'
     'Pray, Louisa,' urged Miss Tox, 'do not say such dreadful things.'
     'Dreadful  things!' repeated  Mrs Chick. 'Dreadful things! Is  it not a
fact, Lucretia, that you have  just now been unable to command your feelings
even before me, whose eyes you had so completely closed?'
     'I have made no complaint,' sobbed Miss Tox. 'I have said nothing. If I
have  been  a little overpowered by your news, Louisa, and have ever had any
lingering thought that  Mr Dombey was inclined to be  particular towards me,
surely you will not condemn me.'
     'She is going to say,' said Mrs Chick,  addressing herself to the whole
of the furniture, in a comprehensive glance of resignation and  appeal, 'She
is going to say - I know it - that I have encouraged her!'
     'I don't  wish  to exchange reproaches,  dear  Louisa,' sobbed Miss Tox
'Nor do I wish to complain. But, in my own defence - '
     'Yes,' cried Mrs Chick,  looking round the room with a prophetic smile,
'that's what she's going to say. I  knew it.  You had better  say it. Say it
openly! Be  open, Lucretia Tox,' said  Mrs Chick, with  desperate sternness,
'whatever you are.'
     'In my own defence,' faltered  Miss Tox, 'and  only  In  my own defence
against your unkind words, my  dear Louisa, I would  merely ask you  if  you
haven't often  favoured such a  fancy, and even  said  it might  happen, for
anything we could tell?'
     'There is a point,' said Mrs Chick, rising, not as if she were going to
stop  at the  floor, but as if she were  about to soar  up,  high,  into her
native skies, 'beyond which endurance becomes ridiculous, if not culpable. I
can bear  much; but not too much. What spell was on me when I came into this
house  this  day,  I  don't  know;  but  I  had  a  presentiment  -  a  dark
presentiment,' said Mrs  Chick, with a shiver, 'that something was  going to
happen. Well may I have had that foreboding, Lucretia, when my confidence of
many years is destroyed in an  instant, when my eyes are opened all at once,
and  when I find you  revealed in your true  colours.  Lucretia, I have been
mistaken in you. It is better for us both that this subject should end here.
I wish you  well, and I  shall ever wish you well. But, as an individual who
desires  to be  true  to herself  in her  own  poor  position, whatever that
position  may be, or may not be - and  as the sister of my  brother - and as
the sister-in-law of my brother's wife - and  as a connexion by  marriage of
my brother's wife's mother - may I be permitted to add, as a Dombey? - I can
wish you nothing else but good morning.'
     These words, delivered with cutting suavity, tempered and chastened  by
a  lofty air of moral rectitude,  carried the speaker to the door. There she
inclined her head in a  ghostly  and statue-like manner, and so withdrew  to
her carriage, to  seek comfort and consolation  in the arms of Mr Chick, her
lord.
     Figuratively speaking,  that is to say; for the arms of  Mr  Chick were
full of his newspaper. Neither  did that gentleman address  his eyes towards
his  wife otherwise than  by stealth. Neither  did he offer any  consolation
whatever.  In  short,  he sat reading, and humming fag  ends  of  tunes, and
sometimes  glancing furtively at her without  delivering himself  of a word,
good, bad, or indifferent.
     In  the meantime Mrs Chick sat swelling and bridling,  and  tossing her
head,  as if she were still repeating  that solemn  formula  of  farewell to
Lucretia Tox.  At length, she said aloud,  'Oh the extent to  which her eyes
had been opened that day!'
     'To which your eyes have been opened, my dear!' repeated Mr Chick.
     'Oh,  don't talk to me!' said  Mrs  Chic 'if you can bear to see  me in
this state,  and  not ask me what the  matter is, you  had  better hold your
tongue for ever.'
     'What is the matter, my dear?' asked Mr Chick
     'To think,' said Mrs  Chick, in a  state of soliloquy, 'that she should
ever have conceived the base idea of connecting herself with our family by a
marriage  with Paul!  To think that when she was playing at horses with that
dear child  who is  now in his grave - I  never liked  it  at the time - she
should  have been hiding  such a double-faced design! I wonder she was never
afraid  that  something  would happen to  her. She  is fortunate  if nothing
does.'
     'I  really thought, my dear,' said Mr  Chick  slowly, after rubbing the
bridge of  his nose for some time with his newspaper, 'that you had  gone on
the  sa