ith little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off
with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes;
with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into the
gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept fowls
and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat), dried
clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's Gardens
derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr Staggs, who had
built it for his delectation. Others, who had a natural taste for the
country, held that it dated from those rural times when the antlered
herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had resorted to its
shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens was regarded by
its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by Railroads; and so
confident were they generally of its long outliving any such ridiculous
inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the corner, who was
understood to take the lead in the local politics of the Gardens, had
publicly declared that on the occasion of the Railroad opening, if ever
it did open, two of his boys should ascend the flues of his dwelling,
with instructions to hail the failure with derisive cheers from the
chimney-pots.

To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been
carefully concealed from Mr Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now
borne by Fate and Richards

'That's my house, Susan,' said Polly, pointing it out.

'Is it, indeed, Mrs Richards?' said Susan, condescendingly.

'And there's my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare' cried Polly,
'with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!'

The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly's impatience,
that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing on Jemima,
changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable astonishment
of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys seemed to have
fallen from the clouds.

'Why, Polly!' cried Jemima. 'You! what a turn you have given me! who'd
have thought it! come along in Polly! How well you do look to be sure!
The children will go half wild to see you Polly, that they will.'

That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the
way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in the
chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately the
centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks