THE STORY OF PAUL AND FLORENCE DOMBEY

by Charles Dickens

I. THE HOUSE OF DOMBEY AND SON

Paul Dombey was a boy born to achieve great things. His birth was the one historic event of the Dombey household—at least, so his father said. ‘T is true that Paul’s sister Florence was six years older than he, but then Florence was only a girl. What Mr. Dombey had long wanted was a son who could grow up to carry on the business of the great export house, and who from his birth would make possible the imposing title of Dombey and Son.

So Florence, who had remained quietly neglected in her nursery, now came into notice only as the sister of Paul, or as a faithful little nurse who could help amuse him.

As for Mr. Dombey himself, he was a cold, haughty man, very proud of what he had done, and at all times exacting obedience from every one else. Paul’s mother had died soon after he was born; and Mr. Dombey having engaged the best nurses he could find, expected them forthwith to bring the child through all the round of infant ailments—of which the frail little fellow had more than his full share. Indeed, Mr. Dombey loved his son with all the love he had. If there were a warm place in his frosty heart, his son occupied it; though not so much as an infant or a boy, as a prospective man—the “Son” of the firm. Therefore he was impatient to have him grow up; feeling as if the boy had a charmed life, and must become the man around whom all his hopes centred.

Thus Paul grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little fellow, though there was something wan and wistful in his small face, that gave occasion to many significant shakes of his nurse’s head. His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious, like his father’s, in after life. He was childish and sportive enough at times; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful way at other times of sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair, when he looked and talked like one of those terrible little beings in the fairy tales, who, at a hundred and fifty or two hundred years of age, fantastically represent the children for whom they have been substituted. He would frequently be stricken with this mood upstairs in the nursery, and would sometimes lapse into it suddenly, exclaiming that he was tired, even while playing with Florence, or driving his nurse in single harness. But at no one time did he fall into it so surely, as when, his little chair being carried down into his father’s room, he sat there with him after dinner by the fire. They were the strangest pair at such a time that ever firelight shone upon. Mr. Dombey, so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; his little image, with an old, old face, peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage; the two so very much alike, and yet so monstrously contrasted.

On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for a long time, little Paul broke the silence thus:—

“Papa! what’s money?”

The abrupt question had such immediate reference to the subject of Mr. Dombey’s thoughts, that Mr. Dombey was quite disconcerted.

“What is money, Paul?” he answered. “Money?”

“Yes,” said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair, and turning the old face up towards Mr. Dombey’s, “what is money?”

Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some grown-up explanation; but looking down at the little chair, and seeing what a long way down it was, he answered: “Gold, and silver, and copper. Guineas, shillings, halfpence. You know what they are?”

“Oh, yes, I know what they are,” said Paul. “I don’t mean that, papa. I mean what’s money, after all.”

“What is money, after all?” said Mr. Dombey, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze at the atom that made such an inquiry.

“I mean, papa, what can it do?” returned Paul.

Mr. Dombey drew his chair back to its former place, and patted him on the head. “You’ll know better, by and by, my man,” he said. “Money, Paul, can do anything.”

“Anything, papa?”

“Yes. Anything—almost,” said Mr. Dombey.

“Anything means everything, don’t it, papa?” asked his son, not observing, or possibly not understanding the qualification.

“Yes,” said Mr. Dombey.

“Why didn’t money save me my mamma?” returned the child. “It isn’t cruel, is it?”

“Cruel!” said Mr. Dombey, settling his neckcloth, and seeming to resent the idea. “No. A good thing can’t be cruel.”

“If it’s a good thing, and can do anything,” said the little fellow thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, “I wonder why it didn’t save me my mamma.”

Mr. Dombey having recovered from his surprise, not to say his alarm (for it was the very first occasion on which the child had ever broached the subject of his mother to him), expounded to him how that money, though a very potent spirit, could not keep people alive whose time was come to die; and how that we must all die, unfortunately, even in the city, though we were never so rich.

Paul listened to all this and much more with grave attention, and then suddenly asked a question which was still more alarming.

“It can’t make me strong and quite well, either, papa, can it?”

“Why, you are strong and quite well,” returned Mr. Dombey. “Are you not?”

Oh! the age of the face that was turned up again, with an expression, half of melancholy, half of slyness on it!

“You are as strong and well as such little people usually are, eh?” said Mr. Dombey.

“Florence is older than I am, but I’m not as strong and well as Florence, I know,” returned the child; “but I believe that when Florence was as little as me, she could play a great deal longer at a time without tiring herself. I am so tired sometimes that I don’t know what to do.”

“But that’s at night,” said Mr. Dombey, drawing his own chair closer to his son’s, and laying his hand gently on his back; “little people should be tired at night, for then they sleep well.”

“Oh, it’s not at night, papa,” returned the child, “it’s in the day; and I lie down in Florence’s lap, and she sings to me. At night I dream about such cu-ri-ous things!”

Mr. Dombey was so astonished, and so perfectly at a loss how to pursue the conversation, that he could only sit looking at his son by the light of the fire.

Here they sat until Florence came timidly into the room to take Paul upstairs to bed; when he raised towards his father, in bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so much younger, and so much more childlike altogether, that Mr. Dombey, while he felt greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it.

After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft voice singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sang to him, he had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after them. She was toiling up the great, wide staircase, with him in her arms; his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she singing all the way, and Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment.

Mr. Dombey was so alarmed about Paul’s remarks as to his health, that he called the family doctor in consultation the very next day. The doctor admitted that Paul was not as strong as he could hope, and suggested that sea air might benefit him. So the boy was sent to the home of a Mrs. Pipchin at Brighton. But he refused to go without Florence, much to the secret displeasure of Mr. Dombey, who did not like to see any one—especially this neglected daughter—gain more influence with Paul than he himself had.

Mrs. Pipchin was a cross-grained old lady who gained a livelihood by taking care of delicate children. But she was not unkind to Paul, whose patient little face and strange way of asking questions attracted her, as they did everybody else.

When he had been with her for some time and it was found that he did not gain in strength, a little carriage was hired for him, in which he could lie at his ease with his books and be wheeled down to the seaside.

Consistent in his odd tastes, the child set aside a ruddy-faced lad who was proposed as the drawer of this carriage, and selected, instead, the boy’s grandfather—a weazen, old, crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oilskin. With this attendant to pull him along, and Florence always walking by his side, he went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would sit or lie in his carriage for hours together; never so distressed as by the company of children—Florence alone excepted, always.

Some small voice, near his ear, would ask him how he was, perhaps.

“I am very well, I thank you,” he would answer. “But you had better go and play, if you please.”

Then he would turn his head, and watch the child away, and say to Florence, “We don’t want any others, do we? Kiss me, Floy.”

His favorite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his side at work, or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more.

“Floy,” he said one day, “where’s India?”

“Oh, it’s a long, long distance off,” said Florence, raising her eyes from her work.

“Weeks off?” asked Paul.

“Yes, dear. Many weeks’ journey, night and day.”

“If you were in India, Floy,” said Paul, after being silent for a minute. “I should—what is it that mamma did? I forget.”

“Loved me?” answered Florence.

“No, no. Don’t I love you now, Floy? What is it?—Died. If you were in India, I should die, Floy.”

She hurriedly put her work aside, and laid her head down on his pillow, caressing him. And so would she, she said, if he were there. He would be better soon.

“Oh! I am a great deal better now!” he answered. “I don’t mean that. I mean that I should die of being so sorry and so lonely, Floy!”

Another time, in the same place, he fell asleep, and slept quietly for a long time. Awaking suddenly, he started up, and sat listening.

Florence asked him what he thought he heard.

“I want to know what it says,” he answered, looking steadily in her face. “The sea, Floy; what is it that it keeps on saying?”

She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “But I know that they are always saying something. Always the same thing. What place is over there?” He rose up, looking eagerly at the horizon.

She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said he didn’t mean that; he meant farther away—farther away.

Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break off to try to understand what it was that the waves were always saying; and would rise up in his couch to look towards that invisible region far away.

But in spite of Paul’s brooding fancies, the days in the open air, and with the salt spray blowing about him, began to have good effect. Little by little he grew stronger until he became able to do without his carriage; though he still remained the same old, quiet, dreamy child.

One day after he had been with Mrs. Pipchin about a year, Mr. Dombey came to see her. He informed Mrs. Pipchin that, as Paul was now six years old and so much stronger, it was time his education was being considered; and so the child was to be sent to a certain Dr. Blimber, who lived near by and managed a select school of boys. Meanwhile, Florence could continue to live here, so that Paul need not be entirely separated from his sister.

Accordingly, a few days later, Paul stood upon the Doctor’s doorsteps, with his small right hand in his father’s, and his other locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one, and how loose and cold the other!

The doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the mantel-shelf.

“And how do you do, sir,” he said to Mr. Dombey, when they had been ushered in, “and how is my little friend?”

Grave as an organ was the doctor’s speech; and when he ceased, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul at least) to take him up, and to go on saying, “how-is-my-lit-tle-friend-how-is-my-lit-tle-friend,” over and over and over again.

The little friend being something too small to be seen at all from where the doctor sat, over the books on his table, the doctor made several futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which Mr. Dombey perceiving, relieved the doctor from his embarrassment by taking Paul up in his arms and sitting him on another little table, over against the doctor, in the middle of the room.

“Ha!” said the doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hand in his breast. “Now I see my little friend. How do you do, my little friend?”

The clock in the hall wouldn’t subscribe to this alteration in the form of words, but continued to repeat “how-is-my—lit-tle-friend—how-is-my-lit-tle-friend!”

“Very well, I thank you, sir,” returned Paul, answering the clock quite as much as the doctor.

“Ha!” said Doctor Blimber. “Shall we make a man of him?”

“Do you hear, Paul?” added Mr. Dombey, Paul being silent.

“Shall we make a man of him?” repeated the doctor.

“I had rather be a child,” replied Paul.

“Indeed!” said the doctor. “Why?”

The child sat on the table looking at him, with a curious expression of suppressed emotion in his face, and beating one hand proudly on his knee as if he had the rising tears beneath it, and crushed them. But his other hand strayed a little way the while, a little farther—farther from him yet—until it lighted on the neck of Florence. “This is why,” it seemed to say, and then the steady look was broken up and gone, the working lip was loosened and the tears came streaming forth.

“Never mind,” said the doctor, blandly nodding his head. “Ne-ver mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, Mr. Dombey, very shortly. You would wish my little friend to acquire—”

“Everything, if you please, doctor,” returned Mr. Dombey, firmly.

“Yes,” said the doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, and his usual smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. “Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I dare say. I dare say.”

As soon as Mr. Dombey and Florence were gone, Dr. Blimber gave into the charge of his learned daughter Cornelia the little new pupil, saying, “Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on.”

Miss Blimber received her young ward from the doctor’s hands; and Paul, feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes.

“How old are you, Dombey?” said Miss Blimber.

“Six,” answered Paul, wondering, as he stole a glance at the young lady, why her hair didn’t grow long like Florence’s, and why she was like a boy.

“How much do you know of your Latin Grammar, Dombey?” said Miss Blimber.

“None of it,” answered Paul. Feeling that the answer was a shock to Miss Blimber’s sensibility, he looked up and added timidly,—

“I haven’t been well. I have been a weak child. I couldn’t learn a Latin Grammar when I was out, every day, with old Glubb. I wish you’d tell old Glubb to come and see me, if you please.”

“What a dreadfully low name!” said Miss Blimber. “Unclassical to a degree! Who is the monster, child?”

“What monster?” inquired Paul.

“Glubb.”

“He’s no more a monster than you are,” returned Paul.

“What!” cried the doctor, in a terrible voice. “What’s that?”

Paul was dreadfully frightened; but still he made a stand for the absent Glubb, though he did it trembling.

“He’s a very nice old man, ma’am,” he said. “He used to pull my carriage for me, down along the beach. I wish you’d let him come to see me. He knows lots of things.”

“Ha!” said the doctor, shaking his head; “this is bad, but study will do much.”

Mrs. Blimber opined, with something like a shiver, that he was an unaccountable child; and, allowing for the difference of visage, looked at him pretty much as Mrs. Pipchin had been used to do.

As for Miss Blimber, she told him to come down to her room that evening at tea-time. When he did so he noticed a little pile of new books, which she was glancing over.

“These are yours, Dombey,” she said.

“All of ‘em, ma’am?” said Paul.

“Yes,” returned Miss Blimber; “and Mr. Feeder will look you out some more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be, Dombey.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Paul.

“I am going out for a constitutional,” resumed Miss Blimber; “and while I am gone, that is to say, in the interval between this and breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in these books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn. Don’t lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take them downstairs, and begin directly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Paul.

There were so many of them that although Paul put one hand under the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Miss Blimber said, “Oh, Dombey, Dombey, this is really very careless!” and piled them up afresh for him; and this time, by dint of balancing them with great nicety, Paul got out of the room.

But if the poor child found them heavy to carry downstairs, how much harder was it to cram their contents into his head. Oh, how tired he grew! But always there was a never-ending round of lessons waiting for him during these long days and nights that Dr. Blimber and Cornelia tried to make a man of him. And all week long his aching head held but one longing desire—for Saturday to come.

Oh, Saturdays! Oh, happy Saturdays! when Florence always came at noon, and never would, in any weather, stay away.

And when Florence found how hard Paul’s studies were for him, she quietly bought books just like his and studied them during the week, so that she might keep along with him and help him when they were together.

Not a word of this was breathed to Mrs. Pipchin; but many a night when she was in bed and the candles were spluttering and burning low, Florence tried so hard to be a substitute for one small Dombey, that her fortitude and perseverance might have almost won her a free right to bear the name herself.

And high was her reward, when, one Saturday evening, as little Paul was sitting down as usual to “resume his studies,” she sat down by his side, and showed him all that was so rough made smooth, and all that was so dark made clear and plain before him. It was nothing but a startled look in Paul’s wan face—a flush—a smile—and then a close embrace—but God knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her trouble.

“Oh, Floy!” cried her brother, “how I love you! How I love you, Floy!”

“And I you, dear!”

“Oh! I am sure of that, Floy.”

And so little Paul struggled on bravely under his heavy load, never complaining, but growing more old-fashioned day by day—and growing frailer, too.

Then came the holidays, and a grand party at the school, to which Florence came, looking so beautiful in her simple ball dress that Paul could hardly make up his mind to let her go again.

“But what is the matter, Floy?” he asked, almost sure he saw a tear on her face.

“Nothing, dear. We will go home together, and I’ll nurse you till you are strong again.”

“Nurse me!” echoed Paul.

Paul couldn’t understand what that had to do with it, nor why the other guests looked on so seriously, nor why Florence turned away her face for a moment, and then turned it back, lighted up again with smiles.

“Floy,” said Paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand. “Tell me, dear. Do you think I have grown old-fashioned?”

His sister laughed and fondled him, and told him “No.”

“Because I know they say so,” returned Paul, “and I want to know what they mean, Floy.”

Florence would have sat by him all night, and would not have danced at all of her own accord, but Paul made her, by telling her how much it pleased him. And he told her the truth, too; for his small heart swelled, and his face glowed, when he saw how much they all admired her, and how she was the beautiful little rosebud of the room.

Then after the party came the leave-takings, for Paul was going home. And every one was good to him—even the pompous doctor, and Cornelia—and bade him good-bye with many regrets; for they were afraid, as they looked upon his pinched, wan face, that he would not be able to come back and take up that load of heavy books ever again.

There was a great deal, the next day and afterwards, which Paul could not quite get clear in his mind. As, why they stopped at Mrs. Pipchin’s for a while instead of going straight home; why he lay in bed, with Florence sitting by him; whether that had been his father in the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall.

He could not even remember whether he had often said to Florence, “Oh, Floy, take me home and never leave me!” but he thought he had. He fancied sometimes he had heard himself repeating, “Take me home, Floy! take me home!”

But he could remember, when he got home, and was carried up the well-remembered stairs, that there had been the rumbling of a coach for many hours together, while he lay upon the seat, with Florence still beside him, and Mrs. Pipchin sitting opposite. He remembered his old bed too, when they laid him down in it; but there was something else, and recent, too, that still perplexed him.

“I want to speak to Florence, if you please,” he said. “To Florence by herself, for a moment!”

She bent down over him, and the others stood away.

“Floy, my pet, wasn’t that papa in the hall, when they brought me from the coach?”

“Yes, dear.”

“He didn’t cry, and go into his room, Floy, did he, when he saw me coming in?”

Florence shook her head, and pressed her lips against his cheek.

“I’m very glad he didn’t cry,” said little Paul. “I thought he did. Don’t tell them that I asked.”

Paul never rose from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street quite tranquilly; not caring much how time went, but watching everything about him with observing eyes. And when visitors or servants came softly to the door to inquire how he was, he always answered for himself, “I am better; I am a great deal better, thank you! Tell papa so!”

And sometimes when he awoke out of a feverish dream, in which he thought a river was bearing him away, he would see a figure seated motionless, with bowed head, at the foot of his couch. Then he would stretch out his hands and cry, “Don’t be so sorry for me, dear papa! Indeed, I am quite happy!”

His father coming, and bending down to him—which he did quickly, and without first pausing by the bedside—Paul held him round the neck, and repeated those words to him several times, and very earnestly; and Paul never saw him in his room at any time, whether it were day or night, but he called out “Don’t be so sorry for me! Indeed, I am quite happy!” This was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.

Then one day he asked to see all his friends, and shook hands with each one quietly, and bade them good-bye. His father he clung to as though he felt more deeply for that proud man’s sorrow and disappointment, than any unhappiness on his own account. For he was going to his mother—about whom he had often talked with Florence in these closing days.

“Now lay me down,” he said, “and Floy, come close to me, and let me see you!”

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together.

“How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy! But it’s very near the sea. I hear the waves! They always said so!”

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out at sea, but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank!—

He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck.

“Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face. But tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about the head is shining on me as I go!”

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion—Death!

Oh, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

II.

HOW FLORENCE CAME INTO HER OWN

The death of Paul, far from softening Mr. Dombey’s heart toward his daughter, only served to widen the gap between them. He had been secretly hurt by Paul’s preference for Florence, and now was more cold and distant with her than ever.

She, poor child, had this deep sorrow to bear in addition to the loss of Paul. Many and many a night when no one in the house was stirring, and the lights were all extinguished, she would softly leave her own room, and with noiseless feet descend the staircase, and approach her father’s door. Against it, scarcely breathing, she would rest her face and head, and press her lips, in the yearning of her love. She crouched upon the cold stone floor outside it, every night, to listen even for his breath; and in her one absorbing wish to be allowed to show him some affection, to be a consolation to him, to win him over to some tenderness for her, his solitary child, she would have knelt down at his feet, if she had dared, in humble supplication.

No one knew it. No one thought of it. The door was ever closed, and he shut up within. He went out once or twice, and it was said in the house that he was very soon going on a journey; but he lived in those rooms, and lived alone, and never saw her or inquired for her. Perhaps he did not even know that she was in the house.

But one night Florence found the door slightly ajar. She paused a moment tremblingly, and then pushed it open and entered.

Her father sat at his old table in the middle room. He had been arranging some papers and destroying others, and the latter lay in fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a baby; and the low complainings of the wind were heard without.

He sat with his eyes fixed on the table, so immersed in thought that a far heavier tread than the light foot of his child could make, might have failed to rouse him. His face was turned towards her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn and dejected; and in the utter loneliness surrounding him there was an appeal to Florence that struck home.

“Papa! papa! Speak to me, dear papa!”

He started at her voice.

“What is the matter?” he said sternly. “Why do you come here? What has frightened you?”

If anything had frightened her, it was the face he turned upon her. The glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before it, and she stood and looked at him as if stricken into stone. There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it.

Did he see before him the successful rival of his son, in health and life? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son’s affection? Did a mad jealousy and withered pride poison sweet remembrances that should have endeared and made her precious to him? Could it be possible that it was gall to him to look upon her in her beauty and her promise: thinking of his infant boy!

Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is spurned and hopeless; and hope died out of hers, as she stood looking in her father’s face.

“I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the matter, that you come here?”

“I came, papa—”

“Against my wishes. Why?”

She saw he knew why—it was written broadly on his face—and dropped her head upon her hands with one prolonged low cry.

He took her by the arm. His hand was cold and loose, and scarcely closed upon her.

“You are tired, I dare say,” he said, taking up the light and leading her towards the door, “and want rest. We all want rest. Go, Florence. You have been dreaming.”

The dream she had had was over then, God help her! and she felt that it could never more come back.

“I will remain here to light you up the stairs. The whole house is yours, above there,” said her father, slowly. “You are its mistress now. Good-night!”

Still covering her face, she sobbed, and answered “Good-night, dear papa,” and silently ascended. Once she looked back as if she would have returned to him, but for fear. It was a momentary thought, too hopeless to encourage; and her father stood therewith the light—hard, unresponsive, motionless—until her fluttering dress was lost in the darkness.

The days that followed were lonely and sad indeed for the child. Her father went away upon a journey, and she was left entirely alone in the great house, but for the companionship of a faithful maid, Susan Nipper, and of her dog Diogenes.

Then some kind friends in the country took pity upon her loneliness and invited her to visit them.

When she came home she was amazed to find huge scaffolds built all around the house. It was being remodelled. Only her own little room had not been changed. The explanation for all this work came a few days later when her father came home accompanied by two ladies. One was old and greatly overdressed. The other—her daughter—was very beautiful, but with a cold, hard face.

“Mrs. Skewton,” said her father, turning to the first, and holding out his hand, “this is my daughter Florence.”

“Charming, I am sure,” observed the lady, putting up her glass. “So natural! My darling Florence, you must kiss me, if you please.”

Florence having done so, turned towards the other lady by whom her father stood waiting.

“Edith,” said Mr. Dombey, “this is my daughter Florence. Florence, this lady will soon be your mamma.”

Florence started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened struggled for a moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of fear. Then she cried out, “Oh, papa, may you be happy! may you be very, very happy all your life!” and then fell weeping on the lady’s bosom.

There was a short silence. The beautiful lady, who at first had seemed to hesitate whether or not she should advance to Florence, held her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her close about her waist, as if to reassure and comfort her. Not one word passed the lady’s lips. She bent her head down over Florence, and she kissed her on the cheek, but said no word.

“Shall we go on through the rooms,” said Mr. Dombey, “and see how our workmen are doing? Pray allow me, my dear madam.”

He said this in offering his arm to Mrs. Skewton, and they turned and went up the staircase. The beautiful lady lingered a moment to whisper to the little girl.

“Florence,” said the lady hurriedly, and looking into her face with great earnestness, “You will not begin by hating me?”

“By hating you, mamma!” cried Florence, winding her arm round her neck, and returning the look.

“Hush! Begin by thinking well of me,” said the beautiful lady. “Begin by believing that I will try to make you happy and that I am prepared to love you, Florence.”

Again she pressed her to her breast—she had spoken in a rapid manner, but firmly—and Florence saw her rejoin them in the other room.

And now Florence began to hope that she would learn from her new and beautiful mamma how to gain her father’s love; and in her sleep that night, in her lost old home, her own mamma smiled radiantly upon the hope, and blessed it. Dreaming Florence!

Very soon after this her new mamma came to live with them; and the gloomy house took on some semblance of life. But the marriage was not a happy one. Even Florence could see that. Mrs. Dombey’s face did not belie her character. She was haughty and reserved—a fitting match for Mr. Dombey. He had married her out of a desire to have a suitable ornament for his home and position in society. She—it was whispered—had been lured into a “fine” marriage by her matchmaking mother. It was no wonder, then, that the marriage should be unhappy.

Only toward Florence did the proud lady unbend. The child’s impulsive greeting had stirred her heart in a sudden and surprising way; and when Mrs. Dombey saw how lonely she was and how her life had been starved, she tried to make good her promise to the child to love her and be good to her always.

But once again poor Florence was misunderstood by her father. He saw that his cold wife cared only for the child, and he thought that just as Florence had cheated him out of some of Paul’s love she was now estranging his wife from him. It was cruelly unjust, but Mr. Dombey was so arrogant that he could see things only in his own narrow way.

Thus matters went along in this unhappy house for several months. Mr. and Mrs. Dombey met rarely, except at the table or in some social gathering, when the words which passed between them were of the coldest.

Then Mr. Dombey hit upon the meanest trick of his weak nature. When he found that he could not “humble” his wife by ordinary means, he called in his business manager, Carker, a smooth, deceitful man, whose hair was plastered down close to his white forehead and whose teeth shone in a continual sly smile. To Carker Mr. Dombey would entrust various messages for Mrs. Dombey, as to the running of the house, the hiring of servants, and the like. Mr. Dombey knew that she would resent such petty interference, especially through an outsider; but he did not know that she submitted quietly to these indignities simply for the sake of Florence, whom she wished to protect. And even her love for the girl was given in secret, for the same reason.

Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed the estrangement between her father and new mother; and saw it widen more and more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them every day. It had been very hard to have all her love repulsed, but it now seemed harder to be compelled to doubt her father, or choose between him and this mother, so affectionate and dear to her, yet whose other moods she could only witness with distrust or fear.

One great sorrow, however, was spared her. She never had the least suspicion that Mrs. Dombey, by her tenderness for her, widened the separation from her father, or gave him new cause of dislike. If she had thought it, for a single moment, what grief she would have felt, what sacrifice she would have tried to make, poor loving girl!

No word was ever spoken between Florence and her mother now, on these subjects. Mrs. Dombey had said there ought to be between them, in that wise, a silence like the grave itself; and Florence felt that she was right.

In this state of affairs her father was brought home suffering and ill, and gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was tended by servants, not approached by his wife, and had no friend or companion but Mr. Carker, who always withdrew near midnight.

Every night Florence would listen out in the hall for news of him, after leaving her mother. But, late one evening, she was surprised to see a bright light burning in her room, and her mother sitting before the dying fire looking so fiercely at it that it terrified her.

“Mamma!” she cried, “what is the matter?”

Mrs. Dombey started; looking at her with such a strange dread in her face that Florence was more frightened than before.

“Mamma!” said Florence, hurriedly advancing. “Dear mamma! what is the matter?”

“I have not been well,” said Mrs. Dombey, shaking, and still looking at her in the same strange way. “I have had bad dreams, my love.”

“And have not yet been to bed, mamma?”

“No,” she returned. “Half-waking dreams.”

Her features gradually softened; and suffering Florence to come close to her, within her embrace, she said in a tender manner, “But what does my bird do here! What does my bird do here!”

“I have been uneasy, mamma, in not seeing you to-night, and in not knowing how papa was; and I—”

Florence stopped there, and said no more.

“Is it late?” her mother asked, fondly putting back the curls that mingled with her own dark hair, and strayed upon her face.

“Very late. Near day.”

“Near day!” she repeated in surprise.

“Mamma!” said Florence. “Oh, mamma, what can I do, what should I do, to make us happier? Is there anything?”

“Nothing,” she replied.

“Are you sure of that? Can it never be? If I speak now of what is in my thoughts, in spite of what we have agreed,” said Florence, “you will not blame me, will you?”

“It is useless,” she replied, “useless. I have told you, dear, that I have had bad dreams. Nothing can change them, or prevent their coming back.”

“I do not understand,” said Florence, gazing on her agitated face, which seemed to darken as she looked.

Her mother’s clenched hand tightened on the trembling arm she had in hers, and as she looked down on the alarmed and wondering face, her own feelings subsided. “Oh, Florence!” she said, “I think I have been nearly mad to-night!” and humbled her proud head upon the girl’s neck, and burst into tears.

“Don’t leave me! be near me! I have no hope but in you!” These words she said a score of times.

Florence was greatly puzzled and distressed, and could only repeat her promise of love and trust.

Through six months that followed upon Mr. Dombey’s illness and recovery, no outward change was shown between him and his wife. Both were cold and proud; and still Mr. Carker—a man whom she detested——bore his petty commands to her.

As for Florence, the little hope she had ever held for happiness in their new home was quite gone now. That home was nearly two years old, and even the patient trust that was in her could not survive the daily blight of such an experience.

Florence loved her father still, but by degrees had come to love him rather as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which she loved the memory of little Paul or her mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those old objects of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her; hardly more substantially connected with her real life than the image she would sometimes conjure up of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a man, who would protect and cherish her.

The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.

She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her mamma was greatly changed. At the time of her father’s illness, and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this with her affection when they did meet, she sought her in her own room at night, once more.

“Mamma,” said Florence, stealing softly to her side, “have I offended you?”

She answered “No.”

“I must have done something,” said Florence. “Tell me what it is. You have changed your manner to me, dear mamma. I cannot say how instantly I feel the least change; for I love you with my whole heart.”

“As I do you,” said Mrs. Dombey. “Ah, Florence, believe me never more than now!”

“Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?” asked Florence. “And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear mamma? You do so, do you not?”

“Dear Florence, it is for your good. Why, I cannot tell you now. But you will believe I have always tried to make you happy, dear, will you not?”

“Mamma,” said Florence, anxiously, “there is a change in you, in more than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a little.”

“No, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe that what I am, I am not of my own will, or for myself. Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark home—I am a shadow on it, I know well—and let us never speak of this again.”

“Mamma,” sobbed Florence, “we are not to part?”

“We do this that we may not part,” said her mother. “Ask no more. Go, Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!”

Thus did Mrs. Dombey hide from Florence one dark secret—that her husband was displeased with their love for each other. It was for Florence’s welfare that she felt compelled to hide her affections.

From that hour Florence and she were as they had been no more. For days together they would seldom meet, except at table, and when Mr. Dombey was present. Then Mrs. Dombey, imperious, inflexible, and silent, never looked at her. Whenever Mr. Carker was of the party, as he often was during the progress of Mr. Dombey’s recovery, she was more distant towards her than at other times. Yet she and Florence never encountered, when there was no one by, but she would embrace her as affectionately as of old, though not with the same relenting of her proud aspect; and often when she had been out late she would steal up to Florence’s room as she had been used to do in the dark, and whisper “Good-night.”

Then came a dreadful day not long afterwards when it was found that Mrs. Dombey had fled from her home. The day was the second anniversary of this ill-starred marriage; and the poor, misguided woman left a note for her husband telling him that she had gone away with the man whom he had trusted most (and whom she hated most) Mr. Carker. It was a foolish way to be revenged for the harsh treatment she had received, but it served her purpose. Mr. Dombey was wounded in his most vulnerable spot—his pride.

As for Florence, she was overcome with grief; yet in the midst of her own emotion she could realize her father’s bitterness. Yielding at once to the impulse of her affection and forgetful of his past coldness, Florence hurried to him with her arms stretched out and crying, “Oh dear, dear papa!” tried to clasp him round the neck.

But in his wild despair he shook her off so roughly that she almost fell to the floor; telling her she could join her mother, for all he cared, as they had always been in league against him.

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 nor speak one word of reproach. She only uttered a single low cry of pain and then fled from the house like a hunted animal.

Without a roof over her head—without father or mother, she was indeed an orphan.

While the days went by, after Florence’s flight, what was the proud man doing? Did he ever think of his daughter or wonder where she had gone? Did he suppose she had come home again and was leading her old life in the weary house? He did not utter her name or make any search for her. He might have thought of her constantly, or not at all. It was all one for any sign he made.

But this was sure. He did not think that he had lost her. He had no suspicion of the truth that she had fled away from him. He had lived too long shut up in his pride, seeing her a patient, gentle creature in his path, to have any fear of that. And so he waited, day by day, until she should make her appearance on the stairs or at the table as before.

But the days dragged slowly by and she did not come.

The sea had ebbed and flowed through a whole year. Through a whole year the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had been performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole year the famous House of Dombey and Son had fought a fight for life, against doubtful rumors, unsuccessful ventures, and most of all, against the bad judgment of its head, who would not contract its enterprises by a hair’s breadth, and would not listen to a word of warning that the ship he strained so hard against the storm was weak, and could not bear it.

For Mr. Dombey had grown strangely indifferent and reckless, and plunged blindly into speculation.

The year was out, and the great House was down.

One summer afternoon there was a buzz and whisper, about the streets of London, of a great failure. A certain cold, proud man, well known there, was not there, nor was he represented there. Next day it was noised abroad that Dombey and Son had stopped, and next night there was a list of bankrupts published, headed by that name.

Nobody’s opinion stayed the misfortune, lightened it, or made it heavier. It was understood that the affairs of the House were to be wound up as they best could be; that Mr. Dombey freely resigned everything he had, and asked for no favor from any one. That any resumption of the business was out of the question, as he would listen to no friendly negotiation having that compromise in view; that he had relinquished every post of trust or distinction he had held as a man respected among merchants; and that he was a broken man.

The old home where Paul had died and whence Florence had fled away was now empty and deserted—a wreck of what it had been. All the furniture and hangings had been sold to satisfy Mr. Dombey’s creditors; and he now lived there alone in one cheerless room—a man without friends, without hope.

But at last he began to come to his senses; to see what a treasure he had cast away in Florence; to recall his own injustice and cruelty toward her.

In the miserable night he thought of it; in the dreary day, the wretched dawn, the ghostly, memory-haunted twilight, he remembered. In agony, in sorrow, in remorse, in despair!

“Papa! papa!” He heard the words again, and saw the face. He saw it fall upon the trembling hands, and heard the one prolonged, low cry go upward.

Oh! He did remember it! The rain that fell upon the roof, the wind that mourned outside the door, had foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. He knew now what he had done. He knew now that he had called down that upon his head, which bowed it lower than the heaviest stroke of fortune. He knew now what it was to be rejected and deserted; now, when every loving blossom he had withered in his innocent daughter’s heart was snowing down in ashes on him.

He thought of her as she had been that night when he and his bride came home. He thought of her as she had been in all the home events of the abandoned house. He thought now that of all around him, she alone had never changed. His boy had faded into dust, his proud wife had deserted him, his flatterer and friend had been transformed into the worst of villains, his riches had melted away, the very walls that sheltered him looked on him as a stranger; she alone had turned the same mild, gentle look upon him always. Yes, to the latest and the last. She had never changed to him—nor had he ever changed to her—and she was lost.

As, one by one, they fell away before his mind—his baby hope, his wife, his friend, his fortune—oh, how the mist through which he had seen her cleared, and showed him her true self! How much better than this that he had loved her as he had his boy, and lost her as he had his boy, and laid them in their early grave together!

As the days dragged by, it seemed to him that he should go mad with remorse and longing. He haunted Paul’s room and Florence’s room—so empty now—as though they were his only dwelling-place. He had meant to go away, but clung to this tie in the house as the last and only thing left to him. He would go to-morrow. To-morrow came. He would go to-morrow. Every night, within the knowledge of no human creature, he came forth, and wandered through the despoiled house like a ghost. Many a morning when the day broke, with altered face drooping behind the closed blind in his window, he pondered on the loss of his two children. It was one child no more. He reunited them in his thoughts, and they were never asunder.

Then, one day, when strange fancies oppressed him more than usual, he paused at Florence’s door and gazed wildly down as though suddenly awakened from a dream.

He heard a cry—a loving, pleading voice—and there at his knees knelt Florence herself.

“Papa! Dearest papa! I have come back to ask forgiveness. I never can be happy more, without it!”

Unchanged still. Of all the world, unchanged. Raising the same face to his as on that miserable night. Asking his forgiveness!

“Dear papa, oh, don’t look strangely on me! I never meant to leave you. I never thought of it, before or afterwards. I was frightened when I went away and could not think. Papa, dear, I am changed. I am penitent. I know my fault. I know my duty better now. Papa, don’t cast me off or I shall die!”

He tottered to his chair. He felt her draw his arms about her neck: he felt her put her own round his; he felt her kisses on his face; he felt her wet cheek laid against his own; he felt—oh, how deeply!—all that he had done.

Upon the breast that he had bruised, against the heart that he had almost broken, she laid his face, now covered with his hands, and said, sobbing,—

“I have been far away, dear papa, and could not come back before this. I have been across the seas, and I have a home of my own over there now. Oh, I want you to see it! I want to take you there; for my home is your home—always, always! Say you will pardon me, will come to me!”

He would have said it if he could. He would have raised his hands and besought her for pardon, but she caught them in her own and put them down hurriedly.

“You will come, I know, dear papa! And I will know by that that you forgive me. And we will never talk about what is past and forgotten; never again!”

As she clung closer to him, in another burst of tears, he kissed her on the lips, and, lifting up his eyes, said, “Oh, my God, forgive me, for I need it very much!”

With that he dropped his head again, lamenting over and caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long time; they remaining clasped in one another’s arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with Florence.