 36 Housewarming Many succeeding days passed in like manner, except that there were numerous visits received and paid, and that Mrs. Scuton held little levies in her own apartments at which Major Bagstock was a frequent attendant, and that Florence encountered no second look from her father, although she saw him every day, nor had she much communication in words with her new mama, who was imperious and proud to all the house but her. Florence could not but observe that, and who, although she always sent for her, or went to her when she came home from visiting, and would always go into her room at night before retiring to rest, however late the hour, and never lost an opportunity of being with her, was often her silent and thoughtful companion for a long time together. Florence, who had hoped for so much from this marriage, could not help sometimes comparing the bright house with the faded dreary place out of which it had arisen, and wondering when, in any shape, it would begin to be a home. For that it was no home then, for anyone, though everything went on luxuriously and regularly, she had always a secret misgiving. Many an hour of sorrowful reflection by day and night, and many a tear of blighted hope, Florence bestowed upon the assurance her new mama had given her so strongly, that there was no one on the earth more powerful than herself to teach her how to win her father's heart. And soon Florence began to think, resolve to think would be the truer phrase, that as no one knew so well, how hopeless of being subdued or changed her father's coldness to her was, so she had given her this warning and forbidden the subject in very compassion. Unselfish here, as in her every act and fancy, Florence preferred to bear the pain of this new wound, rather than encourage any faint foreshadowings of the truth as it concerned her father, tender of him even in her wandering thoughts. As for his home, she hoped it would become a better one, when its state of novelty and transition should be over, and for herself thought little and lamented less. If none of the new family were particularly at home in private, it was resolved that Mrs. Dombie, at least, should be at home in public without delay. A series of entertainments in celebration of the late nuptials and in cultivation of society were arranged, chiefly by Mr. Dombie and Mrs. Skeuton, and it was settled that the festive proceedings should commence by Mrs. Dombie being at home upon a certain evening, and by Mr. and Mrs. Dombie's requesting the honor of the company of a great many in Congress people to dinner on the same day. Accordingly Mr. Dombie produced a list of sundry eastern magnets, who were to be bidden to this feast on his behalf, to which Mrs. Skeuton, acting for her dearest child, who was haughtily careless on the subject, subjoined a western list, comprising cousin Phoenix not yet returned to Baden-Baden, greatly to the detriment of his personal estate, and a variety of moths of various degrees and ages, who had at various times fluttered round the light of her fair daughter or herself without any lasting injury to their wings. Florence was enrolled as a member of the dinner party by Edith's command, elicited by a moment's doubt and hesitation on the part of Mrs. Skeuton and Florence with a wondering heart and with a quick instinctive sense of everything that, graded on her father in the least, took her silent share in the proceedings of the day. The proceedings commenced by Mr. Dombie in a cravat of extraordinary height and stiffness, walking restlessly about the drawing-room, until the hour appointed for dinner, punctual to which an East India director of immense wealth, in a waistcoat apparently constructed, inservisable deal by some plain carpenter, but really engendered in the tailor's art and composed of the material called Nankeen, arrived and was received by Mr. Dombie alone. The next stage of the proceedings was Mr. Dombie's sending his compliments to Mrs. Dombie with a correct statement of the time, and the next, the East India director's falling prostrate in a conventional point of view and, as Mr. Dombie was not the man to pick him up, staring at the fire until rescue appeared in the person of Mrs. Skeuton, whom the director, as a pleasant start in life for the evening, mistook for Mrs. Dombie and greeted with enthusiasm. The next arrival was a bank director, reputed to be able to buy up anything, human nature generally, if he should take it in his head to influence the money market in that direction, but who was a wonderfully modest spoken man, almost boastfully so, and mentioned his little place at Kingston upon Thames, and it's just being barely equal to giving Dombie a bed and a chop if he would come and visit it. Ladies, he said, it was not for a man who lived in his quiet way to take upon himself to invite, but if Mrs. Skeuton and her daughter, Mrs. Dombie, should ever find themselves in that direction, and would do him the honor to look at a little bit of shrubbery they would find there, and a poor little flower bed or so, and a humble apology for a pinery, and two or three little attempts of that sort without any pretension they would distinguish him very much. Carrying out his character, this gentleman was very plainly dressed, in a wisp of cambrick for a neckcloth, big shoes, a coat that was too loose for him, and a pair of trousers that was too spare, and mentioned being made of the opera by Mrs. Skeuton, he said he very seldom went there, for he couldn't afford it. It seemed greatly to delight and exhilarate him to say so, and he beamed on his audience afterwards, with his hands in his pockets, and excessive satisfaction twinkling in his eyes. Now Mrs. Dombie appeared beautiful and proud, and as disdainful and defiant of them all, as if the bridal wreath upon her head had been a garland of steel spikes, put on to force concession from her, which she would die sooner than yield. With her was Florence. When they entered together, the shadow of the night of the return again darkened Mr. Dombie's face, but unobserved, for Florence did not venture to raise her eyes to his, and Edith's indifference was too supreme to take the least heed of him. The arrivals quickly became numerous. More directors, chairman of public companies, elderly ladies carrying burdens on their heads for full dress. Cousin Phoenix, major back stock, friends of Mrs. Skeuton, with the same bright bloom on their complexion and very precious necklaces on their withered necks. Among these, a young lady of sixty-five remarkably coolly dressed, as to her back and shoulders, who spoke with an engaging lisp, and whose eyelids wouldn't keep up well without a great deal of trouble on her part, and whose manners had that indefinable charm which so frequently attaches to the giddiness of youth. As the greater part of Mr. Dombie's list were disposed to be taciturn, and the greater part of Mrs. Dombie's list were disposed to be talkative, and there was no sympathy between them, Mrs. Dombie's list, by magnetic agreement, entered into a bond of union against Mr. Dombie's list. Who, wandering about the room in a desolate manner or seeking refuge in corners, entangled themselves with company coming in, and became barricaded behind sofas, and had doors opened smartly from without against their heads, and underwent every sort of discomforture. When dinner was announced, Mr. Dombie took down an old lady like a crimson velvet pincushion stuffed with banknotes, who might have been the identical old lady of Threadneedle Street, she was so rich, and looked so unaccommodating. Cousin Phoenix took down Mrs. Dombie. Major Bagstock took down Mrs. Scuton. The young thing with the shoulders was bestowed, and an extinguisher upon the East India director, and the remaining ladies were left on a view in the drawing-room by the remaining gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them downstairs, and those brave spirits with their captives blocked up the dining-room door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted hall. When all the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild men still appeared in smiling confusion, totally destitute and unprovided for, and escorted by the butler, made the complete circuit of the table twice before his chair could be found, which it finally was, on Mrs. Dombie's left hand, after which the mild man never held up his head again. Now, the spacious dining-room, with the company seated round the glittering table busy with their glittering spoons and knives and forks and plates, might have been taken for a grown-up exposition of Tom Tiddler's ground, where children pick up golden silver. Mr. Dombie, as Tiddler, looked his character to admiration, and the long plateau of precious metal frosted, separating him from Mrs. Dombie, whereon frosted cupids offered scentless flowers to each of them, was allegorical to see. Cousin Phoenix was in great force and looked astonishingly young, but he was sometimes thoughtless in his good humor, his memory occasionally wandering like his legs, and, on this occasion, caused the company to shudder. It happened thus. The young lady, with the back, who regarded Cousin Phoenix with sentiments of tenderness, had entrapped the East India director into leading her to the chair next to him, in return for which she immediately abandoned the director, who, being shaded on the other side by a gloomy black velvet hat, surmounting a bony and speechless female with a fan, yielded to a depression of spirits and withdrew into himself. Cousin Phoenix and the young lady were very lively and humorous, and the young lady laughed so much at something Cousin Phoenix related to her that major back stock begged leave to inquire on behalf of Mrs. Skeuten. They were sitting opposite, a little lower down, whether that might not be considered public property. Why, upon my life, said Cousin Phoenix, there's nothing in it. It really is not worth repeating. In point of fact, it's merely an anecdote of Jack Adams. I daresay my friend Domby, for the general attention was concentrated on Cousin Phoenix, may remember Jack Adams, Jack Adams, not Joe, that was his brother, Jack, little Jack, man with a cast in his eye, and slight impediment in his speech, man who sat for somebody's burrow. We used to call him, in my parliamentary time, W. P. Adams, in consequence of his being warming pan for a young fellow who was in his minority. Perhaps my friend Domby may have known the man. Mr. Domby, who was as likely to have known Guy Fox, replied in the negative, but one of the seven mild men unexpectedly leaped into distinction by saying he had known him, and adding, Always wore Hessian boots. Exactly, said Cousin Phoenix, bending forward to see the mild man, and smile encouragement at him down the table. That was Jack. Joe wore tops, cried the mild man, rising in public estimation every instant. Of course, said Cousin Phoenix, you were intimate with him. I knew them both, said the mild man, with whom Mr. Domby immediately took wine. Devilish good fellow Jack, said Cousin Phoenix, again bending forward and smiling. Excellent returned the mild man, becoming bold on his success. One of the best fellows I ever knew. No doubt you have heard the story, said Cousin Phoenix. I shall know, replied the bold mild man, when I have heard your lordship tell it. With that he leaned back in his chair and smiled at the ceiling, as knowing it by heart, and being already tickled. In point of fact, it's nothing of a story in itself, said Cousin Phoenix, addressing his table with a smile, and a gay shake of his head. And not worth a word of preface, but it's illustrative of the neatness of Jack's humor. The fact is that Jack was invited down to a marriage, which I think took place in Borkshire. Shropshire, said the bold mild man, finding himself appealed to. Was it? Well, in point of fact it might have been in any shire, said Cousin Phoenix. So my friend, being invited down to this marriage in any shire, with a pleasant sense of the readiness of this joke, goes, just as some of us, having had the honor of being invited to the marriage of my lovely and accomplished relative with my friend Donby, didn't require to be asked twice, and were devilish glad to be present on so interesting an occasion. Goes, Jack goes. Now this marriage was, in point of fact, the marriage of an uncommonly fine girl with a man for whom she didn't care a button, but whom she accepted on account of his property, which was immense. When Jack returned to town after the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him in the lobby of the House of Commons, says, Well, Jack, how are the ill-matched couple? Ill-matched, says Jack. Not at all. It's a perfectly fair and equal transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may take your oath. He is as regularly sold. In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the shutter, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark, struck Cousin Phoenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the only general topic of conversation broached that day appeared on any face. A profound silence ensued, and the wretched mild man, who had been as innocent of any real foreknowledge of the story as the child unborn, had the exquisite misery of reading in every eye that he was regarded as the prime mover of the mischief. Mr. Dombie's face was not a changed one, and being cast in its mold of state that day showed little other apprehension of the story, if any, than that which he expressed when he said solemnly, amidst the silence, that it was very good. There was a rapid glance from Edith towards Florence, but otherwise she remained externally impassive and unconscious. Through the various stages of rich meets and lines, continual golden silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped up fruits, and that unnecessary article in Mr. Dombie's banquets, ice, the dinner slowly made its way, the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music of incessant double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors whose portion of the feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs. Dombie rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head, hold the door open for withdrawal of the ladies, and to see how she swept past him with his daughter on her arm. Mr. Dombie was a grave sight behind the decanters in a state of dignity, and the East India director was a forlorn sight near the unoccupied end of the table in a state of solitude, and the major was a military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven mild men. The ambitious one was utterly quenched, and the bank director was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pioneering. With dessert knives for a group of admirers, and Cousin Phoenix was a thoughtful sight as he smoothed his long wristbands and stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short duration, being speedily broken up by coffee and the desertion of the room. There was a throng in the state room upstairs, increasing every minute, but still Mr. Dombie's list of visitors appeared to have some native impossibility of amalgamation with Mrs. Dombie's list, and no one could have doubted which was which. The single exception to this rule, perhaps, was Mr. Karker, who now smiled among the company, and who, as he stood in the circle that was gathered about Mrs. Dombie, watchful of her, of them, his chief, Cleopatra, and the major, Florence, and everything around, appeared at ease with both divisions of guests, and not marked as exclusively belonging to either. Florence had a dread of him, which made his presence in the room a nightmare to her. She could not avoid the recollection of it, for her eyes were drawn towards him every now and then by an attraction of dislike and distrust that she could not resist. Yet her thoughts were busy with other things, for as she sat apart, not unadmired or unsought, but in the gentleness of her quiet spirit, she felt how little part her father had in what was going on, and saw with pain how ill at ease he seemed to be, and how little regarded he was as he lingered about near the door for those visitors whom he wished to distinguish with particular attention, and took them up to introduce them to his wife, who received them with proud coldness, but showed no interest or wish to please, and never, after the bare ceremony of reception in consultation of his wishes or in welcome of his friends, opened her lips. It was not the less perplexing or painful to Florence that she who acted thus treated her so kindly and with such loving consideration that it almost seemed an ungrateful return on her part, even to know of what was passing before her eyes. Happy Florence would have been might she have ventured to bear her father's company by so much as a look, and happy Florence was in little suspecting the main cause of his uneasiness, but afraid of seeming to know that he was placed in any disadvantage lest he should be resentful of that knowledge, and divided between her impulse toward him and her grateful affection for Edith, she scarcely dared to raise her eyes toward either. Anxious and unhappy for them both, the thought stole on her through the crowd that it might have been better for them if this noise of tongues and tread of feet had never come there, if the old dullness and decay had never been replaced by novelty and splendor, if the neglected child had found no friend in Edith but had lived her solitary life unpityed and forgotten. Mrs. Chick had some such thoughts too, but they were not so quietly developed in her mind. This good matron had been outraged in the first instance by not receiving an invitation to dinner. That blow partially recovered she had gone to a vast expense to make such a figure before Mrs. Dombie at home as should dazzle the senses of that lady and heap mortification mountains high on the head of Mrs. Skeuten. But I am made, said Mrs. Chick to Mr. Chick, of no more account than Florence, who takes the smallest notice of me, no one. No one, my dear, assented Mr. Chick, who was seated by the side of Mrs. Chick against the wall and could console himself even there by softly whistling. Does it all appear as if I was wanted here, exclaimed Mrs. Chick with flashing eyes? No, my dear, I don't think it does, said Mr. Chick. Paul's mad, said Mrs. Chick. Mr. Chick whistled. Unless you are a monster which I sometimes think you are, said Mrs. Chick with candor, don't sit there humming tunes. How can anyone with the most distant feelings of a man can see that mother-in-law of Paul's dressed as she is going on like that, with major back-stock for whom among other precious things we are indebted to your Lucretia Tox? My Lucretia Tox, my dear, said Mr. Chick, astounded. Yes, retorted Mrs. Chick with great severity, your Lucretia Tox. I say how anybody can see that mother-in-laws of Paul and that haughty wife of Paul's and these indecent old frights with their backs and shoulders and in short this at home generally and hum on which word Mrs. Chick laid a scornful emphasis that made Mr. Chick start is, I thank heaven, a mystery to me. Mr. Chick screwed his mouth into a form in irreconcilable with humming or whistling and looked very contemplative. But I hope I know what is due to myself, said Mrs. Chick, swelling with indignation, though Paul has forgotten what is due to me. I am not going to sit here, a member of this family, to be taken no notice of. I am not the dirt under Mrs. Dombie's feet yet. Not quite yet, said Mrs. Chick, as if she expected to become so about the day after to-morrow. And I shall go. I will not say, whatever I may think, that this affair has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall merely go. I shall not be missed. Mrs. Chick rose erect with these words and took the arm of Mr. Chick, who escorted her from the room after half an hour's shady sojourn there. And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not missed at all. But she was not the only indignant guest. For Mr. Dombie's list, still constantly in difficulties, were, as a body, indignant with Mrs. Dombie's list, for looking at them through eyeglasses and audibly wondering who all those people were, while Mrs. Dombie's list complained of weariness and the young thing with the shoulders deprived of the attentions of that gay youth cousin Phoenix, who went away from the dinner table, confidentially alleged to thirty or forty friends that she was bored to death. All the old ladies with the burdens on their heads had greater or less cause of complaint against Mrs. Dombie. And the directors and chairman coincided in thinking that if Dombie must marry he had better have married somebody nearer his own age, not quite so handsome and a little better off. The general opinion among this class of gentlemen was that it was a weak thing in Dombie and he lived to repent it. Hardly anybody there, except the mild men, stayed or went away without considering himself or herself neglected and aggrieved by Mr. Dombie or Mrs. Dombie. And the speechless female in the black velvet hat was found to have been stricken mute because the lady in the crimson velvet had been handed down before her. The nature even of the mild men got corrupted either from their curdling it with too much lemonade or from the general inoculation that prevailed, and they made sarcastic jokes to one another and whispered disparagement on stairs and in byplaces. The general dissatisfaction and discomfort so diffused itself that the assembled footmen in the hall were as well acquainted with it as the company above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got hold of it and compared the party to a funeral out of mourning with none of the company remembered in the will. At last the guests were all gone and the linkmen too and the street crowded so long with carriages was clear and the dying lights showed no one in the rooms but Mr. Dombie and Mr. Carker who were talking together apart and Mrs. Dombie and her mother, the former seated on an ottoman, the latter reclining in the Cleopatra attitude awaiting the arrival of her maid. Mr. Dombie, having finished his communication to Carker, the latter advanced obsequiously to take leave. I trust he said that the fatigues of this delightful evening will not inconvenience Mrs. Dombie to-morrow. Mrs. Dombie, said Mr. Dombie, advancing, has sufficiently spared herself fatigue to relieve you from any anxiety of that kind. I regret to say, Mrs. Dombie, that I could have wished you had fatigued yourself a little more on this occasion. She looked at him with a supercilious glance that it seemed not worth her while to protract and turned away her eyes without speaking. I am sorry, madam, said Mr. Dombie, that you should not have thought at your duty. She looked at him again. Your duty, madame, pursued Mr. Dombie, to have received my friends with a little more deference, some of those whom you have been pleased to slight tonight in a very marked manner. Mrs. Dombie, confer a distinction upon you. I must tell you, in any visit they pay you. Do you know that there is someone here? She returned, now looking at him steadily. No, Parker, I beg you do not. I insist that you do not, cried Mr. Dombie, stopping that noiseless gentleman in his withdrawal. Mr. Parker, madam, as you know, possesses my confidence. He is as well acquainted as myself with a subject on which I speak. I beg to tell you, for your information, Mrs. Dombie, that I consider these wealthy and important persons confer a distinction upon me. And Mr. Dombie drew himself up, as having now rendered them of the highest possible importance. I ask you, she repeated, bending her disdainful, steady gaze upon him. Do you know that there is someone here, sir? I must entreat, said Mr. Parker, stepping forward. I must beg. I must demand to be released, slight and unimportant, as this difference is. Mrs. Scuton, who had been intent upon her daughter's face, took him up here. My sweetest Edith, she said, and my dearest Dombie, our excellent friend Mr. Parker, for so I am sure I ought to mention him. Mr. Parker Mermitt, too much honor, has used the very words that were in my mind and that I have been dying these ages for an opportunity of introducing. Slight and unimportant, my sweetest Edith and my dearest Dombie, do we not know that any difference between you two? No, flowers, not now. Flowers was the maid, who, finding gentlemen present, retreated with precipitation. That any difference between you two, resumed Mrs. Scuton, with the heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of feeling that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant? What words could better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take this slight occasion, this trifling occasion, that is so replete with nature, and your individual characters, and all that, so truly calculated to bring the tears into a parent's eyes, to say that I attach no importance to them in the least, except as developing these minor elements of soul and that, unlike most mamas in law, that odious phrase, dear Dombie, as they have been represented to me to exist. In this, I fear, two artificial world, I shall never attempt to interpose between you at such a time, and never can much regret, after all, such little flashes of the torch of what's his name, not Cupid, but the other delightful creature. There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her children, as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and well-considered purpose hidden between these rambling words, that purpose providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the clankings of their chain that were to come, and to shelter herself with the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection and their adaptation to each other. I have pointed out to Mrs. Dombie, said Mr. Dombie, in his most stately manner, that in her conduct, thus early in our married life, to which I object, and which I request, may be corrected. Carker, with a nod to dismissal, good night to you. Mr. Carker bowed to the imperious form of the bride, whose sparkling eye was fixed upon her husband, and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on his way out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him in lowly and admiring homage. If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed countenance, or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, now that they were alone, for Cleopatra made off with all speed, Mr. Dombie would have been equal to some assertion of his case against her. But the intense, unutterable, withering scorn, with which, looking upon him, she dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless and indifferent to her, to be challenged with a syllable, the ineffable disdain and haughtiness in which she sat before him, the cold inflexible resolve with which her every feature seemed to bear him down and put him by, these he had no resource against, and he left her, with her whole overbearing beauty concentrating on despising him. Was he coward enough to watch her, an hour afterwards, on the old well staircase, where he had once seen Florence in the moonlight toiling up with Paul? Or was he in the dark by accident, when, looking up, he saw her coming, with a light, from the room where Florence lay, and marked again the face so changed, which he could not subdue? But it could never alter as his own did. It never, in its utmost pride and passion, knew the shadow that had fallen on his, in the dark corner, on the night of the return, and often since, and which deepened on it now as he looked up. End of chapter thirty-six, chapter thirty-seven of Dambi and Son. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Cynthia Lyons. Dambi and Son by Charles Dickens. Chapter thirty-seven. More warnings than one. Florence, Edith, and Mrs. Scuton were together next day, and the carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had her galley again now, and withers no longer, the one stood upright in a pigeon-breasted jacket and military trousers behind her wheel-less chair at dinner-time, and butted no more. The hair of withers was radiant with pomatum in these days of down, and he wore kid gloves and smelt of the water of cologne. They were assembled in Cleopatra's room. The serpent of old Nile, not to mention her disrespectfully, was reposing on her sofa, sipping her morning chocolate at three o'clock in the afternoon, and flowers the maid was fastening on her youthful cuffs and frills and performing a kind of private coronation ceremony on her with a peach-colored velvet bonnet, the artificial roses in which knotted to uncommon advantage, as the palsy trifled with them like a breeze. I think I am a little nervous this morning, flowers, said Mrs. Scuton, my hand quite shakes. You were the life of the party last night, ma'am, you know, returned flowers, and you suffer for it today, you see. Edith, who had beckoned Florence to the window, and was looking out with her back turned on the toilet of her esteemed mother, suddenly withdrew from it, as if it had lightened. My darling child, cried Cleopatra languidly, you are not nervous? Don't tell me, my dear Edith, that you, so enviably self-possessed, are beginning to be a martyr, too, like your unfortunately constituted mother. Withers, someone at the door, card, ma'am, said Withers, taking it towards Mrs. Dombie. I am going out, she said, without looking at it. My dear love, drawled Mrs. Scuton, how very odd to send that message without seeing the name. Bring it here, Withers. Hear me, my love, Mr. Carker, too, that very sensible person. I am going out, repeated Edith, in so imperious a tone, that Withers, going to the door, imperiously informed the servant who was waiting. Mrs. Dombie is going out. Get along with you, and shut it on him. But the servant came back after a short absence, and whispered to Withers again, who once more, and not very willingly, presented himself before Mrs. Dombie. If you please, ma'am, Mr. Carker sends his respectful compliments, and begs you would spare him one minute, if you could, for business, ma'am, if you please. Really, my love, said Mrs. Scuton, in her mildest manner, for her daughter's face was threatening. If you would allow me to offer a word, I should recommend. Show him this way, said Edith. As Withers disappeared to execute the command, she added, frowning on her mother, as he comes at your recommendation, let him come to your room. May I, shall I go away, asked Florence hurriedly? Edith nodded yes, but on her way to the door Florence met the visitor coming in, with the same disagreeable mixture of familiarity and forbearance, with which he had first addressed her, he addressed her now, in his softest manner, hoped she was quite well, needed not to ask, with such looks to anticipate the answer, had scarcely had the honour to know her last night, she was so greatly changed, and held the door open for her to pass out, with a secret sense of power in her shrinking from him, that all the deference and politeness of his manner could not quite conceal. He then bowed himself for a moment over Mrs. Scuton's condescending hand, and lastly bowed to Edith, coolly returning his salute without looking at him, and neither seating herself nor inviting him to be seated, she waited for him to speak, entrenched in her pride and power, and with all the obduracy of her spirit summoned about her, still her old conviction that she and her mother had been known by this man in their worst colours, from their first acquaintance, that every degradation she had suffered in her own eyes was as plain to him as to herself, that he read her life as though it were a vile book, and fluttered the leaves before her in slight looks and tones of voice which no one else could detect, weakened and undermined her, proudly as she opposed herself to him, with her commanding face exacting his humility, her disdainful lip repulsing him, her bosom angry at his intrusion, and the dark lashes of her eyes sullenly veiling their light, that no ray of it might shine upon him, and submissively, as he stood before her, with an entreating, injured manner, but with complete submission to her will, she knew, in her own soul, that the cases were reversed, and that the triumph and superiority were his, and that he knew it full well. I have presumed, said Mr. Corker, to solicit an interview, and I have ventured to describe it as being one of business, because perhaps you are charged by Mr. Dombie with some message of reproof, said Edith. You possess Mr. Dombie's confidence in such an unusual degree, sir, that you would scarcely surprise me if that were your business. I have no message to the lady who sheds a luster upon his name, said Mr. Corker, but I entreat that lady on my own behalf to be just a very humble claimant for justice at her hands, a mere dependent of Mr. Dombie's, which is a position of humility, and to reflect upon my perfect helplessness last night, and the impossibility of my avoiding the share that was forced upon me in a very painful occasion. My dearest Edith hinted Cleopatra in a low voice, as she held her eyeglass aside. Really very charming of Mr. What's his name, and full of heart. For I do, said Mr. Corker, appealing to Mrs. Scuton with a look of grateful deference. I do venture to call it a painful occasion, though merely because it was so to me, who had the misfortune to be present, so slight a difference, as between the principles, between those who love each other with disinterested devotion, and would make any sacrifice of self in such a case, is nothing, as Mrs. Scuton herself expressed with so much truth and feeling last night, it is nothing. Edith could not look at him, but she said after a few moments, and your business, sir? Edith, my pet, said Mrs. Scuton, all this time Mr. Corker is standing. My dear Mr. Corker, take a seat, I beg. He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud daughter, as though he would only be bitten by her, and was resolved to be bitten by her. Edith, in spite of herself, sat down, and slightly motioned with her hand to him to be seated, too. No action could be colder, hotter, more insolent in its air of supremacy and disrespect, but she had struggled against even that concession ineffectually, and it was rested from her. That was enough, Mr. Corker sat down. May I be allowed, madam, said Corker, turning his white teeth on Mrs. Scuton like a light? A lady of your excellent sense and quick feeling will give me credit for good reason, I am sure, to address what I have to say to Mrs. Domby, and to leave her to impart it to you, who are her best and dearest friend, next to Mr. Domby. Mrs. Scuton would have retired, but Edith stopped her. Edith would have stopped him, too, and indignantly ordered him to speak openly or not at all, but that he said in a low voice, Ms. Florence, the young lady who has just left the room, Edith suffered him to proceed. She looked at him now, as he bent forward to be nearer with the utmost show of delicacy and respect, and with his teeth persuasively arrayed in a self-depreciating smile, she felt as if she could have struck him dead. Ms. Florence's position, he began, has been an unfortunate one. I have a difficulty in alluding to it to you, whose attachment to her father is naturally watchful and jealous of every word that applies to him. But as one who is devoted to Mr. Domby in his different way, and whose life is passed in admiration of Mr. Domby's character, may I say, without offence, to your tenderness as a wife, that Ms. Florence has unhappily been neglected by her father, may I say, by her father? Edith replied, I know it. You know it! said Mr. Carker, with a great appearance of relief. It removes a mountain from my breast. May I hope you know how the neglect originated in what an amiable phase of Mr. Domby's pride, character, I mean. You may pass that by, sir, she returned, and come the sooner to the end of what you have to say. Indeed, I am sensible, madam, replied Carker. Trust me, I am deeply sensible that Mr. Domby can require no justification in anything to you, but kindly judge of my breast by your own, and you will forgive my interest in him, if in its excess it goes at all astray. Let a stab to her proud heart, to sit there, face to face with him, and have him tendering her false oath at the altar again and again for her acceptance, and pressing it upon her like the dregs of a sickening cup she could not own her loathing of or turn away from. How shame, remorse, and passion raged within her! When upright and majestic in her beauty before him she knew that in her spirit she was down at his feet. Miss Florence, said Carker, left to the care, if one may call it care, of servants and mercenary people in every way her inferiors necessarily wanted some guide and compass in her younger days and naturally, for want of them, has been indiscreet and has, in some degree, forgotten her station. There was some folly about one Walter, a common lad, who is fortunately dead by now, and some very undesirable association, I regret to say, with certain coasting sailors of anything but good repute, and a runaway old bankrupt. I have heard the circumstances, sir, said Edith, flashing her disdainful glance upon him, and I know that you pervert them. You may not know it, I hope so. Pardon me, said Mr. Carker, I believe that nobody knows them so well as I. Your generous and ardent nature, madam, the same nature which is so nobly imperative in vindication of your beloved and honored husband, and which has blessed him as even his merits deserve, I must respect, defer to, bow before, but as regards the circumstances which is indeed the business I presume to solicit your attention to, I can have no doubt, since, in the execution of my trust as Mr. Dombie's confidential, I presume to say, friend, I have fully ascertained them, in my execution of that trust, in my deep concern, which you can so well understand, for everything relating to him intensified, if you will. Before I fear I labour under your displeasure, by the lower motive of desire to prove my diligence, and make myself the more acceptable, I have long pursued these circumstances by myself, and trustworthy instruments, and have innumerable and most minute proofs. She raised her eyes no higher than his mouth, but she saw the means of mischief vaunted in every tooth it contained. Pardon me, madam, he continued, if in my perplexity I presume to take counsel with you, and to consult your pleasure, I think I have observed that you are greatly interested in Miss Florence. What was there in her he had not observed and did not know, humbled and yet maddened by the thought in every new presentment of it, however faint she pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip to force composure on it, and distinctly inclined her head in reply. This interest, madam, so touching and evidence of everything associated with Mr. Dombie being dear to you, induces me to pause before I make him acquainted with these circumstances, which as yet he does not know. It so far shakes me, if I may make the confession in my allegiance that on the intimation of the least desire to that effect from you I would suppress them. Edith raised her head quickly and, starting back, bent her dark glance upon him. He met it with his blandest and most deferential smile and went on. You say that as I describe them they are perverted, I fear not, I fear not, but let us assume that they are. The uneasiness I have for some time felt on the subject arises in this, that the mere circumstance of such association often repeated on the part of Miss Florence, however innocently and confidingly, would be conclusive with Mr. Dombie, already predisposed against her, and would lead him to take some step. I know he has occasionally contemplated it, of separation and alienation of her from his home. But I am bare with me, and remember my intercourse with Mr. Dombie, and my knowledge of him, and my reverence for him, almost from childhood, when I say that if he has a fault it is a lofty stubbornness rooted in that noble pride and sense of power which belongs to him and which we must all defer to, which is not assailable like the obstinacy of other characters and which grows upon itself from day to day and year to year. She bent her glance upon him still, but look as steadfast as she would. Her haughty nostrils dilated and her breath came somewhat deeper and her lip would slightly curl as he described that in his patron to which they all must bow down. He sought, and though his expression did not change, she knew he sought. Even so slight an incident as last night's, he said, if I might refer to it once more would serve to illustrate my meaning better than a greater one. Dombie and son know neither time nor place nor season, but bear them all down. But I rejoice in its occurrence, for it has opened the way for me to approach Mrs. Dombie with this subject to-day, even if it has entailed upon me the penalty of her temporary displeasure. Madam, in the midst of my uneasiness and apprehension on this subject, I was summoned by Mr. Dombie to Leamington. There I saw you. There I could not help knowing what relation you would shortly occupy towards him, to his enduring happiness and yours. There I resolved to await the time of your establishment at home here and to do as I have now done. I have at heart no fear that I shall be wanting in my duty to Mr. Dombie if I bury what I know in your breast. For where there is but one heart and mind between two persons, as in such a marriage, one almost represents the other. I can acquit my conscience therefore almost equally by confidence on such a theme in you or him. For the reasons I have mentioned I would select you. May I aspire to the distinction of believing that my confidence is accepted and that I am relieved from my responsibility? He long remembered the look she gave him. Who could see it and forget it and the struggle that ensued within her? At last she said, I accepted, sir, you will please to consider this matter at an end and that it goes no farther. He bowed low and rose. She rose too, and he took leave with all humility. But withers, meeting him on the stairs stood amazed at the beauty of his teeth and at his brilliant smile. And as he rode away upon his white-legged horse, the people took him for a dentist. Such was the dazzling show he made. The people took her when she rode out in her carriage presently for a great lady as happy as she was rich and fine. But they had not seen her just before in her own room with no one by, and they had not heard her utterance of the three words. Oh, Florence, Florence. Mrs. Scuton reposing on her sofa and sipping her chocolate had heard nothing but the low word business, for which she had a mortal aversion in so much that she had long banished it from her vocabulary and had gone nigh in a charming manner and with an immense amount of heart to say nothing of soul to ruin diverse milliners and others in consequence. Therefore Mrs. Scuton asked no questions and showed no curiosity. Indeed the peach velvet bonnet gave her sufficient occupation out of doors, for being perched on the back of her head and the day being rather windy it was frantic to escape from Mrs. Scuton's company and would be coaxed into no sort of compromise. When the carriage was closed and the wind shut out the palsy played among the artificial roses again like an alms-house full of superannuated zeffers and altogether Mrs. Scuton had enough to do and got on but indifferently. She got on no better towards night for when Mrs. Domby in her dressing room had been dressed and waiting for her half an hour and Mr. Domby in the drawing room had paraded himself into a state of solemn fretfulness they were all three going out to dinner. Flowers the maid appeared with a pale face to Mrs. Domby saying, If you please ma'am I beg your pardon but I can't do nothing with Mrs. What do you mean? asked Edith. Well ma'am replied the frightened maid I hardly know she's making faces. Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed in full dress with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, and other juvenility all complete. But paralysis was not to be deceived had known her for the object of its errand and had struck her at her glass where she lay like a horrible doll that had tumbled down. They took her to pieces in very shame and put the little of her that was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for and soon came. Powerful remedies were resorted to opinions given that she would rally from this shock but would not survive another and there she lay speechless and staring at the ceiling for days. Sometimes making inarticulate sounds in answer to such questions as did she know who were present and the like sometimes giving no reply either by sign or gesture or in her unwinking eyes. At length she began to recover consciousness and in some degree the power of motion though not yet of speech. One day the use of her right hand returned and showing it to her maid who was in attendance on her and appearing very uneasy in her mind. She made signs for a pencil and some paper. This the maid immediately provided thinking she was going to make a will or write some last request and Mrs. Dombie being from home the maid awaited the result with solemn feelings after much painful scrolling and erasing and putting in of wrong characters which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own accord the old woman produced this document. Rose colored curtains. The maid being perfectly transfixed and with tolerable reason Cleopatra amended the manuscript by adding two words more when it stood time. Rose colored curtains for doctors. The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to be provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the faculty and as those in the house who knew her best had no doubt of the correctness of this opinion which she was soon able to establish for herself. The rose colored curtains were added to her bed and she mended with increased rapidity from that hour. She was soon able to sit up in curls and a laced cap and night gown and to have a little artificial bloom dropped into the hollow caverns of her cheeks. It was a tremendous sight to see this old woman in her finery leering and mincing at death and playing off her youthful tricks upon him as if he had been the major. But as an alteration in her mind that ensued on the paralytic stroke was fraught with as much matter for reflection and was quite as ghastly. Whether the weakening of her intellect made her more cunning and false than before or whether it confused her between what she had assumed to be and what she really had been or whether it had awakened any glimmering of remorse which could neither struggle into light nor get her back into total darkness or whether in the jumble of her faculties a combination of these effects had been shaken up which is perhaps the more likely supposition. The result was this that she became hugely exacting in respect of Edith's affection and gratitude and attention to her. Highly laudatory of herself as a most inestimable parent and very jealous of having any rival in Edith's regard. Further, in place of remembering that compact maid between them for an avoidance of the subject she constantly alluded to her daughter's marriage as a proof of her being an incomparable mother and all this with the weakness and peevishness of such a state always serving for a sarcastic commentary on her levity and youthfulness. Where is Mrs. Domby? She would say to her maid. Gone out, ma'am. Gone out? Does she go out to shun her mama flowers? Le bless, you know, ma'am. Mrs. Domby has only gone out for a ride with Miss Florence. Miss Florence? Who's Miss Florence? Don't tell me about Miss Florence. What's Miss Florence to her compare to me? The opposite display of the diamonds or the peach velvet bonnet. She sat in the bonnet to receive visitors weeks before she could stir out of doors. Or the dressing of her up in some god or other usually stopped the tears that began to flow hereabouts and she would remain in a complacent state until Edith came to see her when, at a glance of the proud face, she would relapse again. Well, I am sure Edith she would cry shaking her head. What is the matter, mother? Matter? I really don't know. What is the matter? The world is coming to such an artificial and ungrateful state that I begin to think there's no heart or anything of that sort left in it positively with others is more of a child to me than you are. He attends to me much more than my own daughter. I almost wish I did not look so young and all that kind of thing and then perhaps I should be more considered. What would you have, mother? Oh, a great deal Edith, impatiently. Is there anything you want that you have not? It is your own fault if there be. My own fault beginning to whimper. The parent I have been to you, Edith, making you a companion from your cradle and when you neglect me and have no more natural affection for me than if I were a stranger, not a twentieth part of the affection that you have for Florence, but I am only your mother and should corrupt her in a day. You reproach me with its being my own fault. Mother, mother, I approach you with nothing. Why will you always dwell on this? Isn't it natural that I should dwell on this when I am all affection and sensitiveness and I am wounded in the cruelest way whenever you look at me? I do not mean to wound you, mother. Have you no remembrance of what has been said between us? Let the past rest. Yes, rest and let gratitude to me rest and let affection for me rest and let me rest in my out of the way room with no society and no attention while you find new relations to make much of who have no earthly claim upon you. Good gracious, Edith, do you know what an elegant establishment you are at the head of? Yes, hush. And that gentlemanly creature, Domby, do you know that you are married to him, Edith, and that you have a settlement and a position and a carriage and I don't know what? Indeed, I know it, mother. Well, as you would have had with that delightful good soul, what did they call him, Ranger, if he hadn't died? And who have you to thank for all this, Edith? You, mother, you. Then put your arms round my neck and kiss me and show me, Edith, that you know there was never a better mama than I have been to you and don't let me become a perfect fright with teasing and wearing myself at your ingratitude or when I'm out again in society. No soul will know me, not even that hateful animal, the Major. But sometimes when Edith went nearer to her and bending down her stately head, put her cold cheek to hers, the mother would draw back as if she were afraid of her and would fall into a fit of trembling and cry out that there was a wandering in her wits, and sometimes she wouldn't treat her with humility to sit down on the chair beside her bed and would look at her as she sat there brooding with a face that even the rose-colored curtains could not make otherwise than seared and wild. The rose-colored curtains blushed in course of time on Cleopatra's bodily recovery and on her dress more juvenile than ever to repair the ravages of illness and on the rouge and on the teeth and on the curls and on the diamonds and the short sleeves and the whole wardrobe of the doll that had tumbled down before the mirror. They blushed too now and then upon an indistinctness in her speech which she turned off with a girlish giggle and on an occasional failing in her memory that had no rule in it but came and went fantastically as if in mockery of her fantastic self. But they never blushed upon a change in the new manner of her thought and speech towards her daughter. And though that daughter often came within their influence they never blushed upon her loveliness irradiated by a smile or softened by the light of filial love in its stern beauty. End of Chapter 37 Chapter 38 of Dombi and Son. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Cynthia Lyons. Dombi and Son by Charles Dickens. Chapter 38 Miss Tox improves an old acquaintance. The forlorn Mr. Tox abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick and bereft of Mr. Dombi's countenance for no delicate pair of wedding cards united by a silver thread graced the chimney glass in Princess's place or the harpsichord or any of those little posts of display which Lucretia reserved for holiday occupation became depressed in her spirits and suffered much from melancholy. For a time the bird waltz was unheard in Princess's palace. The plants were neglected and dust collected on the miniature of Miss Tox's ancestor with the powdered head and pigtail. Miss Tox however was not of an age or of a disposition long to abandon herself to unavailing regrets. Only two notes of the harpsichord were dumb from disuse when the bird waltz again were warbled and trilled in the crooked drawing room. Only one slip of geranium fell a victim to imperfect nursing before she was gardening at her green baskets again regularly every morning. The powdered headed ancestor had not been under a cloud for more than six weeks when Miss Tox breathed on his benignant visage and polished him up with a piece of wash leather. Still Miss Tox was lonely and at a loss her attachments however ludicrously shown were real and strong and she was as she expressed it deeply hurt by the unmerited contumely she had met with from Louisa. But there was no such thing as anger in Miss Tox's composition. If she had ambled on through life in her soft spoken way without any opinions she had at least got so far without any harsh passions. The mere sight of Louisa Chick in the street one day at a considerable distance so overpowered her milky nature that she was feigned to seek immediate refuge in a pastry cooks and there in a musty little back room usually devoted to the consumption of soups and pervaded by an oxtail atmosphere relieve her feelings by weeping plentifully against Mr. Dombie Miss Tox hardly felt that she had any reason of complaint. Her sense of that gentleman's magnificence was such that once removed from him she felt as if her distance always had been immeasurable and as if he had greatly condescended in tolerating her at all. No wife could be too handsome or too stately for him according to Miss Tox's sincere opinion. It was perfectly natural that in looking for one he should look high. Miss Tox with tears laid down this proposition and fully admitted it 20 times a day. She never recalled the lofty manner in which Mr. Dombie had made her subservient to his convenience and caprices and had graciously permitted her to be one of the nurses of his little son. She only thought in her own words that she had passed a great many happy hours in that house which she must ever remember with gratification and that she could never cease to regard Mr. Dombie as one of the most impressive and dignified of men. Cut off, however, from the implacable Louisa and being shy of the major, whom she viewed with some distrust now, Miss Tox founded very irksome to know nothing of what was going on in Mr. Dombie's establishment. And as she really had got into the habit of considering Dombie and son as the pivot on which the world in general turned, she resolved rather than be ignorant of intelligence which so strongly interested her to cultivate her old acquaintance, Mrs. Richards, who she knew since her last memorable appearance before Mr. Dombie, was in the habit of sometimes holding communication with his servants. Perhaps Miss Tox, in seeking out the Toodle family, had the tender motive hidden in her breast of having somebody to whom she could talk about Mr. Dombie, no matter how humble that somebody might be. At all events, towards the Toodle habitation Miss Tox directed her steps one evening. What time, Mr. Toodle? Cindery and Swart was refreshing himself with tea in the bosom of his family. Mr. Toodle had only three stages of existence. He was either taking refreshment in the bosom, just mentioned, or he was tearing through the country at from twenty five to fifty miles an hour, or he was sleeping after his fatigues. He was always in a whirlwind or a calm and a peaceable, contented, easy going man Mr. Toodle was in either state, who seemed to have made over all his own inheritance of fuming and fretting to the engines with which he was connected, which panted and gasped and chafed, and wore themselves out in a most unsparing manner, while Mr. Toodle led a mild and equitable life. Polly, my gal, said Mr. Toodle, with a young Toodle on each knee and two more making tea for him and plenty more scattered about. Mr. Toodle was never out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand. You ain't seen our byler lately, have you? No, replied Polly, but he's almost certain to look in tonight. It's his right evening, and he's very regular. I suppose, said Mr. Toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, as our byler is a doing now about as well as a boy can do, eh, Polly? Oh, he's a doing beautiful, responded Polly. He ain't got to be at all secret like, has he, Polly? Inquired Mr. Toodle. No, said Mrs. Toodle, plumply. I'm glad he ain't got to be all secret like Polly, observed Mr. Toodle in his slow and measured way, and shoveling in his bread and butter with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, because that don't look well, do it, Polly. Why, of course it don't, Father. How can you ask? You see, my boys and gals, said Mr. Toodle, looking round upon his family. Whatever you're up to in an honest way, it's my opinion, as you can't do better than be open. If you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don't you play no secret games? Keep your whistles going, and let's know where you are. The rising Toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their resolution to profit by the paternal advice. But what makes you say this along of Rob, Father? Asked his wife anxiously. Polly, old woman, said Mr. Toodle, I don't know, as I said in particular, along Rob, I'm sure it starts light with Rob only. I comes to a branch, I takes on what I find there, and a whole train of ideas gets coupled on to him. Before I know where I am or where they come from. What a junction a man's thoughts is, said Mr. Toodle, to be sure. This profound reflection Mr. Toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter, charging his young daughters, meanwhile, to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he was uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of a sight of mugs before his thirst was appeased. In satisfying himself, however, Mr. Toodle was not regardless of the younger branches about him, who, although they had made their own evening repast, were on the lookout for irregular morsels as possessing a relish. These he distributed now and then to the excellent circle, by holding out great wedges of bread and butter, to be bitten at by the family in lawful succession, and by serving out small doses of tea in like manner with a spoon, which snacks had such a relish in the mouths of these young Toodles that, after partaking of the same, they performed private dances of ecstasy among themselves and stood on one leg apiece and hopped and indulged in other salutary tokens of gladness. These vents for their excitement found. They gradually closed about Mr. Toodle again, and eyed him hard as he got through more bread and butter and tea, affecting, however, to have no further expectations of their own in reference to those viands, but to be conversing on foreign subjects and whispering confidentially. Mr. Toodle, in the midst of this family group and setting an awful example to his children in the way of appetite, was conveying the two young Toodles on his knees to Birmingham by special engine, and was contemplating the rest over a barrier of bread and butter, when Rob the grinder in his Suezter hat and mourning slops presented himself, and was received with a general rush of brothers and sisters. Well, mother, said Rob, dutifully kissing her. How are you, mother? There's my boy, cried Polly, giving him a hug and a pat on the back. Secret, bless you, father, not he. This was intended for Mr. Toodle's private edification, but Rob the grinder, whose withers were not unrung, caught the words as they were spoken. What? Father's been saying something more again? Me, has he? Cried the injured innocent. Oh, what a hard thing it is, when a cove has once gone a little wrong, a cove's own father should always be throwing it in his face behind his back. It's enough, cried Rob, resorting to his coat cuff in anguish of spirit to make a cove go and do something out of spite. My poor boy, cried Polly, father didn't mean anything. If father didn't mean anything, blubbered the injured grinder. Why did he go and say anything, mother? Nobody thinks half so bad of me as my own father does. What an unnatural thing. I wish somebody take and chop my head off. Father wouldn't mind doing it, I believe, and I'd much rather he did that than the other. At these desperate words all the young Toodles shrieked, a pathetic effect, which the grinder improved by ironically adjuring them not to cry for him, for they ought to hate him. They ought, if they was good boys and girls, and this so touched the youngest Toodle but one, who was easily moved, that it touched him not only in his spirit, but in his wind, too, making him so purple that Mr. Toodle, in consternation, carried him out to the water-butt, and would have put him under the tap, but for his being recovered by the sight of that instrument. Matters having reached this point, Mr. Toodle explained, and the virtuous feelings of his son being thereby calmed, they shook hands, and harmony reigned again. Will you do as I do, Byler, my boy? inquired his father, returning to his tea with new strengths. No, thank you, Father. Master and I had tea together. And how is Master Rob? said Polly. Well, I don't know, Mother, not much to boast on. There ain't no business done, you see. He don't know anything about it. The Captain don't. There was a man come into the shop this very day, and says, I want a so-and-so. He says, some hard name or another. Oh, which, says the Captain? A so-and-so, says the man. Brother, says the Captain, will you take an observation round the shop? Well, says the man, I've done it. Do you see what you want? Says the Captain? No, I don't, says the man. Do you know it when you do see it, says the Captain? No, I don't, says the man. Why then? I tell you what, my lad, says the Captain, you had better go back and ask what it's like outside, for no more don't I. That ain't the way to make money, though, is it? said Polly. Money, Mother. He'll never make money. He has such ways as I never see. He ain't a bad Master, though. I'll say that for him. But that ain't much to me, for I don't think I shall stop with him long. Not stop in your place, Rob, quite his mother, while Mr. Toodle opened his eyes. Not in that place, perhaps, return the grinder with a wink. I shouldn't wonder, friends at court, you know. But never you, my mother, just now I'm all right, that's all. The indisputable proof afforded in these hints, and in the grinder's mysterious manner, of his not being subject to that failing which Mr. Toodle had, by implication attributed to him, might have led to a renewal of his wrongs and of the sensation in the family. But for the opportune arrival of another visitor, who, to Polly's great surprise, appeared at the door, smiling patronage and friendship on all there. How do you do, Mrs. Richards, said Miss Tox? I have come to see you, may I come in? The cheery face of Mrs. Richards shown with a hospitable reply, and Miss Tox accepting the proffered chair and gracefully recognizing Mr. Toodle on her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that, in the first place, she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her. The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear from the frequency of his domestic troubles to have been born under an unlikely planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by having fixed the Suezter hat, with which he had been previously trifling, deep on his head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again, which accident presented to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family, caused him to struggle with great violence and to utter suffocating cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot and red and damp, and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted. You have almost forgotten me, sir, I dare say, said Miss Tox to Mr. Toodle. No, ma'am, no, said Toodle, but we've all on us got a little older since then. And how do you find yourself, sir, inquired Miss Tox blandly. Hardie, madam, thank ye, replied Toodle. How do you find yourself, ma'am? Do the romantics keep off pretty well, ma'am? We must all expect to grow into him as we get on. Thank you, said Miss Tox. I have not felt any inconvenience from that disorder yet. You are very fortunate, ma'am, returned Mr. Toodle. Many people at your time of life, ma'am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother. But catching his wife's eye here, Mr. Toodle judiciously buried the rest in another mug of tea. You never mean to say Mrs. Richards, cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob, that that is your eldest, ma'am, said Polly. Yes, indeed it is. That's the little fellow, ma'am, that was the innocent cause of so much. This here, ma'am, said Toodle, is him with the short legs, and they was, said Mr. Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, unusual short for leathers, as Mr. Domby made a grinder on. The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her, called up a look to justify the eulogium. But it was hardly the right look. And now Mrs. Richards, said Miss Tox, and you too, sir, addressing Toodle, I'll tell you plainly and truly what I have come here for. You may be aware, Mrs. Richards, and possibly you may be aware, too, sir, that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal I do not visit now. Polly, who, with a woman's tact, understood this at once, expressed as much in a little look. Mr. Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss Tox was talking about, expressed that also in a stare. Of course, said Miss Tox, how our little coolness has arisen is of no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me to say that I have the greatest possible respect for and interest in Mr. Domby. Miss Tox's voice faltered, and everything that relates to him. Mr. Toodle, enlightened, shook his head and said he had heard it said. For his own part, he did think as Mr. Domby was a difficult subject. Pray, don't say so, sir, if you please, return Miss Tox. Let me entreat you not to say so, sir, either now or at any future time. Such observations cannot, but be very painful to me, and to a gentleman whose mind is constituted as I am quite sure yours is, can afford no permanent satisfaction. Mr. Toodle, who had not entertained the least doubt of offering a remark that would be received with acquiescence, was greatly confounded. All that I wish to say, Mrs. Richards, resumed Miss Tox, and I address myself to you too, sir, is this, that any intelligence of the proceedings of the family, of the welfare of the family, of the health of the family that reaches you, will be always most acceptable to me, that I shall be always very glad to chat with Mrs. Richards about the family and about old times, and as Mrs. Richards and I never had the least difference, though I could wish now that we had been better acquainted, but I have no one but myself to blame for that. I hope she will not object to our being very good friends now, and to my coming backwards and forwards here, when I like, without being a stranger. Now I really hope Mrs. Richards, said Miss Tox earnestly, that you will take this, as I mean it, like a good-humored creature, as you always were. Polly was gratified and showed it. Mr. Toodle didn't know whether he was gratified or not, and preserved a stolid calmness. You see, Mrs. Richards, said Miss Tox, and I hope you see too, sir. There are many little ways in which I can be slightly useful to you, if you will make no stranger of me, and in which I shall be delighted to be so. For instance, I can teach your children something. I shall bring a few little books, if you'll allow me, and some work, and of an evening now and then they'll learn, dear me, they'll learn a great deal I trust, and be a credit to their teacher. Mr. Toodle, who had a great respect for learning, jerked his head approvingly at his wife, and moistened his hands with dawning satisfaction. Then, not being a stranger, I shall be in nobody's way, said Miss Tox, and everything will go on just as if I were not here. Mrs. Richards will do her mending, or her ironing, or her nursing, whatever it is, without minding me. And you'll smoke your pipe, too, if you're so disposed, sir, won't you? Thank you, Mom, said Mr. Toodle. Yes, I'll take my bit of backer. Very good of you to say so, sir, rejoin Miss Tox, and I really do assure you now, unfaindly, that it will be a great comfort to me, and that whatever good I may be fortunate enough to do the children, you will be more than payback to me if you'll enter into this little bargain comfortably and easily and good-naturedly without another word about it. The bargain was ratified on the spot, and Miss Tox found herself so much at home already that without delay she instituted a preliminary examination of the children all round, which Mr. Toodle much admired, and booked their ages' names and requirements on a piece of paper. This ceremony and a little attendant gossip prolonged the time until after their usual hour of going to bed and detained Miss Tox at the Toodle fireside until it was too late for her to walk home alone. The gallant grinder, however, being still there, politely offered to attend her to her own door, and, as it was something to Miss Tox to be seen home by a youth whom Mr. Dombie had first inducted into those manly garments which are rarely mentioned by name, she very readily accepted the proposal. After shaking hands with Mr. Toodle and Polly and kissing all the children, Miss Tox left the house, therefore, with unlimited popularity, and carrying away with her so light a heart that it might have given Mrs. Chick a fence if that good lady could have weighed it. Rob the grinder, in his modesty, would have walked behind, but Miss Tox desired him to keep beside her for conversational purposes, and, as she afterwards expressed it to his mother, drew him out upon the road. He drew out so bright and clear and shining that Miss Tox was charmed with him. The more mixed Tox drew him out the finer he came, like wire. There never was a better or more promising youth, a more affectionate, steady, prudent, sober, honest, meek, candid young man, then Rob drew out that night. I am quite glad, said Miss Tox, arrived at her own door, to know you. I hope you'll consider me your friend and that you'll come and see me as often as you like. Do you keep a money box? Yes, ma'am, returned Rob. I'm saving up against I've got enough to put in the bank, ma'am. Very laudable indeed, said Miss Tox. I'm glad to hear it. Put this half-crown into it, if you please. Oh, thank you, ma'am, replied Rob, but really I couldn't think of depriving you. I commend your independent spirit, said Miss Tox, but it's no deprivation I assure you. I shall be offended if you don't take it as a mark of my goodwill. Good night, Robyn. Good night, ma'am, said Rob, and thank you. Who ran sniggering off to get changed, and tossed it away with a pie-man? But they never taught honor at the grinder's school, where the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy. In so much that many of the friends and masters of past grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more rational said, let us have a better one. But the governing powers of the grinder's company were always ready for them by picking out a few boys who had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the grinder's institution?