ed downstairs as a great success, or very promising beginning,
passed oil, above, in a sufficiently polite, genteel, and frosty manner.

Soon after tea' Mrs Skewton, who affected to be quite overcome and worn
Out by her emotions of happiness, arising in the contemplation of her
dear child united to the man of her heart, but who, there is reason to
suppose, found this family party somewhat dull, as she yawned for one
hour continually behind her fan, retired to bed. Edith, also, silently
withdrew and came back' no more. Thus, it happened that Florence, who
had been upstairs to have some conversation with Diogenes, returning to
the drawing-room with her little work-basket, found no one there but her
father, who was walking to and fro, in dreary magnificence.

'I beg your pardon. Shall I go away, Papa?' said Florence faintly,
hesitating at the door.

'No,' returned Mr Dombey, looking round over his shoulder; you can come
and go here, Florence, as you please. This is not my private room.

Florence entered, and sat down at a distant little table with her work:
finding herself for the first time in her life--for the very first time
within her memory from her infancy to that hour--alone with her father,
as his companion. She, his natural companion, his only child, who in her
lonely life and grief had known the suffering of a breaking heart; who,
in her rejected love, had never breathed his name to God at night, but
with a tearful blessing, heavier on him than a curse; who had prayed
to die young, so she might only die in his arms; who had, all through,
repaid the agony of slight and coldness, and dislike, with patient
unexacting love, excusing him, and pleading for him, like his better
angel!

She trembled, and her eyes were dim. His figure seemed to grow in height
and bulk before her as he paced the room: now it was all blurred and
indistinct; now clear again, and plain; and now she seemed to think that
this had happened, just the same, a multitude of years ago. She yearned
towards him, and yet shrunk from his approach. Unnatural emotion in a
child, innocent of wrong! Unnatural the hand that had directed the sharp
plough, which furrowed up her gentle nature for the sowing of its seeds!

Bent upon not distressing or offending him by her distress, Florence
controlled herself, and sat quietly at her work. After a few more turns
across and across the room, he left off pacing it; and withdrawing
into a shadowy corner at some d