likeness of himself. And one day the thought came to him that it would
be better if he, too, were dead, even if it be by his own hand. This
thought clung to him. He could not shake it off.

One day he took a pistol from his dressing-table and sat hugging it to
his breast. At length he rose and stood in front of a mirror with the
weapon in his hand.

But suddenly he heard a cry--a piercing, loving, rapturous cry--and he
saw at his feet, clasping his knees, with her face lifted to his,
Florence, his long-lost daughter.

"Papa, dearest papa!" she cried, "I have come back to you. I never can
be happy more without you."

He tottered to a chair, feeling her draw his arms around her neck. He
felt her wet cheek laid against his own. He heard her soft voice telling
him that now she herself had a little child--a baby boy born at
sea--whom she and Walter had named Paul.

"Dear papa," she said, "you will come home with me. We will teach our
little child to love and honor you, and we will tell him when he can
understand that you had a son of that name once, and that he died and
that you were sorry; but that he is gone to Heaven, where we all hope to
see him sometime. Kiss me, papa, as a promise that you will be
reconciled. Never let us be parted any more!"

His hard heart had been melting while she spoke. As she clung closer to
him he kissed her, and she heard him mutter, "Oh, God forgive me, for I
need it very much!"

She drew him to his feet, and walking with a feeble gait he went with
her. With her eyes upon his face and his arm about her, she led him to
the coach waiting at the door and carried him away.

Mr. Dombey was very ill for a long time. When he recovered he was no
longer his old self, but a gentle, loving, white-haired old man. Walter
did not go to sea again, but found a position of great trust and
confidence in London, and in their home the old man felt growing
stronger and stronger his new-found love for the daughter whom till
now he had never really known.

Florence never saw Edith again but once. Then the latter came back to
bid her farewell for ever before she went to live in Italy. In these
years Edith had seen her own pride and grieved for her fault. There were
tears in her stern, dark eyes when Florence asked if she would send some
message to Mr. Dombey.

"Tell him," she answered, "that if in his own present he can find a
reason to think less bitterly of me, I asked him to do so. I will try to
forgi