the chance of
repossessing herself of it. But the daughter drew her away, and they
set forth, straight, on their return to their dwelling; the old woman
whimpering and bemoaning their loss upon the road, and fretfully
bewailing, as openly as she dared, the undutiful conduct of her handsome
girl in depriving her of a supper, on the very first night of their
reunion.

Supperless to bed she went, saving for a few coarse fragments; and
those she sat mumbling and munching over a scrap of fire, long after her
undutiful daughter lay asleep.

Were this miserable mother, and this miserable daughter, only the
reduction to their lowest grade, of certain social vices sometimes
prevailing higher up? In this round world of many circles within
circles, do we make a weary journey from the high grade to the low, to
find at last that they lie close together, that the two extremes touch,
and that our journey's end is but our starting-place? Allowing for great
difference of stuff and texture, was the pattern of this woof repeated
among gentle blood at all?

Say, Edith Dombey! And Cleopatra, best of mothers, let us have your
testimony!

CHAPTER 35. The Happy Pair

The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr Dombey's mansion, if it be a gap
among the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not to be
vied with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them off. The saying
is, that home is home, be it never so homely. If it hold good in the
opposite contingency, and home is home be it never so stately, what an
altar to the Household Gods is raised up here!

Lights are sparkling in the windows this evening, and the ruddy glow
of fires is warm and bright upon the hangings and soft carpets, and the
dinner waits to be served, and the dinner-table is handsomely set forth,
though only for four persons, and the side board is cumbrous with plate.
It is the first time that the house has been arranged for occupation
since its late changes, and the happy pair are looked for every minute.

Only second to the wedding morning, in the interest and expectation it
engenders among the household, is this evening of the coming home.
Mrs Perch is in the kitchen taking tea; and has made the tour of
the establishment, and priced the silks and damasks by the yard, and
exhausted every interjection in the dictionary and out of it expressive
of admiration and wonder. The upholsterer's foreman, who has left
his hat, with a pocket-handkerchief in it, bo