what they said, and only wished the dinner  at
an  end. When the  dessert  was placed upon  the table, and they  were  left
alone, with  no servant in attendance, Mr Dombey, who had been several times
clearing his throat in a manner that augured no good, said:
     'Mrs  Dombey,   you  know,  I  suppose,  that  I  have  instructed  the
housekeeper that there will be some company to dinner here to-morrow.
     'I do not dine at home,' she answered.
     'Not a large party,' pursued  Mr Dombey, with an indifferent assumption
of  not having heard her; 'merely some twelve or fourteen. My sister,  Major
Bagstock, and some others whom you know but slightly.'
     I do not dine at home,' she repeated.
     'However doubtful reason I may have, Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, still
going majestically  on,  as if she had not spoken, 'to hold the occasion  in
very  pleasant remembrance just  now, there  are appearances in these things
which  must be maintained before the  world. If  you  have  no  respect  for
yourself, Mrs Dombey - '
     'I have none,' she said.
     'Madam,' cried Mr Dombey, striking his hand upon the table, 'hear me if
you please. I say, if you have no respect for yourself - '
     'And I say I have none,' she answered.
     He looked  at her; but the face she showed him in return would not have
changed, if death itself had looked.
     'Carker,'  said Mr Dombey, turning  more quietly to that gentleman, 'as
you  have  been  my  medium  of  communication  with  Mrs  Dombey  on former
occasions, and as I choose to preserve the decencies of life, so far as I am
individually concerned,  I  will  trouble you to have the goodness to inform
Mrs Dombey that if she has no  respect for herself,  I have some respect for
myself, and therefore insist on my arrangements for to-morrow.
     'Tell  your sovereign master, Sir,' said Edith, 'that I will take leave
to  speak  to  him on this subject by-and-bye, and  that I will speak to him
alone.'
     'Mr Carker,  Madam,'  said  her  husband, 'being in  possession of  the
reason which obliges me to refuse you that privilege, shall be absolved from
the delivery of any such message.' He saw her eyes move, while he spoke, and
followed them with his own.
     'Your daughter is present, Sir,' said Edith.
     'My daughter will remain present,' said Mr Dombey.
     Florence, who had risen, sat down again, hiding her  face in her hands,
and trembling.
     'My daughter, Madam' - began Mr Dombey.
     But Edith stopped  him,  in  a voice  which, although not raised in the
least, was so  clear, emphatic, and distinct,  that it might have been heard
in a whirlwind.
     'I tell  you I will speak to you alone,' she said. 'If you are not mad,
heed what I say.'
     'I have authority to speak to  you, Madam,' returned her husband, 'when
and where I please; and it is my pleasure to speak here and now.'
     She rose up as if to leave the room; but sat down again, and looking at
him with all outward composure, said, in the same voice:
     'You shall!'
     'I must tell you first, that there is a threatening  appearance in your
manner, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, 'which does not become you.
     She  laughed. The  shaken diamonds  in  her hair started and  trembled.
There are fables of precious stones that would turn pale, their wearer being
in danger. Had these been such,  their imprisoned  rays  of light would have
taken flight that moment, and they would have been as dull as lead.
     Carker listened, with his eyes cast down.
     'As to my daughter, Madam,'  said Mr Dombey, resuming the thread of his
discourse,  'it is by no means  inconsistent with her duty  to  me, that she
should know what conduct to avoid. At present  you are a very strong example
to her of this kind, and I hope she may profit by it.'
     'I would not stop you  now,' returned his wife,  immoveable in eye, and
voice,  and  attitude; 'I  would  not rise and  go  away, and save  you  the
utterance of one word, if the room were burning.'
     Mr Dombey moved his head,  as if  in  a sarcastic acknowledgment of the
attention, and resumed. But not with so much self-possession as before;  for
Edith's quick uneasiness in reference to Florence, and Edith's  indifference
to him and his censure, chafed and galled him like a stiffening wound.
     'Mrs Dombey,' said he, 'it may not be  inconsistent  with my daughter's
improvement to  know  how very much  to be lamented, and how necessary to be
corrected,  a stubborn disposition is, especially when  it is indulged in  -
unthankfully indulged  in, I  will add - after the gratification of ambition
and interest.  Both of which, I believe, had some share in inducing  you  to
occupy your present station at this board.'
     'No! I would not rise, and go away, and save  you the  utterance of one
word,' she repeated, exactly as before, 'if the room were burning.'
     'It may be natural enough, Mrs Dombey,' he pursued, 'that you should be
uneasy in the presence of any auditors of these disagreeable truths;  though
why'  - he could not hide  his  real feeling here,  or keep  his  eyes  from
glancing gloomily at  Florence - 'why anyone can give them greater force and
point  than  myself,  whom  they so  nearly concern,  I  do  not  pretend to
understand.  It may be  natural enough that you  should object  to  hear, in
anybody's presence, that  there  is a rebellious principle  within you which
you cannot  curb  too soon; which you must  curb,  Mrs Dombey;  and which, I
regret to say,  I remember  to  have seen manifested - with  some doubt  and
displeasure, on  more than one occasion before  our marriage  - towards your
deceased mother.  But you have the remedy  in your own hands. I  by no means
forgot,  when I began, that  my daughter was  present, Mrs Dombey. I beg you
will  not forget, to-morrow, that  there  are several persons  present;  and
that, with  some regard  to  appearances, you will receive your company in a
becoming manner.
     'So  it is  not enough,' said  Edith,  'that  you know what  has passed
between yourself and me; it is not enough that you  can look here,' pointing
at Carker,  who still listened, with his eyes cast down, 'and be reminded of
the affronts you have put upon me; it is not enough that you can look here,'
pointing to  Florence with a hand that slightly trembled for  the  first and
only time, 'and  think of what you  have  done, and  of the ingenious agony,
daily, hourly, constant, you have made me feel in doing it; it is not enough
that this day, of all  others in the year, is memorable to me for a struggle
(well-deserved, but  not  conceivable  by such as you) in which I wish I had
died! You add to all this,  do you, the last crowning meanness of making her
a witness of the depth to  which I have fallen; when you know that  you have
made  me sacrifice to her peace, the only gentle feeling and interest of  my
life,  when  you know that  for her sake, I would now if I could - but I can
not, my soul recoils from you too much  - submit myself wholly to your will,
and be the meekest vassal that you have!'
     This  was not  the  way to  minister to Mr Dombey's greatness.  The old
feeling was roused by what she said, into a stronger  and  fiercer existence
than  it had  ever had. Again, his neglected child, at this rough passage of
his life, put  forth by even this rebellious woman, as powerful where he was
powerless, and everything where he was nothing!
     He turned on  Florence, as if it were she who had  spoken, and bade her
leave the room. Florence with her covered face obeyed, trembling and weeping
as she went.
     'I understand, Madam,' said Mr Dombey, with an angry flush  of triumph,
'the spirit of  opposition  that turned your affections in that channel, but
they have been met, Mrs Dombey; they have been met, and turned back!'
     'The  worse for you!' she  answered,  with  her voice and  manner still
unchanged.  'Ay!' for he turned sharply when she said so, 'what is the worse
for me, is twenty million times the worse for  you. Heed  that, if  you heed
nothing else.'
     The arch of diamonds spanning her dark hair, flashed and glittered like
a starry  bridge. There was no warning in them, or they would have turned as
dull and dim as tarnished honour. Carker still sat and  listened,  with  his
eyes cast down.
     'Mrs Dombey,'  said  Mr Dombey, resuming  as  much  as he  could of his
arrogant  composure,  'you  will  not  conciliate  me, or turn  me from  any
purpose, by this course of conduct.'
     'It is the only true although  it  is  a  faint  expression of what  is
within me,' she replied. 'But if I thought it would conciliate  you, I would
repress it, if it were repressible by any  human  effort. I will  do nothing
that you ask.'
     'I am not accustomed to ask, Mrs Dombey,' he observed; 'I direct.'
     'I will hold no place in your house to-morrow, or on any recurrence  of
to-morrow.  I  will be  exhibited to  no one, as  the refractory  slave  you
purchased, such a time. If I kept my marriage  day, I would keep it as a day
of shame. Self-respect! appearances before the world! what are these  to me?
You have done all you can to make them nothing to me, and they are nothing.'
     'Carker,'  said Mr Dombey, speaking  with knitted  brows, and  after  a
moment's consideration, 'Mrs Dombey is so forgetful of herself and me in all
this, and places me  in a position so unsuited to  my character, that I must
bring this state of matters to a close.'
     'Release me,  then,'  said  Edith, immoveable  in voice, in  look,  and
bearing, as  she  had been throughout, 'from  the chain by which I am bound.
Let me go.'
     'Madam?' exclaimed Mr Dombey.
     'Loose me. Set me free!'
     'Madam?' he repeated, 'Mrs Dombey?'
     'Tell  him,' said Edith,  addressing her proud face  to Carker, 'that I
wish  for a separation  between  us, That  there had  better  be one. That I
recommend it to  him, Tell him  it  may take place on his  own terms  -  his
wealth is nothing to me - but that it cannot be too soon.'
     'Good Heaven,  Mrs  Dombey!' said  her husband, with supreme amazement,
'do you imagine it possible that  I could ever listen to such a proposition?
Do you know who I am, Madam? Do you know what I represent? Did you ever hear
of Dombey and Son? People to say that Mr Dombey - Mr Dombey! - was separated
from his wife! Common people to talk of Mr Dombey and his  domestic affairs!
Do you seriously think, Mrs Dombey, that I would permit my name to be banded
about in such connexion? Pooh,  pooh,  Madam! Fie for shame! You're absurd.'
Mr Dombey absolutely laughed.
     But not  as she did. She had  better  have been dead than laugh  as she
did, in reply, with her intent look fixed upon him.  He had better have been
dead, than sitting there, in his magnificence, to hear her.
     'No, Mrs Dombey,' he resumed. 'No, Madam.  There is  no  possibility of
separation  between you  and me, and therefore I the more  advise you to  be
awakened to a sense of duty. And, Carker, as I was about to say to you -
     Mr Carker, who had sat and listened all this time, now raised his eyes,
in which there was a bright unusual light'
     As I was about  to say to you, resumed Mr Dombey, 'I must  beg you, now
that  matters have  come to this, to  inform Mrs Dombey, that  it is not the
rule  of my life to allow myself to be thwarted by anybody - anybody, Carker
- or to suffer anybody to be  paraded as a stronger motive  for obedience in
those who  owe obedience to me than I am my self. The  mention that has been
made of my daughter, and the use  that is made of my daughter, in opposition
to  me,  are  unnatural. Whether my  daughter is in actual concert  with Mrs
Dombey, I do not  know, and do not care; but after  what Mrs Dombey has said
today, and  my daughter  has  heard  to-day, I beg you to  make known to Mrs
Dombey, that if  she continues to make this house the scene of contention it
has become, I shall consider my daughter responsible in some degree, on that
lady's own  avowal, and  shall  visit  her  with my severe  displeasure. Mrs
Dombey  has asked "whether it is not  enough,"  that  she  had done this and
that. You will please to answer no, it is not enough.'
     'A  moment!'  cried  Carker,  interposing,  'permit  me! painful as  my
position is, at the  best,  and unusually painful in seeming to  entertain a
different opinion from you,' addressing  Mr Dombey, 'I must ask, had you not
better reconsider the question of  a separation. I know how incompatible  it
appears with your high public position, and  I know  how determined  you are
when you give  Mrs Dombey to understand' - the  light  in his eyes fell upon
her as he separated his words each from  each, with  the distinctness of  so
many bells  - 'that nothing but death can ever  part  you. Nothing else. But
when you consider that Mrs Dombey, by living in this house, and making it as
you  have said,  a  scene  of  contention,  not only  has  her part in  that
contention, but compromises Miss Dombey every day (for I know how determined
you are), will you  not relieve her from a continual  irritation  of spirit,
and a continual  sense of being unjust to another, almost  intolerable? Does
this  not seem like - I do  not  say it is  - sacrificing Mrs Dombey  to the
preservation of your preeminent and unassailable position?'
     Again the light in his eyes fell upon her, as she stood looking  at her
husband: now with an extraordinary and awful smile upon her face.
     'Carker,' returned Mr Dombey, with a supercilious frown, and in  a tone
that was intended to be final, 'you mistake your position in offering advice
to me  on such a point, and you mistake  me (I am surprised to find) in  the
character of your advice. I have no more to say.
     'Perhaps,' said Carker,  with  an unusual and indefinable taunt in  his
air, 'you mistook my position, when you honoured me with the negotiations in
which  I have  been engaged  here'  - with a motion of his hand towards  Mrs
Dombey.
     'Not at all, Sir, not at all,'  returned the other haughtily. 'You were
employed - '
     'Being an inferior person, for the humiliation of Mrs Dombey. I forgot'
Oh, yes, it was expressly understood!' said Carker. 'I beg your pardon!'
     As  he  bent his  head to  Mr  Dombey, with an  air  of deference  that
accorded ill with  his  words, though they  were humbly spoken, he  moved it
round towards her, and kept his watching eyes that way.
     She had better have turned hideous and dropped dead, than have stood up
with such a smile upon her face, in such a fallen spirit's majesty  of scorn
and beauty. She lifted her hand to the tiara of bright jewels radiant on her
head, and,  plucking it off with a force that dragged and  strained her rich
black hair with  heedless  cruelty, and brought  it tumbling wildly  on  her
shoulders, cast the gems upon  the ground. From  each arm,  she unclasped  a
diamond bracelet, flung it  down, and trod upon the glittering heap. Without
a word, without a shadow on the fire of her bright eye, without abatement of
her awful smile, she looked on Mr Dombey to the last, in moving to the door;
and left him.
     Florence had heard enough before quitting the room,  to know that Edith
loved her yet; that she had suffered for her sake; and that she had kept her
sacrifices quiet, lest they should trouble her peace.  She  did  not want to
speak  to her of this - she could not, remembering to whom she was opposed -
but she wished, in  one silent and affectionate  embrace, to assure her that
she felt it all, and thanked her.
     Her father went out alone, that evening, and Florence issuing  from her
own chamber soon afterwards, went about the house in  search of. Edith,  but
unavailingly. She was in  her own rooms, where Florence  had long  ceased to
go, and did not  dare to venture now, lest she should unconsciously engender
new trouble. Still Florence hoping to meet  her before going to bed, changed
from room to room, and wandered through the house so splendid and so dreary,
without remaining anywhere.
     She was crossing a gallery  of communication that opened at some little
distance on the staircase, and was only lighted on great occasions, when she
saw, through the opening, which was an arch, the figure of a man coming down
some few stairs opposite. Instinctively apprehensive of her father, whom she
supposed it was, she stopped, in the dark, gazing through  the arch into the
light. But it was Mr Carker coming down alone, and looking  over the railing
into  the  hall. No bell was rung to  announce his departure, and no servant
was in attendance. He went down quietly, opened the door for himself, glided
out, and shut it softly after him.
     Her invincible repugnance  to this man, and perhaps the stealthy act of
watching anyone,  which,  even under such innocent  circumstances, is  in  a
manner guilty and  oppressive,  made Florence shake from  head to  foot. Her
blood seemed to run cold. As soon as  she could - for at first she  felt  an
insurmountable dread of moving - she went quickly to her own room and locked
her door; but even  then, shut in with her  dog  beside her,  felt  a  chill
sensation of horror, as if there were danger brooding somewhere near her.
     It  invaded her dreams and  disturbed the  whole  night. Rising  in the
morning,  unrefreshed,  and  with  a  heavy  recollection  of  the  domestic
unhappiness of the  preceding day, she sought Edith again  in all the rooms,
and did so, from time to time, all the morning. But she remained  in her own
chamber,  and Florence saw  nothing  of  her.  Learning,  however,  that the
projected  dinner at home  was  put off, Florence thought it likely that she
would go out in the evening  to fulfil the engagement she had spoken of; and
resolved to try and meet her, then, upon the staircase.
     When the  evening had set in, she heard, from the room in which she sat
on purpose,  a footstep  on  the  stairs that  she  thought to  be  Edith's.
Hurrying out, and up towards her room, Florence met  her immediately, coming
down alone.
     What was Florence's affright and wonder when, at sight of her, with her
tearful face, and outstretched arms, Edith recoiled and shrieked!
     'Don't come near me!' she cried. 'Keep away! Let me go by!'
     'Mama!' said Florence.
     'Don't  call  me by that name! Don't speak to me!  Don't look at  me! -
Florence!'  shrinking back, as Florence  moved  a step  towards  her, 'don't
touch me!'
     As Florence stood transfixed before the  haggard face and staring eyes,
she  noted,  as  in a  dream, that Edith  spread  her  hands over them,  and
shuddering  through all her  form,  and crouching  down  against  the  wall,
crawled by her like some lower animal, sprang up, and fled away.
     Florence dropped upon the stairs in a swoon; and was found there by Mrs
Pipchin, she supposed. She knew nothing more,  until she found herself lying
on her own bed, with Mrs Pipchin and some servants standing round her.
     'Where is Mama?' was her first question.
     'Gone out to dinner,' said Mrs Pipchin.
     'And Papa?'
     'Mr Dombey is in his own room, Miss Dombey,' said Mrs Pipchin, 'and the
best  thing you  can  do, is  to take  off  your things  and  go to bed this
minute.'  This  was  the  sagacious  woman's   remedy  for  all  complaints,
particularly lowness of spirits, and inability to sleep; for which offences,
many young victims in the days of the Brighton Castle  had been committed to
bed at ten o'clock in the morning.
     Without promising obedience,  but on the  plea  of desiring  to be very
quiet,  Florence  disengaged  herself,  as  soon  as  she  could,  from  the
ministration  of Mrs Pipchin and her attendants. Left alone,  she thought of
what had happened on the staircase, at  first in doubt  of its reality; then
with tears; then with an indescribable and terrible alarm, like that she had
felt the night before.
     She determined not to go to bed until Edith returned, and if  she could
not speak to  her,  at  least to  be sure  that she  was safe at  home. What
indistinct and shadowy dread moved Florence to this resolution, she  did not
know, and did not dare  to  think. She only knew that until Edith came back,
there was no repose for her aching head or throbbing heart.
     The evening deepened into night; midnight came; no Edith.
     Florence  could not read, or rest a moment.  She  paced her  own  room,
opened  the door  and paced the staircase-gallery  outside,  looked  out  of
window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the  rain falling, sat
down and  watched  the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying
like a storm-driven ship through the sea of clouds.
     All the house was gone to bed, except two servants who were waiting the
return of their mistress, downstairs.
     One o'clock.  The carriages that rumbled in the distance,  turned away,
or stopped short, or went past; the silence gradually deepened, and was more
and more  rarely  broken,  save  by a rush  of wind  or  sweep  of rain. Two
o'clock. No Edith!
     Florence, more agitated, paced her room; and paced the gallery outside;
and  looked out at  the night, blurred  and  wavy with the raindrops on  the
glass, and the tears in her own eyes; and looked up at the hurry in the sky,
so different from the repose  below, and yet so tranquil and solitary. Three
o'clock!  There  was a terror in every ash that  dropped out of the fire. No
Edith yet.
     More and more agitated, Florence paced her room, and paced the gallery,
and  looked out at  the moon with a  new  fancy  of  her likeness  to a pale
fugitive  hurrying away and hiding  her  guilty face. Four  struck! Five! No
Edith yet.
     But  now there  was some cautious stir in the house; and Florence found
that Mrs Pipchin had been awakened by one of those who sat up, had risen and
had  gone  down to her  father's door. Stealing lower down  the  stairs, and
observing  what passed, she saw her father come out in his morning gown, and
start when he was told his wife had not come home. He dispatched a messenger
to the stables to inquire whether the coachman was there; and while  the man
was gone, dressed himself very hurriedly.
     The man came back, in  great haste, bringing the coachman with him, who
said he  had been  at home and in  bed, since ten o'clock. He had driven his
mistress to  her old house in  Brook Street,  where  she had been  met by Mr
Carker -
     Florence stood upon the very spot where  she  had seen him coming down.
Again she shivered with the nameless terror  of that sight, and  had  hardly
steadiness enough to hear and understand what followed.
     - Who had told him, the man went on to say, that his mistress would not
want the carriage to go home in; and had dismissed him.
     She saw  her father turn  white  in  the face, and  heard  him ask in a
quick, trembling voice, for Mrs  Dombey's  maid. The whole house was roused;
for she was there, in a moment, very pale too, and speaking incoherently.
     She said she had dressed her mistress early - full two hours before she
went out - and had been told, as she often was, that she would not be wanted
at night. She had just come from her mistress's rooms, but -
     'But  what!  what  was it?'  Florence heard her  father  demand like  a
madman.
     'But the inner dressing-room was locked and the key gone.'
     Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground - someone had
put it  down there, and  forgotten it - and came  running upstairs with such
fury, that  Florence,  in her fear, had hardly time to  fly before him.  She
heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely spread,
and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person's, back to her
own room.
     When the door yielded, and he rushed in,  what did he see there? No one
knew. But thrown down in  a costly  mass upon the ground, was every ornament
she had  had,  since she had been his wife;  every dress  she had worn;  and
everything she had  possessed. This was  the room  in  which he had seen, in
yonder mirror, the proud face discard him. This was the room in which he had
wondered, idly, how these things would look when he should see them next!
     Heaping them  back into the drawers, and locking them up in a  rage  of
haste, he  saw  some papers  on the  table. The  deed of  settlement  he had
executed on their marriage, and a letter. He read that she was gone. He read
that  he was  dishonoured. He read  that  she  had fled,  upon  her shameful
wedding-day,  with  the man whom he  had chosen for her humiliation; and  he
tore  out of the room, and out  of the house, with a frantic idea of finding
her yet, at the place to which  she had been taken, and beating all trace of
beauty out of the triumphant face with his bare hand.
     Florence,  not knowing  what she did, put on a shawl and  bonnet, in  a
dream  of  running  through  the  streets  until she  found Edith,  and then
clasping her in her arms, to  save  and bring her back. But when she hurried
out  upon the staircase, and saw the frightened  servants going up and  down
with lights, and whispering together, and falling away from her father as he
passed  down,  she awoke to a sense  of her own powerlessness; and hiding in
one of the great rooms that had been made gorgeous for this, felt as if  her
heart would burst with grief.
     Compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that made head
against the  flood  of  sorrow which  overwhelmed her.  Her constant  nature
turned to him in his  distress,  as fervently and faithfully, as if, in  his
prosperity,  he had been the  embodiment of that  idea which  had  gradually
become  so faint  and dim. Although she did not know, otherwise than through
the  suggestions of a shapeless fear,  the full extent  of his  calamity, he
stood before her, wronged and deserted; and again her yearning love impelled
her to his side.
     He was  not  long away; for Florence was yet weeping in the  great room
and nourishing these thoughts, when she heard him come  back. He ordered the
servants  to  set about their ordinary occupations,  and went  into  his own
apartment,  where he trod so heavily  that she could hear him walking up and
down from end to end.
     Yielding  at once  to the impulse of  her affection, timid at all other
times, but  bold in its truth to him in his adversity, and undaunted by past
repulse, Florence, dressed as  she was, hurried downstairs. As she  set  her
light foot in  the hall, he came out  of his  room. She hastened towards him
unchecked, with her arms stretched out, and crying 'Oh dear, dear Papa!'  as
if she would have clasped him round the neck.
     And so  she would have done. But in  his frenzy, he lifted up his cruel
arm, and struck her, crosswise, with that heaviness,  that  she tottered  on
the marble floor; and as  he dealt the blow, he told her what Edith was, and
bade her follow her, since they had always been in league.
     She  did not  sink  down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of
him with her trembling hands; she did  not weep; she did  not utter one word
of reproach. But she looked at  him, and a cry of desolation issued from her
heart. For as she looked, she saw him murdering  that fond idea to which she
had held in spite of him. She saw  his cruelty, neglect, and hatred dominant
above it,  and stamping  it down. She saw she had no father upon  earth, and
ran out, orphaned, from his house.
     Ran out  of his house. A moment, and her hand was on the lock,  the cry
was  on  her  lips,  his face  was there,  made paler by  the yellow candles
hastily put down and guttering away, and by the daylight coming in above the
door. Another moment, and the close darkness of the shut-up house (forgotten
to be opened, though it was long since day) yielded to the unexpected  glare
and freedom of  the  morning; and Florence, with her head bent down to  hide
her agony of tears, was in the streets.

        CHAPTER 48.
     The Flight of Florence

     In the  wildness of her sorrow,  shame, and  terror,  the  forlorn girl
hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the darkness
of  a winter night. Wringing her  hands and weeping bitterly,  insensible to
everything but the deep wound in  her breast, stunned by the loss of all she
loved, left  like the sole  survivor on a lonely shore  from the wreck  of a
great vessel, she fled without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose,
but to fly somewhere anywhere.
     The cheerful vista  of the long street, burnished by the morning light,
the sight  of the  blue sky and  airy clouds, the vigorous  freshness of the
day,  so  flushed  and  rosy  in its  conquest  of  the  night,  awakened no
responsive feelings in her so hurt bosom.  Somewhere, anywhere,  to hide her
head!  somewhere,  anywhere, for refuge,  never more  to look upon the place
from which she fled!
     But  there  were people going to and fro; there were opening shops, and
servants at the doors of houses; there  was the rising clash and roar of the
day's struggle. Florence saw surprise  and  curiosity in the faces  flitting
past her; saw long shadows  coming back upon the pavement; and  heard voices
that were strange to her asking her where she went, and what the matter was;
and though these frightened her the more at first, and made her hurry on the
faster,  they did her the good  service of recalling her  in  some degree to
herself, and reminding her of the necessity of greater composure.
     Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still  going on; but where! She
thought of the only other time she had been lost  in the wild  wilderness of
London - though not lost as now - and went that way. To the home of Walter's
Uncle.
     Checking her sobs,  and drying  her swollen  eyes, and  endeavouring to
calm  the  agitation  of her manner,  so  as  to  avoid  attracting  notice,
Florence, resolving to keep to the more quiet streets as long  as she could,
was going on more quietly herself, when a familiar little shadow darted past
upon the sunny  pavement, stopped  short, wheeled about, came close to  her,
made off  again, bounded  round and  round her,  and  Diogenes,  panting for
breath, and yet making the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet.
     'Oh, Di! oh, dear,  true, faithful Di, how did you come here? How could
I ever leave you, Di, who would never leave me?'
     Florence bent down on the  pavement,  and laid his rough, old,  loving,
foolish head  against her breast,  and they got  up together,  and  went  on
together;  Di  more off  the ground than  on  it, endeavouring to  kiss  his
mistress flying,  tumbling  over  and getting up  again  without  the  least
concern, dashing at big dogs in a jocose defiance of his species, terrifying
with touches  of his nose young housemaids who were  cleaning doorsteps, and
continually stopping, in the midst of a thousand extravagances, to look back
at  Florence, and bark  until all the  dogs within hearing answered, and all
the dogs who could come out, came out to stare at him.
     With this  last  adherent,  Florence  hurried  away  in  the  advancing
morning, and the  strengthening sunshine,  to the City. The roar  soon  grew
more loud, the passengers  more numerous, the shops more busy, until she was
carried  onward  in  a  stream  of  life  setting  that  way,  and  flowing,
indifferently, past marts and  mansions,  prisons,  churches, market-places,
wealth, poverty, good, and evil,  like the broad river side by side with it,
awakened from its dreams of rushes, willows, and green moss, and rolling on,
turbid and troubled, among the works and cares of men, to the deep sea.
     At length the quarters of  the little  Midshipman arose in view. Nearer
yet, and the little Midshipman  himself was  seen  upon his post, intent  as
ever on his observations.  Nearer yet, and the door stood open, inviting her
to enter. Florence, who had again quickened her pace, as  she approached the
end of her journey,  ran across the road (closely followed by Diogenes, whom
the  bustle  had somewhat confused), ran  in, and sank upon the threshold of
the well-remembered little parlour.
     The Captain,  in his glazed hat, was standing over the fire, making his
morning's   cocoa,   with   that  elegant  trifle,  his   watch,  upon   the
chimney-piece, for  easy  reference  during  the  progress of  the  cookery.
Hearing  a  footstep and  the  rustle of a dress, the Captain  turned with a
palpitating remembrance of the dreadful Mrs  MacStinger, at the instant when
Florence made a motion with her  hand towards him, reeled, and fell upon the
floor.
     The  Captain, pale  as Florence,  pale in  the very knobs upon his face
raised her like a baby, and laid her on the same old sofa upon which she had
slumbered long ago.
     'It's Heart's Delight!' said the Captain, looking intently in her face.
'It's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!'
     Captain Cuttle was so respectful of her, and  had  such a reverence for
her,  in  this new character, that  he  would not have held her in his arms,
while she was unconscious, for a thousand pounds.
     'My  Heart's  Delight!'  said  the  Captain,  withdrawing  to a  little
distance, with the greatest alarm  and sympathy depicted on his countenance.
'If you can hail Ned Cuttle with a finger, do it!'
     But Florence did not stir.
     'My Heart's Delight!'  said  the trembling  Captain. 'For the  sake  of
Wal'r  drownded  in the  briny  deep, turn  to,  and  histe  up something or
another, if able!'
     Finding her  insensible  to  this impressive  adjuration also,  Captain
Cuttle snatched  from  his  breakfast-table  a  basin  of  cold  water,  and
sprinkled  some upon her  face.  Yielding to the  urgency of the  case,  the
Captain then, using his immense hand with extraordinary gentleness, relieved
her of her bonnet,  moistened  her lips  and  forehead, put back  her  hair,
covered her feet with his  own coat  which  he pulled off  for  the purpose,
patted her hand - so small in his,  that he was struck  with wonder  when he
touched it  - and seeing that her eyelids quivered, and  that her lips began
to move, continued these restorative applications with a better heart.
     'Cheerily,' said the Captain. 'Cheerily! Stand by, my pretty one, stand
by! There! You're better now. Steady's the  word, and steady it is. Keep her
so! Drink  a little drop  o' this  here,' said  the Captain. 'There you are!
What cheer now, my pretty, what cheer now?'
     At  this stage  of  her recovery, Captain  Cuttle,  with  an  imperfect
association  of a Watch with a Physician's treatment of a patient,  took his
own down from the mantel-shelf, and holding it out on his hook,  and  taking
Florence's hand in his, looked steadily from  one to the other, as expecting
the dial to do something.
     'What cheer, my pretty?' said the Captain. 'What cheer now? You've done
her some good, my  lad, I believe,' said  the Captain, under his breath, and
throwing an  approving glance  upon his watch.  'Put  you back  half-an-hour
every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and you're a
watch as can be ekalled by few  and  excelled by none.  What cheer, my  lady
lass!'
     'Captain Cuttle!  Is  it you?' exclaimed  Florence,  raising herself  a
little.
     'Yes, yes, my lady lass,' said the Captain, hastily deciding in his own
mind upon the superior elegance of that form of address, as the most courtly
he could think of.
     'Is Walter's Uncle here?' asked Florence.
     'Here, pretty?' returned the Captain. 'He  ain't been here this many  a
long day. He ain't been  heerd on,  since he sheered  off arter  poor Wal'r.
But,' said  the  Captain, as a  quotation, 'Though lost  to sight, to memory
dear, and England, Home, and Beauty!'
     'Do you live here?' asked Florence.
     'Yes, my lady lass,' returned the Captain.
     'Oh,  Captain Cuttle!'  cried Florence, putting her hands together, and
speaking wildly. 'Save me! keep me here!  Let no  one know  where I am! I'll
tell you what has happened by-and-by, when I can. I have no one in the world
to go to. Do not send me away!'
     'Send you away, my lady lass!' exclaimed the Captain. 'You, my  Heart's
Delight!  Stay a bit! We'll  put up this here deadlight, and  take  a double
turn on the key!'
     With these words, the Captain, using his one hand and his hook with the
greatest dexterity, got out  the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all
fast, and locked the door itself.
     When  he came back  to  the side of Florence, she  took  his hand,  and
kissed it. The helplessness of the action,  the appeal it  made  to him, the
confidence it expressed,  the  unspeakable sorrow  in her face,  the pain of
mind she had too plainly suffered, and was suffering then, his knowledge  of
her past history, her present  lonely, worn, and unprotected appearance, all
so rushed upon  the  good Captain together, that  he fairly overflowed  with
compassion and gentleness.
     'My lady lass,' said the Captain, polishing the bridge of his nose with
his  arm until it shone  like  burnished copper,  'don't  you say  a word to
Ed'ard Cuttle, until such times as  you finds  yourself a riding  smooth and
easy; which won't be to-day, nor yet to-morrow. And as to giving  of you up,
or  reporting  where you  are, yes  verily, and  by  God's help, so I won't,
Church catechism, make a note on!'
     This  the Captain said, reference and all, in one breath, and with much
solemnity; taking off his hat at 'yes verily,' and putting it on again, when
he had quite concluded.
     Florence could do but one thing more to thank him, and to show  him how
she  trusted in him; and she did  it' Clinging to this rough creature as the
last  asylum of  her bleeding heart,  she  laid  her  head  upon  his honest
shoulder, and clasped  him round his neck,  and would  have  kneeled down to
bless him, but that he divined her purpose, and held her up like a true man.
     'Steady!' said the Captain. 'Steady! You're too weak to stand, you see,
my pretty, and must lie down here again. There, there!'  To see the  Captain
lift her on the sofa, and cover her with his  coat, would have been  worth a
hundred state  sights.  'And now,'  said  the Captain,  'you must  take some
breakfast,  lady lass, and the dog  shall have some too.  And arter that you
shall  go  aloft  to  old  Sol Gills's room,  and fall asleep  there, like a
angel.'
     Captain  Cuttle  patted Diogenes  when  he made  allusion  to  him, and
Diogenes  met that overture graciously, half-way.  During the administration
of the restoratives  he  had clearly been in two minds whether to fly at the
Captain  or to offer him his friendship; and he had expressed  that conflict
of  feeling  by alternate waggings of his tail,  and displays of  his teeth,
with now and then a growl or  so.  But by  this  time,  his doubts were  all
removed. It was plain that he considered the Captain one of the most amiable
of men, and a man whom it was an honour to a dog to know.
     In  evidence of  these  convictions, Diogenes  attended  on the Captain
while he made  some tea  and  toast, and  showed a lively  interest  in  his
housekeeping. But  it  was  in vain  for  the  kind  Captain  to  make  such
preparations for Florence,  who sorely tried to do some honour to them,  but
could touch nothing, and could only weep and weep again.
     'Well, well!'  said the  compassionate Captain,  'arter turning in,  my
Heart's  Delight,  you'll get more  way upon you.  Now, I'll serve  out your
allowance, my lad.' To Diogenes. 'And you shall keep guard  on your mistress
aloft.'
     Diogenes,  however, although  he had been eyeing his intended breakfast
with  a  watering  mouth  and  glistening  eyes,  instead  of  falling   to,
ravenously, when it was  put before him, pricked  up his ears, darted to the
shop-door,  and  barked  there  furiously: burrowing with  his head  at  the
bottom, as if he were bent on mining his way out.
     'Can there be anybody there!' asked Florence, in alarm.
     'No, my  lady lass,' returned the  Captain. 'Who'd stay there,  without
making any noise! Keep up a good heart, pretty. It's only people going by.'
     But  for  all  that,  Diogenes  barked  and  barked,  and burrowed  and
burrowed,  with  pertinacious  fury;  and whenever  he  stopped  to  listen,
appeared  to receive  some new  conviction  into  his  mind,  for he set to,
barking  and burrowing again,  a dozen times. Even when  he was persuaded to
return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to  it, with  a  very doubtful
air; and was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching a morsel.
     'If   there  should  be  someone  listening  and  watching,'  whispered
Florence. 'Someone who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.'
     'It ain't the young woman, lady lass,  is it?' said the Captain,  taken
with a bright idea
     'Susan?' said Florence, shaking  her head. 'Ah  no! Susan has been gone
from me a long time.'
     'Not  deserted, I  hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that  that there
young woman's run, my pretty!'
     'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence.  'She is  one of the truest hearts in the
world!'
     The  Captain was  greatly  relieved  by  this reply, and expressed  his
satisfaction by taking  off his  hard glazed  hat, and dabbing his  head all
over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing several  times,
with  infinite complacency, and with a beaming countenance,  that he  know'd
it.
     'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain  to Diogenes.
'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!'
     Diogenes was  not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction for
him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it,  and growling  to  himself,
unable to  forget  the  subject. This incident,  coupled  with the Captain's
observation of Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided him to  prepare Sol
Gills's chamber as a  place of retirement  for her immediately. He therefore
hastily  betook  himself to  the  top  of  the  house,  and  made  the  best
arrangement of it that his imagination and his means suggested.
     It was very clean  already;  and the Captain being an orderly man,  and
accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted  the  bed  into a  couch, by
covering it all over with  a clean white  drapery. By a similar contrivance,
the Captain converted the  little dressing-table into a species of altar, on
which he  set forth two  silver  teaspoons,  a flower-pot, a  telescope, his
celebrated watch,  a pocket-comb, and a song-book, as a  small collection of
rarities, that  made a choice appearance.  Having darkened the  window,  and
straightened the pieces of carpet  on  the floor, the Captain surveyed these
preparations with great delight, and descended to  the little parlour again,
to bring Florence to her bower.
     Nothing  would  induce the Captain to believe that  it was possible for
Florence to  walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea  into his head, he
would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to allow her to
do so. Florence  was too  weak to dispute the point, and the Captain carried
her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with a great watch-coat.
     'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you was at
the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the  ladder cast off. Sleep is what you
want, afore  all  other things, and may you be able  to show yourself  smart
with that there  balsam for the still small woice of  a  wounded  mind! When
there's anything you  want, my Heart's Delight, as this here humble house or
town  can offer, pass  the word to  Ed'ard Cuttle,  as'll  stand off  and on
outside that door, and that  there  man will wibrate  with joy.' The Captain
concluded by kissing  the hand that Florence  stretched out to him, with the
chivalry of any old knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room.
     Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty
council  with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes,  and
satisfy himself that now, at all events,  there was no  one loitering  about
it. Accordingly he set it open,  and  stood upon  the threshold,  keeping  a
bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street with his spectacles.
     'How de  do,  Captain Gills?' said a  voice  beside him.  The  Captain,
looking down, found that he had been  boarded by Mr Toots while sweeping the
horizon.
     'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain.
     'Well, I m  pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,'  said Mr Toots. 'You
know  I'm never quite what I  could wish to be, now. I  don't expect that  I
ever shall be any more.'
     Mr Toots never  approached any nearer than this  to the  great theme of
his life,  when in  conversation with  Captain  Cuttle, on  account  of  the
agreement between them.
     'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of a word
with you, it's - it's rather particular.'
     'Why, you see, my lad,'  replied the Captain, leading the way  into the
parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this morning; and therefore
if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.'
     'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any notion
of the Captain's meaning. 'To  clap  on, is exactly what I could wish to do.
Naturally.'
     'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!'
     The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous secret
- by the fact of Miss Dombey  being at that moment under his roof, while the
innocent and unconscious Toots sat  opposite  to him - that  a  perspiration
broke out on his forehead, and he found  it impossible, while  slowly drying
the  same, glazed hat in hand,  to  keep his  eyes off Mr Toots's  face.  Mr
Toots, who himself  appeared to have  some secret  reasons  for  being  in a
nervous state,  was so unspeakably disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that
after  looking  at  him vacantly  for  some time  in silence,  and  shifting
uneasily on his chair, he said:
     'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see anything
particular in me, do you?'
     'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.'
     'Because you know,' said Mr Toots  with a chuckle, 'I  kNOW I'm wasting
away. You needn't  at  all mind  alluding  to  that. I -  I should  like it.
Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of thinness. It's
a  gratification  to me. I - I'm glad of it. I  - I'd a great deal rather go
into a  decline, if I could.  I'm  a  mere brute  you know, grazing upon the
surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'
     The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was weighed
down by his secret, and stared  at him. What with this cause  of uneasiness,
and his desire  to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in such a scared and
strange condition, indeed, that if he had been in conversation with a ghost,
he could hardly have evinced greater discomposure.
     'But  I was going  to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening to
be  this way early  this morning  - to tell you the  truth, I was coming  to
breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know,  I never sleep now. I  might be a
Watchman,  except  that  I  don't  get any pay, and he's got nothing on  his
mind.'
     'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.
     'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr  Toots. 'Perfectly true!  Happening
to be  this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the door
shut - '
     'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain.
     'Not  at all, Captain  Gills,'  returned  Mr Toots.  'I didn't  stop  a
moment. I thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye, you  don't
keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?'
     The Captain shook his head.
     'To be sure,' said Mr Toots,  'that's exactly what  I said. I  knew you
didn't. There is  a dog, Captain  Gills,  connected  with  - but excuse  me.
That's forbidden ground.'
     The Captain stared  at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell  to  twice his
natural  size;  and  again  the  perspiration  broke  out  on the  Captain's
forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into  his head to come  down
and make a third in the parlour.
     'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog barking
in the shop: which I  knew couldn't  be,  and I told him so. But  he  was as
positive as if he had seen the dog.'
     'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.
     'Why,  you  see  there it  is, Captain  Gills,' said  Mr Toots,  with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of  his manner.  'It's not for me to
say what may have taken place,  or what may not have taken  place. Indeed, I
don't  know. I get mixed up  with  all sorts of  things that  I  don't quite
understand, and I think there's something rather weak in my - in my head, in
short.'
     The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
     'But  the person  said, as we were walking away,'  continued  Mr Toots,
'that you knew what,  under  existing circumstances, might  occur -  he said
"might," very strongly - and that if you were requested to prepare yourself,
you would, no doubt, come prepared.'
     'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated.
     'I don't know  what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots,
'I  haven't the least  idea. But  coming to the  door, I  found  him waiting
there; and  he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; and he said did
I know  you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of your acquaintance  - you
had given  me the pleasure of your acquaintance,  after some persuasion; and
he said, if  that was the case, would  I say to you what  I have said, about
existing circumstances and coming prepared, and  as  soon as ever I saw you,
would I ask you to step round the corner, if  it was only for one minute, on
most important business, to Mr Brogley's the Broker's. Now, I tell you what,
Captain Gills -  whatever  it is, I am convinced it's very important; and if
you like to step round, now, I'll wait here till you come back.'
     The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising  Florence in some
way by not going, and his  horror of leaving Mr Toots in possession  of  the
house with a  chance of finding out the  secret, was a spectacle  of  mental
disturbance  that  even  Mr  Toots could not  be  blind  to. But  that young
gentleman,  considering  his  nautical  friend  as  merely  in  a  state  of
preparation for the interview he was going to have, was quite satisfied, and
did not review his own discreet conduct without chuckle
     At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run round
to Brogley's the  Broker's:  previously  locking the door that  communicated
with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in his  pocket. 'If so
be,' said the Captain to  Mr Toots, with  not a little shame and hesitation,
'as you'll excuse my doing of it, brother.'
     'Captain  Gills,'  returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is satisfactory
to me.
     The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising  to  come back in  less
than five minutes,  went out in  quest of the  person  who had  entrusted Mr
Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left to himself, lay down
upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined there last, and,  gazing  up
at  the skylight and resigning  himself to visions of  Miss Dombey, lost all
heed of time and place.
     It was as  well that he did  so; for although the Captain  was not gone
long,  he was  gone much  longer than he had proposed. When he came back, he
was very  pale indeed,  and  greatly agitated, and even looked as  if he had
been shedding tears.  He seemed to have lost the faculty of speech, until he
had been to the cupboard and taken a  dram of rum from the case-bottle, when
he  fetched a deep breath, and  sat down in a chair with his hand before his
face.
     'Captain Gills,' said Toots,  kindly, 'I hope and trust there's nothing
wrong?'
     'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite contrairy.'
     'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,' observed Mr
Toots.
     'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.'
     'Is there  anything  I can do, Captain Gills?'  inquired  Mr Toots. 'If
there is, make use of me.'
     The  Captain removed his hand  from his  face, looked  at  him  with  a
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the hand,  and
shook it hard.
     'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain.  'Nothing.  Only  I'll  take it as  a
favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,' wringing
his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different model, you're as good
a lad as ever stepped.'
     'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, giving the
Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it  again, 'it's delightful
to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.
     'And bear  a hand and cheer up,'  said  the Captain, patting him on the
back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the world!'
     'Not to  me, Captain  Gills,'  replied  Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to me, I
assure  you. The  state  of  my  feelings  towards  Miss Dombey is  of  that
unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and she  lives in
it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm proud to be so. If you
could see  my legs  when I take my  boots off, you'd form some  idea of what
unrequited affection is. I have been prescribed  bark, but I  don't take it,
for  I don't  wish to have any  tone whatever given to my constitution.  I'd
rather not. This, however, is forbidden ground. Captain Gills, goodbye!'
     Captain  Cuttle  cordially  reciprocating  the  warmth  of  Mr  Toots's
farewell,  locked  the door behind him,  and  shaking his head with the same
remarkable expression of  pity and tenderness  as he  had regarded him  with
before, went up to see if Florence wanted him.
     There was an  entire change in the Captain's face as he  went upstairs.
He wiped his  eyes with his handkerchief, and  he polished the bridge of his
nose with his sleeve as he had done  already that morning, but his face  was
absolutely changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy; now, he
might have been  thought sad;  but  the  kind  of gravity that sat  upon his
features was quite new to  them, and was as great an  improvement to them as
if they had undergone some sublimating process.
     He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's  door, twice or thrice;
but, receiving  no  answer, ventured first  to  peep in, and then  to enter:
emboldened to take the  latter step, perhaps, by the familiar recognition of
Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground  by the  side of her couch,  wagged
his tail, and winked his eyes at the Captain,  without  being at the trouble
of getting up.
     She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain Cuttle,
with  a  perfect awe of  her youth,  and beauty, and her  sorrow, raised her
head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had  fallen off,  and
darkened the  window a little more that she  might  sleep on,  and crept out
again,  and took his post  of watch upon  the stairs. All this, with a touch
and tread as light as Florence's own.
     Long  may it remain in this mixed  world a  point not easy of decision,
which  is the  more  beautiful  evidence  of  the  Almighty's goodness - the
delicate fingers  that  are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of  touch,
and made to minister to pain  and grief, or  the  rough hard Captain  Cuttle
hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!
     Florence  slept  upon  her  couch,  forgetful of  her  homelessness and
orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob  or moan
than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she slept more
peacefully, and the Captain's watch was undisturbed.

        CHAPTER 49.
     The Midshipman makes a Discovery

     It was long before Florence awoke.  The  day was in its  prime, the day
was in  its  wane,  and  still,  uneasy  in  mind and  body, she  slept  on;
unconscious of her strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the  street, and
of the  light that shone outside  the shaded window. Perfect unconsciousness
of what had happened in the home that existed no more, even the deep slumber
of exhaustion could not produce. Some undefined and mournful recollection of
it,  dozing  uneasily but  never  sleeping, pervaded  all her  rest. A  dull
sorrow, like a half-lulled sense of pain, was always present to her; and her
pale cheek  was  oftener wet with  tears  than  the  honest Captain,  softly
putting in his head from time  to time at the  half-closed door,  could have
desired to see it.
     The sun was getting low in the west,  and, glancing out  of a red mist,
pierced with its  rays opposite  loopholes  and pieces  of fretwork  in  the
spires  of  city churches, as if  with golden arrows that struck through and
through  them - and far away athwart the river and  its  flat banks,  it was
gleaming like a path of  fire - and out at sea  it  was irradiating sails of
ships - and, looked towards, from quiet churchyards,  upon hill-tops  in the
country,  it was steeping distant prospects in a flush and  glow that seemed
to mingle earth and sky  together in one glorious suffusion - when Florence,
opening  her   heavy  eyes,  lay  at  first,  looking  without  interest  or
recognition  at  the unfamiliar walls  around her, and listening in the same
regardless manner to the noises in the street. But  presently she started up
upon  her  couch,  gazed  round  with  a  surprised  and  vacant  look,  and
recollected all.
     'My pretty,' said the Captain, knocking at the door, 'what cheer?'
     'Dear friend,' cried Florence, hurrying to him, 'is it you?'
     The Captain felt so  much pride in the  name, and was so pleased by the
gleam of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed his hook, by
way of reply, in speechless gratification.
     'What cheer, bright di'mond?' said the Captain.
     'I have  surely slept very long,'  returned Florence. 'When  did I come
here? Yesterday?'
     'This here blessed day, my lady lass,' replied the Captain.
     'Has there been no night? Is it still day?' asked Florence.
     'Getting on for evening now, my pretty,' said the Captain, drawing back
the curtain of the window. 'See!'
     Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and timid,
and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure,  so quietly protective
of her, stood in  the rosy light of the bright evening sky, without saying a
word. However strange the form of speech into which he might have  fashioned
the  feeling, if  he had had  to give  it  utterance, the Captain  felt,  as
sensibly  as  the most  eloquent of  men could  have done,  that  there  was
something in  the tranquil time and in  its softened beauty  that would make
the  wounded  heart of Florence overflow;  and that it  was better that such
tears should have their way. So not a word spake Captain Cuttle. But when he
felt his arm clasped closer, and when he felt the lonely head come nearer to
it,  and  lay itself against  his homely  coarse blue  sleeve, he pressed it
gently with his rugged hand, and understood it, and was understood.
     'Better now, my pretty!' said the Captain. 'Cheerily, cheerily, I'll go
down below, and get some dinner ready. Will you come down of your own  self,
arterwards, pretty, or shall Ed'ard Cuttle come and fetch you?'
     As Florence assured him that she was quite able to walk downstairs, the
Captain, though evidently  doubtful of his own hospitality in permitting it,
left her to do  so, and immediately set about roasting a fowl at the fire in
the little parlour. To achieve his cookery with the greater skill, he pulled
off his coat, tucked  up his wristbands, and  put on his glazed hat, without
which  assistant  he  never  applied  himself   to  any  nice  or  difficult
undertaking.
     After cooling her aching head and burning face in the fresh water which
the  Captain's care had provided for  her while she slept, Florence  went to
the  little  mirror  to bind up her  disordered hair. Then she knew -  in  a
moment,  for she  shunned it  instantly,  that on her breast  there was  the
darkening mark of an angry hand.
     Her tears burst forth afresh  at the sight; she was ashamed  and afraid
of  it; but  it moved her to no anger against  him. Homeless and fatherless,
she forgave him everything; hardly thought that she had need to forgive him,
or that she did; but  she fled from the idea of him as she had fled from the
reality, and he was utterly gone  and lost. There was  no such Being in  the
world.
     What to do, or where to  live,  Florence - poor, inexperienced  girl! -
could not yet consider. She  had  indistinct dreams of  finding, a long  way
off, some  little sisters to instruct, who  would be gentle with her, and to
whom, under some feigned name,  she might attach herself, and who would grow
up in  their happy home, and marry, and be good to their old  governess, and
perhaps entrust her, in time, with the education of their own daughters. And
she  thought how  strange  and  sorrowful  it  would be,  thus  to  become a
grey-haired woman, carrying  her secret  to  the grave, when Florence Dombey
was forgotten. But it was all dim and clouded to her now. She only knew that
she  had  no  Father  upon earth,  and she said  so,  many  times,  with her
suppliant head hidden from all, but her Father who was in Heaven.
     Her little stock of money amounted to but a few guineas. With a part of
this, it would be necessary to buy  some clothes, for she had none but those
she wore. She  was too desolate  to think how soon her money would be gone -
too  much a child  in worldly matters to be  greatly troubled on  that score
yet, even if her other trouble had been less. She tried to calm her thoughts
and  stay  her tears; to  quiet  the hurry in her throbbing  head, and bring
herself to believe that what had happened were but the events of a few hours
ago, instead of weeks or months, as they appeared; and went down to her kind
protector.
     The Captain had spread the  cloth with great  care, and was making some
egg-sauce  in a  little saucepan: basting the fowl from time to time  during
the  process with a  strong interest, as it  turned and browned on  a string
before the fire. Having propped Florence up with cushions on the sofa, which
was already  wheeled into a warm corner for her greater comfort, the Captain
pursued  his cooking with extraordinary  skill, making hot gravy in a second
little saucepan, boiling a handful of potatoes in a third, never  forgetting
the  egg-sauce  in the first,  and making an impartial  round of basting and
stirring with  the most useful  of spoons every minute. Besides these cares,
the  Captain had to  keep his eye  on a diminutive frying-pan, in which some
sausages were hissing and bubbling in a most  musical manner; and there  was
never such a radiant cook as the Captain looked, in  the height and  heat of
these functions:  it being impossible to  say whether his face or his glazed
hat shone the brighter.
     The  dinner  being  at length quite  ready,  Captain  Cuttle dished and
served it up, with no less  dexterity than he had cooked it. He then dressed
for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. That done,
he  wheeled  the  table  close against  Florence on  the  sofa, said  grace,
unscrewed his hook, screwed his  fork into its place, and did the honours of
the table
     'My  lady lass,' said the  Captain, 'cheer up, and try  to eat a  deal.
Stand by,  my  deary! Liver  wing  it is. Sarse it is.  Sassage  it  is. And
potato!'  all which the Captain ranged symmetrically on a plate, and pouring
hot  gravy  on  the whole with the useful  spoon, set  before  his cherished
guest.
     'The whole  row o' dead lights is up, for'ard, lady lass,' observed the
Captain, encouragingly, 'and everythink is made snug. Try and pick a bit, my
pretty. If Wal'r was here - '
     'Ah! If I had him for my brother now!' cried Florence.
     'Don't! don't take on, my pretty!' said the Captain, 'awast, to obleege
me! He was your nat'ral born friend like, warn't he, Pet?'
     Florence had no words to answer with. She  only said,  'Oh, dear,  dear
Paul! oh, Walter!'
     'The  wery  planks she walked on,' murmured the Captain, looking at her
drooping face, 'was as high esteemed by Wal'r, as the water brooks is by the
hart which never  rejices! I see him now, the  wery day as  he was rated  on
them  Dombey books, a  speaking of her with his face a glistening with doo -
leastways with his modest sentiments  - like a new blowed  rose, at  dinner.
Well, well! If our poor Wal'r was here, my  lady  lass - or if he could be -
for he's drownded, ain't he?'
     Florence shook her head.
     'Yes,  yes; drownded,' said the Captain, soothingly; 'as I was  saying,
if he could be here he'd  beg and pray of you, my precious, to pick a leetle
bit, with  a look-out for your  own sweet health. Whereby, hold your own, my
lady lass,  as if it was  for Wal'r's sake, and lay  your pretty head to the
wind.'
     Florence essayed  to eat a  morsel,  for the  Captain's  pleasure.  The
Captain, meanwhile, who seemed to have quite forgotten his own dinner,  laid
down his knife and fork, and drew his chair to the sofa.
     'Wal'r was a trim  lad,  warn't he,  precious?' said the Captain, after
sitting  for some time  silently rubbing his chin, with his eyes fixed  upon
her, 'and a brave lad, and a good lad?'
     Florence tearfully assented.
     'And  he's drownded, Beauty, ain't he?' said the Captain, in a soothing
voice.
     Florence could not but assent again.
     'He  was  older  than you, my lady lass,' pursued the Captain, 'but you
was like two children together, at first; wam't you?'
     Florence answered 'Yes.'
     'And Wal'r's drownded,' said the Captain. 'Ain't he?'
     The repetition of this inquiry was a curious source of consolation, but
it  seemed to  be one to Captain  Cuttle, for  he came back  to it again and
again. Florence,  fain to push from her her untasted dinner, and to lie back
on her  sofa,  gave  him her  hand,  feeling that  she had disappointed him,
though truly wishing to have pleased him after all  his trouble, but he held
it  in his own (which shook as  he  held it), and appearing  to  have  quite
forgotten all about the dinner and her want of appetite, went on growling at
intervals, in a ruminating tone of sympathy, 'Poor Wal'r. Ay, ay!  Drownded.
Ain't he?' And always  waited for  her  answer, in which the great point  of
these singular reflections appeared to consist.
     The  fowl and  sausages  were  cold, and  the gravy  and the  egg-sauce
stagnant,  before the  Captain remembered that  they were  on the board, and
fell  to  with the assistance  of  Diogenes,  whose united  efforts  quickly
dispatched the  banquet.  The  Captain's delight  and  wonder  at  the quiet
housewifery  of  Florence  in  assisting  to  clear  the table, arrange  the
parlour, and sweep up the  hearth  - only  to be equalled by the fervency of
his protest when  she began to  assist  him - were gradually raised to  that
degree, that at last he could not  choose  but do nothing himself, and stand
looking  at her as if she were some Fairy, daintily performing these offices
for  him;  the red  rim on  his forehead glowing  again, in his  unspeakable
admiration.
     But when Florence, taking  down his  pipe from the mantel-shelf gave it
into  his  hand,  and  entreated him to smoke it, the  good Captain  was  so
bewildered by her attention that he held  it as if he had never held a pipe,
in all  his life. Likewise, when Florence, looking into the little cupboard,
took out the case-bottle and mixed a perfect glass of grog for him, unasked,
and  set  it  at his elbow, his ruddy nose turned  pale, he felt himself  so
graced and honoured. When he  had filled his pipe in an absolute reverie  of
satisfaction, Florence lighted it for  him - the Captain having no  power to
object, or to prevent her - and resuming her place  on the  old sofa, looked
at him with a smile  so loving and so  grateful,  a smile that showed him so
plainly how her forlorn heart turned to him, as her face did, through grief,
that the smoke of the pipe got into the Captain's throat and made him cough,
and got into the Captain's eyes, and made them blink and water.
     The manner in which the Captain tried to make believe that the cause of
these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way  in which he looked
into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out  of
the  stem, was  wonderfully  pleasant.  The pipe soon  getting  into  better
condition, he fell into that state of repose becoming a good smoker; but sat
with his  eyes  fixed on Florence, and, with  a  beaming placidity not to be
described, and stopping every  now and then to discharge a little cloud from
his lips, slowly puffed  it  forth, as if it were a scroll coming out of his
mouth, bearing  the legend  'Poor Wal'r, ay, ay. Drownded, ain't  he?' after
which he would resume his smoking with infinite gentleness.
     Unlike as they were externally -  and there  could  scarcely be a  more
decided contrast than between Florence in her delicate youth and beauty, and
Captain Cuttle with  his knobby face, his great broad weather-beaten person,
and  his  gruff voice -  in  simple innocence  of  the  world's ways and the
world's  perplexities and  dangers, they  were  nearly on  a level. No child
could have surpassed Captain Cuttle in  inexperience of everything but  wind
and weather;  in simplicity, credulity, and  generous  trustfulness.  Faith,
hope, and  charity, shared  his  whole nature  among them.  An  odd  sort of
romance,  perfectly unimaginative,  yet perfectly unreal,  and subject to no
considerations of  worldly prudence or practicability,  was the only partner
they had in his character. As the Captain  sat, and smoked,  and  looked  at
Florence, God knows what impossible pictures, in which she was the principal
figure, presented themselves  to  his  mind.  Equally  vague and  uncertain,
though  not so sanguine, were her own thoughts of the  life  before her; and
even  as her tears made  prismatic colours in  the  light  she gazed at, so,
through her new and heavy grief, she already saw a  rainbow  faintly shining
in the  far-off sky. A wandering princess and a good monster  in a storybook
might  have  sat by  the  fireside, and talked  as  Captain Cuttle  and poor
Florence talked - and not have looked very much unlike them.
     The Captain  was not troubled  with the faintest idea of any difficulty
in retaining Florence, or of any responsibility thereby incurred. Having put
up the shutters and locked the door, he was quite satisfied on this head. If
she had  been a Ward in Chancery, it would have made no difference at all to
Captain Cuttle. He  was the last man in the world to be troubled by any such
considerations.
     So  the Captain  smoked his pipe  very comfortably, and Florence and he
meditated after their own manner. When the pipe was out, they had some  tea;
and then Florence entreated him to take her to some neighbouring shop, where
she could buy  the few necessaries she immediately  wanted. It  being  quite
dark, the  Captain  consented:  peeping carefully  out first, as he had been
wont to do in his  time of  hiding  from  Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself
with his large  stick, in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary
by any unforeseen circumstance.
     The pride  Captain  Cuttle  had,  in  giving his arm to  Florence,  and
escorting her some two or three hundred yards, keeping a bright look-out all
the time, and attracting the attention of everyone who  passed them, by  his
great vigilance and numerous precautions, was extreme. Arrived at  the shop,
the Captain felt it a  point  of delicacy to retire during the making of the
purchases,  as they were to consist  of wearing apparel;  but  he previously
deposited his  tin canister on the  counter, and informing the young lady of
the establishment that it contained  fourteen pound  two,  requested her, in
case that amount of property should not be sufficient to defray the expenses
of  his niece's little outfit - at the  word  'niece,' he  bestowed  a  most
significant  look on  Florence, accompanied  with pantomime,  expressive  of
sagacity and mystery - to have the goodness to 'sing out,' and he would make
up the  difference from his pocket. Casually  consulting his big watch, as a
deep means  of dazzling the establishment, and impressing it with a sense of
property, the Captain then kissed his hook to his niece, and retired outside
the window, where  it was a choice sight to see  his great face  looking  in
from time to time, among the  silks  and ribbons,  with an obvious misgiving
that Florence had been spirited away by a back door.
     'Dear Captain Cuttle,' said  Florence, when she came out with a parcel,
the size of which  greatly disappointed the Captain, who had expected to see
a porter following with a bale of goods, 'I don't want this money, indeed. I
have not spent any of it. I have money of my own.'
     'My lady lass,' returned the baffled Captain, looking straight down the
street before them, 'take care on it for me, will  you be so good, till such
time as I ask ye for it?'
     'May I  put it back in its  usual place,' said  Florence,  'and keep it
there?'
     The Captain was not at all gratified by this proposal, but he answered,
'Ay, ay, put it anywheres, my lady lass,  so long as you know where  to find
it again. It ain't  o' no use  to me,' said the Captain. 'I wonder I haven't
chucked it away afore now.
     The Captain  was quite disheartened for the moment, but  he revived  at
the  first  touch  of Florence's  arm,  and  they  returned  with  the  same
precautions  as they  had come;  the Captain opening the  door of the little
Midshipman's  berth,  and  diving  in,  with a  suddenness which  his  great
practice  only  could have  taught  him.  During Florence's  slumber in  the
morning, he  had  engaged the daughter  of an  elderly lady who  usually sat
under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, selling poultry, to come and put
her room in order, and render her any little services she required; and this
damsel now appearing, Florence found everything about  her as convenient and
orderly, if not as  handsome, as in  the terrible dream  she had once called
Home.
     When they were alone again,  the Captain insisted on her eating a slice
of  dry toast'  and  drinking a  glass of spiced  negus  (which he  made  to
perfection); and, encouraging her with every kind  word and  inconsequential
quotation be could possibly think of, led her upstairs to  her  bedroom. But
he too had something on his mind, and was not easy in his manner.
     'Good-night,  dear  heart,'   said   Captain   Cuttle  to  her  at  her
chamber-door.
     Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him.
     At  any other time  the Captain  would have been overbalanced by such a
token of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very sensible
of it, he looked in her face with even more uneasiness than he had testified
before, and seemed unwilling to leave her.
     'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain.
     'Poor, poor Walter!' sighed Florence.
     'Drownded, ain't he?' said the Captain.
     Florence shook her head, and sighed.
     'Good-night, my lady lass!' said Captain Cuttle, putting out his hand.
     'God bless you, dear, kind friend!'
     But the Captain lingered still.
     'Is anything the  matter, dear Captain  Cuttle?'  said Florence, easily
alarmed in her then state of mind. 'Have you anything to tell me?'
     'To tell  you, lady lass!' replied  the  Captain,  meeting  her eyes in
confusion. 'No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don't expect
as I've got anything good to tell you, sure?'
     'No!' said Florence, shaking her head.
     The  Captain looked at  her wistfully, and  repeated 'No,'  -  '  still
lingering, and still showing embarrassment.
     'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain. 'My Wal'r, as  I used to  call you! Old
Sol Gills's nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in May! Where
are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain't he?'
     Concluding  his apostrophe  with  this  abrupt appeal to  Florence, the
Captain  bade  her  good-night,  and descended the  stairs,  while  Florence
remained at  the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was  lost
in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding footsteps, was
in the act  of turning into the little parlour, when his head  and shoulders
unexpectedly emerged  again, as  from  the  deep, apparently  for  no  other
purpose  than to repeat, 'Drownded, ain't  he, pretty?' For when he had said
that in a tone of tender condolence, he disappeared.
     Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly,  though naturally,
have  awakened these associations  in the  mind of her protector,  by taking
refuge there; and sitting down before the little table where the Captain had
arranged  the telescope and song-book, and  those other rarities, thought of
Walter, and  of all that was connected with him in the past, until she could
have almost wished to lie down on her bed  and fade away. But in  her lonely
yearning to the dead whom she had loved, no thought of home - no possibility
of going back - no  presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her
father - once  entered her  thoughts. She  had seen the murder done.  In the
last lingering natural  aspect  in which  she had  cherished him through  so
much, he had been  torn out of her heart, defaced, and slain. The thought of
it was so appalling to her, that  she covered her eyes, and shrunk trembling
from the least remembrance of the deed, or of the cruel hand that did it. If
her fond  heart could  have held his image after that, it must  have broken;
but it could not; and the  void was filled with a wild dread  that fled from
all  confronting with its shattered fragments - with  such  a dread as could
have risen out of nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged.
     She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of  the darkening mark
upon  her  bosom  made  her afraid of  herself, as  if she  bore  about  her
something wicked.  She covered it  up, with a hasty, faltering hand, and  in
the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping.
     The  Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro in
the shop and in the little parlour, for  a full hour, and, appearing to have
composed  himself by that  exercise, sat  down with a  grave  and thoughtful
face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer appointed to be used
at sea. These were not easily disposed of;  the good Captain being  a mighty
slow, gruff reader, and  frequently stopping at a hard word to give  himself
such encouragement as Now, my lad! With a will!' or, 'Steady, Ed'ard Cuttle,
steady!'  which  had a  great effect in helping  him  out of any difficulty.
Moreover, his spectacles greatly interfered with  his  powers of vision. But
notwithstanding  these drawbacks, the  Captain,  being heartily  in earnest,
read  the service to the very last line, and  with genuine  feeling too; and
approving  of it very  much  when he had done, turned in, under the  counter
(but not before he had been upstairs, and listened at Florence's door), with
a serene breast, and a most benevolent visage.
     The  Captain turned  out several times  in the  course of the night, to
assure himself that his charge  was  resting quietly; and once, at daybreak,
found that she was awake: for she called to know if it were  he, on  hearing
footsteps near her door.
     'Yes' my  lady lass,' replied the Captain, in a growling whisper.  'Are
you all right, di'mond?'
     Florence thanked him, and said 'Yes.'
     The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying his
mouth  to the keyhole, and calling through it,  like a hoarse  breeze, 'Poor
Wal'r! Drownded, ain't he?' after which he withdrew, and turning  in  again,
slept till seven o'clock.
     Nor was he  free from  his uneasy  and embarrassed manner all that day;
though  Florence, being busy with her needle in the little parlour, was more
calm and tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. Almost always when
she raised her eyes from her  work, she observed the captain looking at her,
and  thoughtfully stroking his  chin; and he  so often hitched his arm-chair
close to  her, as if  he were going to say something very confidential,  and
hitched it away again, as not being able to make up  his mind how  to begin,
that in  the course  of the day  he cruised completely round the  parlour in
that  frail bark, and more than once went ashore against the wainscot or the
closet door, in a very distressed condition.
     It was  not until the twilight  that  Captain Cuttle,  fairly  dropping
anchor, at last, by  the side of Florence, began to talk at all connectedly.
But when the light of  the fire  was shining on the walls and ceiling of the
little room, and on the  tea-board and the cups and saucers that were ranged
upon the  table,  and  on  her  calm  face  turned  towards  the flame,  and
reflecting it in the tears  that filled  her eyes, the Captain  broke a long
silence thus:
     'You never was at sea, my own?'
     'No,' replied Florence.
     'Ay,'  said  the Captain,  reverentially;  'it's  a  almighty  element.
There's  wonders  in  the deep,  my pretty. Think on  it  when the  winds is
roaring and the waves is  rowling. Think on it when the  stormy nights is so
pitch dark,' said the Captain, solemnly holding up his  hook,  'as you can't
see  your hand  afore  you, excepting when the  wiwid lightning reweals  the
same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you
was a driving, head on, to the world without end, evermore,  amen, and  when
found making a note of. Them's the  times, my beauty, when a  man may say to
his  messmate   (previously  a   overhauling  of   the  wollume),  "A  stiff
nor'wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you hear it roar now! Lord help 'em,
how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore now!"' Which quotation, as particularly
applicable to  the  terrors of the ocean,  the  Captain  delivered in a most
impressive manner, concluding with a sonorous 'Stand by!'
     'Were you ever in a dreadful storm?' asked Florence.
     'Why ay, my lady lass, I've  seen my share  of  bad weather,' said  the
Captain, tremulously wiping his  head, 'and  I've  had my share of  knocking
about; but - but it ain't  of myself as  I  was a meaning to speak. Our dear
boy,' drawing closer to her, 'Wal'r, darling, as was drownded.'
     The Captain  spoke in such a  trembling voice, and looked  at  Florence
with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in affright.
     'Your  face is changed,' cried Florence. 'You are  altered in a moment.
What is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!'
     'What! Lady lass,' returned  the Captain, supporting her with his hand,
'don't  be took aback.  No, no! All's well, all's well, my  dear. As I was a
saying - Wal'r - he's - he's drownded. Ain't he?'
     Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she laid
her hand upon her breast.
     'There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,' said  the Captain;
'and over many  a  brave ship, and many and  many a bould heart, the  secret
waters has closed up, and  never told no tales. But there's escapes upon the
deep,  too, and  sometimes one man  out  of  a score, - ah!  maybe out  of a
hundred, pretty, -  has been saved by  the mercy of God, and come home after
being given over  for dead, and told of all hands lost. I - I  know a story,
Heart's Delight,' stammered the  Captain, 'o' this natur, as was told to  me
once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting alone by the fire,
maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would you, deary?'
     Florence, trembling with an agitation which  she could  not control  or
understand, involuntarily  followed  his glance,  which went behind her into
the shop, where a lamp was  burning. The instant  that she turned  her head,
the Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed his hand.
     'There's  nothing there, my beauty,'  said  the  Captain.  'Don't  look
there.'
     'Why not?' asked Florence.
     The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and about
the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing open
until now, and resumed his  seat.  Florence followed him  with her eyes, and
looked intently in his face.
     'The story was  about  a ship, my lady  lass,'  began the Captain,  'as
sailed  out of the Port  of  London, with  a fair wind and in fair  weather,
bound for - don't be took  aback,  my lady lass, she was only out'ard bound,
pretty, only out'ard bound!'
     The  expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was himself
very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.
     'Shall I go on, Beauty?' said the Captain.
     'Yes, yes, pray!' cried Florence.
     The  Captain made a gulp as  if to get down something that was sticking
in his throat, and nervously proceeded:
     'That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as
don't blow once in twenty  year,  my darling. There was hurricanes ashore as
tore  up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales  at sea  in them
latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. Day arter
day that  there unfort'nate  ship behaved noble, I'm told, and  did her duty
brave,  my  pretty, but at one  blow a'most her  bulwarks was stove  in, her
masts and rudder carved away, her best man swept overboard, and  she left to
the  mercy  of  the storm as  had no mercy but blowed harder and harder yet,
while the waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a
thundering at  her, broke  her  like a  shell.  Every black  spot  in  every
mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o' the ship's life  or a living
man,  and  so  she went to pieces, Beauty, and no grass will never grow upon
the graves of them as manned that ship.'
     'They were not all lost!' cried Florence. 'Some were saved! - Was one?'
     'Aboard  o'  that there  unfort'nate wessel,' said the  Captain, rising
from   his  chair,  and  clenching  his  hand  with  prodigious  energy  and
exultation, 'was a lad, a gallant lad - as I've heerd tell - that had loved,
when he was a boy, to read and talk about brave actions in shipwrecks - I've
heerd him! I've heerd him! - and he remembered of  'em in his hour of  need;
for  when the  stoutest  and  oldest hands  was hove  down, he  was firm and
cheery. It warn't the want of  objects to like and love ashore that gave him
courage, it was his nat'ral mind. I've seen it  in his face, when he  was no
more than a child - ay, many a time! - and when I thought it nothing but his
good looks, bless him!'
     'And was he saved!' cried Florence. 'Was he saved!'
     'That brave  lad,' said the Captain, - 'look at me, pretty!  Don't look
round - '
     Florence had hardly power to repeat, 'Why not?'
     'Because there's nothing there, my deary,' said the Captain.  'Don't be
took aback, pretty creetur! Don't, for the sake of Wal'r, as was dear to all
on us! That there lad,' said  the Captain, 'arter working with the best, and
standing  by the  faint-hearted, and never making no complaint  nor  sign of
fear,  and keeping up a spirit in all hands that made 'em honour  him  as if
he'd been a admiral - that lad, along with the second-mate  and  one seaman,
was left,  of all the beatin' hearts  that went aboard  that ship, the  only
living creeturs  - lashed  to a fragment  of the wreck,  and driftin' on the
stormy sea.
     Were they saved?' cried Florence.
     'Days  and nights  they  drifted  on  them  endless  waters,'  said the
Captain,  'until at last - No!  Don't look that  way, pretty! - a  sail bore
down  upon 'em, and they was, by the Lord's  mercy, took aboard: two  living
and one dead.'
     'Which of them was dead?' cried Florence.
     'Not the lad I speak on,' said the Captain.
     'Thank God! oh thank God!'
     'Amen!' returned the  Captain hurriedly. 'Don't be took aback! A minute
more, my lady lass! with a good heart! - aboard that ship, they  went a long
voyage, right away across  the chart (for there warn't no touching nowhere),
and on  that voyage the  seaman as  was  picked up with him died. But he was
spared, and - '
     The Captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread from
the loaf, and put  it on  his hook  (which  was his usual toasting-fork), on
which he now held it to the fire; looking behind Florence with great emotion
in his face, and suffering the bread to blaze and burn like fuel.
     'Was spared,' repeated Florence, 'and-?'
     'And  come home in that ship,' said the  Captain, still looking in  the
same direction, 'and  - don't be  frightened, pretty - and landed;  and  one
morning come cautiously  to his own door to take a obserwation, knowing that
his  friends would think him drownded, when he sheered off at the unexpected
- '
     'At the unexpected barking of a dog?' cried Florence, quickly.
     'Yes,' roared the Captain.  'Steady, darling! courage! Don't look round
yet. See there! upon the wall!'
     There  was  the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. She started
up, looked round, and with a piercing cry, saw Walter Gay behind her!
     She had  no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from the
grave;  a  shipwrecked brother  saved  and at  her side; and rushed into his
arms.  In  all the  world,  he seemed  to be her  hope, her comfort, refuge,
natural protector. 'Take care of Walter,  I was  fond of  Walter!'  The dear
remembrance of the plaintive voice that  said so, rushed upon her soul, like
music in the night. 'Oh welcome home, dear Walter! Welcome to  this stricken
breast!' She felt the words, although she could not utter them, and held him
in her pure embrace.
     Captain Cuttle, in  a fit  of delirium, attempted to wipe his head with
the blackened toast  upon his hook: and  finding it an uncongenial substance
for the purpose, put it into the crown of his glazed hat, put the glazed hat
on with some difficulty, essayed to sing  a  verse of Lovely Peg, broke down
at the first word,  and retired into the shop, whence he presently came back
express, with a face all  flushed  and besmeared,  and the starch completely
taken out of his shirt-collar, to say these words:
     'Wal'r,  my lad, here is a  little bit of property as I should  wish to
make over, jintly!'
     The  Captain  hastily  produced  the  big  watch,  the  teaspoons,  the
sugar-tongs, and the canister, and laying them on the table, swept them with
his great hand into Walter's hat; but in handing that singular strong box to
Walter,  he was so overcome  again, that he was fain to make another retreat
into the shop, and absent himself for a longer  space  of  time than  on his
first retirement.
     But Walter sought him out, and brought him back; and then the Captain's
great apprehension  was, that Florence would suffer from this new shock.  He
felt  it  so  earnestly,  that  he  turned quite  rational,  and  positively
interdicted any further allusion  to  Walter's adventures for  some days  to
come. Captain Cuttle then became sufficiently composed to relieve himself of
the toast in  his hat, and to take  his  place at the tea-board; but finding
Walter's grasp upon  his shoulder, on one  side, and Florence whispering her
tearful congratulations on the other, the Captain suddenly bolted again, and
was missing for a good ten minutes.
     But  never  in  all  his  life  had the  Captain's  face  so  shone and
glistened, as when,  at last, he  sat stationary  at the  tea-board, looking
from  Florence to Walter, and from  Walter to Florence.  Nor was this effect
produced or at all heightened by  the immense quantity of  polishing he  had
administered to his face with his coat-sleeve during  the last half-hour. It
was solely  the  effect  of his  internal  emotions. There  was  a glory and
delight within the  Captain that spread itself over his  whole  visage,  and
made a perfect illumination there.
     The pride with which the Captain looked upon  the bronzed cheek and the
courageous eyes of his recovered boy; with which he saw the generous fervour
of his youth, and all its frank and hopeful qualities, shining once more, in
the  fresh,  wholesome  manner,  and the  ardent  face,  would  have kindled
something of this light in his countenance. The admiration and sympathy with
which  he turned his eyes  on  Florence, whose beauty, grace,  and innocence
could have won  no truer or more zealous champion  than himself, would  have
had an equal influence upon him. But the  fulness of the glow he shed around
him  could  only  have been  engendered  in  his  contemplation  of the  two
together, and in all  the fancies  springing out of  that association,  that
came sparkling and beaming into his head, and danced about it.
     How  they  talked of  poor  old Uncle  Sol,  and dwelt on every  little
circumstance relating to his disappearance; how their joy was  moderated  by
the old man's absence and by the  misfortunes of Florence; how they released
Diogenes,  whom the  Captain had decoyed  upstairs some time before, lest he
should bark again; the Captain, though he was in one  continual flutter, and
made many more short plunges  into  the shop, fully comprehended.  But he no
more  dreamed  that Walter looked on  Florence, as it were,  from a  new and
far-off place; that while his eyes often sought the lovely face, they seldom
met its open glance of sisterly affection, but withdrew themselves when hers
were raised towards him; than he believed that it was Walter's ghost who sat
beside him. He saw them together in their youth and beauty, and he knew  the
story of  their younger days, and he had  no inch of room  beneath his great
blue  waistcoat for anything save admiration of  such a pair,  and gratitude
for their being reunited.
     They sat thus, until it grew late. The Captain would  have been content
to sit so for a week. But Walter rose, to take leave for the night.
     'Going, Walter!' said Florence. 'Where?'
     'He slings  his  hammock  for  the  present, lady  lass,'  said Captain
Cuttle, 'round at Brogley's. Within hail, Heart's Delight.'
     'I am the cause of your going away, Walter,' said Florence. 'There is a
houseless sister in your place.'
     'Dear Miss Dombey,' replied Walter, hesitating - 'if it is not too bold
to call you so!
     Walter!' she exclaimed, surprised.
     'If anything could make me happier in being allowed to see and speak to
you, would  it not be the discovery that I had any  means on  earth of doing
you a moment's service! Where would I not go, what would  I not do, for your
sake?'
     She smiled, and called him brother.
     'You are so changed,' said Walter -
     'I changed!' she interrupted.
     'To me,' said Walter, softly, as if he were thinking aloud, 'changed to
me. I left you such a child, and find you - oh! something so different - '
     'But  your sister, Walter. You have  not  forgotten what we promised to
each other, when we parted?'
     'Forgotten!' But he said no more.
     'And  if  you had - if  suffering  and danger  had driven it from  your
thoughts - which it has not - you would  remember  it now, Walter, when  you
find me poor and abandoned, with no home  but this, and no  friends but  the
two who hear me speak!'
     'I would! Heaven knows I would!' said Walter.
     'Oh, Walter,'  exclaimed  Florence,  through her  sobs and tears. 'Dear
brother! Show me  some  way through the  world - some humble path that I may
take  alone, and labour  in,  and sometimes think  of you as  one  who  will
protect  and  care  for  me as for a sister! Oh, help me, Walter, for I need
help so much!'
     'Miss Dombey!  Florence! I would die to help you. But your  friends are
proud and rich. Your father - '
     'No, no! Walter!' She shrieked, and put her hands up to her head, in an
attitude of  terror  that transfixed  him where he  stood.  'Don't say  that
word!'
     He  never, from that hour,  forgot the  voice and  look with which  she
stopped him at the name. He felt that if he were to live a hundred years, he
never could forget it.
     Somewhere - anywhere  - but  never  home! All past, all gone, all lost,
and broken up! The whole history of  her untold slight and suffering was  in
the cry and look; and he felt he never could forget it, and he never did.
     She laid her gentle face  upon the Captain's shoulder,  and related how
and why she had fled. If every sorrowing tear she shed in doing so, had been
a curse  upon the head of  him she never named or blamed, it would have been
better for him, Walter thought, with awe, than to be renounced out of such a
strength and might of love.
     'There,  precious!'  said  the  Captain,  when  she  ceased;  and  deep
attention  the  Captain had paid to her while she spoke; listening, with his
glazed hat all awry and his mouth wide open. 'Awast, awast, my  eyes! Wal'r,
dear lad, sheer off for to-night, and leave the pretty one to me!'
     Walter took her hand in both of his, and put it to his lips, and kissed
it. He  knew now that she was, indeed,  a  homeless wandering fugitive; but,
richer to him so, than in all the wealth and pride of her right station, she
seemed  farther off than  even on  the height that had made him giddy in his
boyish dreams.
     Captain Cuttle,  perplexed by no such meditations, guarded Florence  to
her room,  and watched at intervals upon the charmed ground outside her door
- for such it truly was to him - until he felt sufficiently easy in his mind
about  her, to turn  in under the  counter. On abandoning his watch for that
purpose, he could not help calling  once, rapturously, through the  keyhole,
'Drownded. Ain't he, pretty?'  - or, when  he got downstairs, making another
trial at that verse of Lovely Peg.  But it stuck in his  throat somehow, and
he  could  make nothing of it; so he went to bed, and  dreamed  that old Sol
Gills was  married  to Mrs MacStinger,  and kept prisoner by that lady  in a
secret chamber on a short allowance of victuals.

        CHAPTER 50.
     Mr Toots's Complaint

     There was an empty room above-stairs at the wooden Midshipman's, which,
in days of yore, had been  Walter's bedroom. Walter, rousing up  the Captain
betimes  in the  morning,  proposed  that  they  should carry  thither  such
furniture out of the little parlour as would grace it best, so that Florence
might take possession  of  it  when  she  rose.  As  nothing could  be  more
agreeable to Captain Cuttle than making himself very red and short of breath
in  such  a cause, he turned  to (as he himself said) with a will; and, in a
couple of hours, this  garret was transformed into  a species of land-cabin,
adorned with all the  choicest moveables out of  the parlour, inclusive even
of the Tartar frigate, which the Captain hung up over the chimney-piece with
such  extreme delight, that he could do nothing  for half-an-hour afterwards
but walk backward from it, lost in admiration.
     The Captain could  be  indueed by no persuasion of Walter's  to wind up
the big watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the sugar-tongs and
teaspoons.  'No,  no,  my lad;'  was the Captain's  invariable reply to  any
solicitation  of  the kind, 'I've  made  that  there  little property  over,
jintly.' These words he repeated with great  unction  and gravity, evidently
believing that they had the virtue of  an Act of Parliament, and that unless
he committed himself  by some  new admission of ownership,  no flaw could be
found in such a form of conveyance.
     It was  an advantage of the new arrangement, that  besides  the greater
seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman being restored
to his usual post of observation, and also of the shop shutters being  taken
down. The latter ceremony, however little importance the unconscious Captain
attached to  it, was  not wholly superfluous; for, on the previous  day,  so
much excitement had  been  occasioned in  the neighbourhood, by the shutters
remaining unopened, that the Instrument-maker's house had been honoured with
an unusual share of public observation, and had been intently stared at from
the opposite  side of  the way,  by  groups  of hungry gazers,  at any  time
between sunrise and sunset. The  idlers  and vagabonds had been particularly
interested in the Captain's fate; constantly grovelling in the  mud to apply
their  eyes to the  cellar-grating,  under the shop-window,  and  delighting
their imaginations with the fancy that they could see a piece of his coat as
he  hung in a corner; though this settlement  of him was stoutly disputed by
an opposite faction, who were of opinion that he lay murdered with a hammer,
on  the stairs. It was not without exciting some discontent, therefore, that
the subject  of these rumours was seen  early in the morning standing at his
shop-door as hale and hearty  as if  nothing had happened; and the beadle of
that quarter, a  man of an ambitious character, who had expected to have the
distinction of being present at the breaking open of the door, and of giving
evidence in  full uniform before  the coroner,  went so far as  to say to an
opposite neighbour, that the chap in the glazed hat had better not try it on
there  -  without more particularly mentioning what -  and further, that he,
the beadle, would keep his eye upon him.