d, recovered from a swoon, he
saw them bringing from a distance something covered, that lay heavy and
still, upon a board, between four men, and saw that others drove some
dogs away that sniffed upon the road, and soaked his blood up, with a
train of ashes.

CHAPTER 56. Several People delighted, and the Game Chicken disgusted

The Midshipman was all alive. Mr Toots and Susan had arrived at last.
Susan had run upstairs like a young woman bereft of her senses, and Mr
Toots and the Chicken had gone into the Parlour.

'Oh my own pretty darling sweet Miss Floy!' cried the Nipper, running
into Florence's room, 'to think that it should come to this and I should
find you here my own dear dove with nobody to wait upon you and no home
to call your own but never never will I go away again Miss Floy for
though I may not gather moss I'm not a rolling stone nor is my heart a
stone or else it wouldn't bust as it is busting now oh dear oh dear!'

Pouring out these words, without the faintest indication of a stop,
of any sort, Miss Nipper, on her knees beside her mistress, hugged her
close.

'Oh love!' cried Susan, 'I know all that's past I know it all my tender
pet and I'm a choking give me air!'

'Susan, dear good Susan!' said Florence. 'Oh bless her! I that was her
little maid when she was a little child! and is she really, really truly
going to be married?'exclaimed Susan, in a burst of pain and pleasure,
pride and grief, and Heaven knows how many other conflicting feelings.

'Who told you so?' said Florence.

'Oh gracious me! that innocentest creetur Toots,' returned Susan
hysterically. 'I knew he must be right my dear, because he took on so.
He's the devotedest and innocentest infant! And is my darling,' pursued
Susan, with another close embrace and burst of tears, 'really really
going to be married!'

The mixture of compassion, pleasure, tenderness, protection, and regret
with which the Nipper constantly recurred to this subject, and at every
such once, raised her head to look in the young face and kiss it, and
then laid her head again upon her mistress's shoulder, caressing her and
sobbing, was as womanly and good a thing, in its way, as ever was seen
in the world.

'There, there!' said the soothing voice of Florence presently. 'Now
you're quite yourself, dear Susan!'

Miss Nipper, sitting down upon the floor, at her mistress's feet,
laughing and sobbing, holding her pocket-handkerchief to her eyes with
one h