as the arrivals thickened, so influencing him by the force of
example, that at the last he was "continually fingering that article of
dress as if he were performing on some instrument!" Thoroughly enjoyable
though the whole scene was in its throng of ludicrous particulars, it
merely led the way up appreciably and none the less tenderly, for all
the innocent laughter, to the last and supremely pathetic incidents of
the story as related thenceforth (save only for one startling instant)
_sotto voce_, by the Reader.

The exceptional moment here alluded to, when his voice was suddenly
raised, to be hushed again the instant afterwards, came at the very
opening of the final scene by Little Dombey's death-bed, where the
sunbeams, towards evening, struck through the rustling blinds and
quivered on the opposite wall like golden water. Overwhelmed, as little
Paul was occasionally, with "his only trouble," a sense of the swift and
rapid river, "he felt forced," the Reader went on to say, "to try and
stop it--to stem it with his childish hands, or choke its way with
sand--and when he saw it coming on, resistless, he cried out!" Dropping
his voice from that abrupt outcry instantly afterwards, to the gentlest
tones, as he added, "But a word from Florence, who was always at his
side, restored him to himself"--the Reader continued in those subdued
and tender accents to the end.

The child's pity for his father's sorrowing, was surpassed only, as
all who witnessed this Reading will readily recollect, by the yet more
affecting scene with his old nurse. Waking upon a sudden, on the last
of the many evenings, when the golden water danced in shining ripples on
the wall, waking mind and body, sitting upright in his bed--

"And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" asked the child, regarding with
a radiant smile a figure coming in.

"Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of
him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted
child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed and taken up
his wasted hand and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some
right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody
there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity."

The child's words coming then so lovingly: "Floy! this is a kind good
face! I am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse! Stay here!
Good bye!" prepared one exquisitely for the rest. "Not goodby