f her self-devotion.
But when this possibility presented itself to the erring and repentant
brother, as it sometimes did, it smote upon his heart with such a keen,
reproachful touch as he could hardly bear. No idea of retort upon his
cruel brother came into his mind. New accusation of himself, fresh
inward lamentings over his own unworthiness, and the ruin in which it
was at once his consolation and his self-reproach that he did not stand
alone, were the sole kind of reflections to which the discovery gave
rise in him.

It was on the very same day whose evening set upon the last chapter, and
when Mr Dombey's world was busiest with the elopement of his wife, that
the window of the room in which the brother and sister sat at their
early breakfast, was darkened by the unexpected shadow of a man coming
to the little porch: which man was Perch the Messenger.

'I've stepped over from Balls Pond at a early hour,' said Mr Perch,
confidentially looking in at the room door, and stopping on the mat to
wipe his shoes all round, which had no mud upon them, 'agreeable to my
instructions last night. They was, to be sure and bring a note to you,
Mr Carker, before you went out in the morning. I should have been here a
good hour and a half ago,' said Mr Perch, meekly, 'but for the state of
health of Mrs P., who I thought I should have lost in the night, I do
assure you, five distinct times.'

'Is your wife so ill?' asked Harriet.

'Why, you see,' said Mr Perch, first turning round to shut the door
carefully, 'she takes what has happened in our House so much to heart,
Miss. Her nerves is so very delicate, you see, and soon unstrung. Not
but what the strongest nerves had good need to be shook, I'm sure. You
feel it very much yourself, no doubts.

Harriet repressed a sigh, and glanced at her brother.

'I'm sure I feel it myself, in my humble way,' Mr Perch went on to say,
with a shake of his head, 'in a manner I couldn't have believed if I
hadn't been called upon to undergo. It has almost the effect of drink
upon me. I literally feels every morning as if I had been taking more
than was good for me over-night.'

Mr Perch's appearance corroborated this recital of his symptoms. There
was an air of feverish lassitude about it, that seemed referable to
drams; and, which, in fact, might no doubt have been traced to those
numerous discoveries of himself in the bars of public-houses, being
treated and questioned, which he was in the daily h