, and half of her is dead.

Such is the figure, painted and patched for the sun to mock, that is
drawn slowly through the crowd from day to day; looking, as it goes,
for the good old creature who was such a mother, and making mouths as it
peers among the crowd in vain. Such is the figure that is often wheeled
down to the margin of the sea, and stationed there; but on which no
wind can blow freshness, and for which the murmur of the ocean has no
soothing word. She lies and listens to it by the hour; but its speech
is dark and gloomy to her, and a dread is on her face, and when her
eyes wander over the expanse, they see but a broad stretch of desolation
between earth and heaven.

Florence she seldom sees, and when she does, is angry with and mows at.
Edith is beside her always, and keeps Florence away; and Florence, in
her bed at night, trembles at the thought of death in such a shape, and
often wakes and listens, thinking it has come. No one attends on her
but Edith. It is better that few eyes should see her; and her daughter
watches alone by the bedside.

A shadow even on that shadowed face, a sharpening even of the sharpened
features, and a thickening of the veil before the eyes into a pall that
shuts out the dim world, is come. Her wandering hands upon the coverlet
join feebly palm to palm, and move towards her daughter; and a voice
not like hers, not like any voice that speaks our mortal language--says,
'For I nursed you!'

Edith, without a tear, kneels down to bring her voice closer to the
sinking head, and answers:

'Mother, can you hear me?'

Staring wide, she tries to nod in answer.

'Can you recollect the night before I married?'

The head is motionless, but it expresses somehow that she does.

'I told you then that I forgave your part in it, and prayed God to
forgive my own. I told you that time past was at an end between us. I
say so now, again. Kiss me, mother.'

Edith touches the white lips, and for a moment all is still. A moment
afterwards, her mother, with her girlish laugh, and the skeleton of the
Cleopatra manner, rises in her bed.

Draw the rose-coloured curtains. There is something else upon its flight
besides the wind and clouds. Draw the rose-coloured curtains close!

Intelligence of the event is sent to Mr Dombey in town, who waits upon
Cousin Feenix (not yet able to make up his mind for Baden-Baden), who
has just received it too. A good-natured creature like Cousin Feenix is
the v