leanliness and order were manifest, though made in a reckless, gipsy
way, that might have connected them, at a glance, with the younger
woman. The shades of evening thickened and deepened as the two kept
silence, until the blackened walls were nearly lost in the prevailing
gloom.

Then Alice broke the silence which had lasted so long, and said:

'You may give him up, mother. He'll not come here.'

'Death give him up!' returned the old woman, impatiently. 'He will come
here.'

'We shall see,' said Alice.

'We shall see him,' returned her mother.

'And doomsday,' said the daughter.

'You think I'm in my second childhood, I know!' croaked the old woman.
'That's the respect and duty that I get from my own gal, but I'm wiser
than you take me for. He'll come. T'other day when I touched his coat
in the street, he looked round as if I was a toad. But Lord, to see him
when I said their names, and asked him if he'd like to find out where
they was!'

'Was it so angry?' asked her daughter, roused to interest in a moment.

'Angry? ask if it was bloody. That's more like the word. Angry? Ha, ha!
To call that only angry!' said the old woman, hobbling to the cupboard,
and lighting a candle, which displayed the workings of her mouth to ugly
advantage, as she brought it to the table. 'I might as well call your
face only angry, when you think or talk about 'em.'

It was something different from that, truly, as she sat as still as a
crouched tigress, with her kindling eyes.

'Hark!' said the old woman, triumphantly. 'I hear a step coming. It's
not the tread of anyone that lives about here, or comes this way often.
We don't walk like that. We should grow proud on such neighbours! Do you
hear him?'

'I believe you are right, mother,' replied Alice, in a low voice.
'Peace! open the door.'

As she drew herself within her shawl, and gathered it about her, the
old woman complied; and peering out, and beckoning, gave admission to Mr
Dombey, who stopped when he had set his foot within the door, and looked
distrustfully around.

'It's a poor place for a great gentleman like your worship,' said the
old woman, curtseying and chattering. 'I told you so, but there's no
harm in it.'

'Who is that?' asked Mr Dombey, looking at her companion.

'That's my handsome daughter,' said the old woman. 'Your worship won't
mind her. She knows all about it.'

A shadow fell upon his face not less expressive than if he had groaned
aloud, 'Who doe