g out this gateway, and informing Florence that when the
clocks struck three she was to go to the left, Mrs Brown, after making a
parting grasp at her hair which seemed involuntary and quite beyond her
own control, told her she knew what to do, and bade her go and do it:
remembering that she was watched.

With a lighter heart, but still sore afraid, Florence felt herself
released, and tripped off to the corner. When she reached it, she looked
back and saw the head of Good Mrs Brown peeping out of the low wooden
passage, where she had issued her parting injunctions; likewise the fist
of Good Mrs Brown shaking towards her. But though she often looked back
afterwards--every minute, at least, in her nervous recollection of the
old woman--she could not see her again.

Florence remained there, looking at the bustle in the street, and more
and more bewildered by it; and in the meanwhile the clocks appeared to
have made up their minds never to strike three any more. At last the
steeples rang out three o'clock; there was one close by, so she couldn't
be mistaken; and--after often looking over her shoulder, and often going
a little way, and as often coming back again, lest the all-powerful
spies of Mrs Brown should take offence--she hurried off, as fast as she
could in her slipshod shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand.

All she knew of her father's offices was that they belonged to Dombey
and Son, and that that was a great power belonging to the City. So
she could only ask the way to Dombey and Son's in the City; and as
she generally made inquiry of children--being afraid to ask grown
people--she got very little satisfaction indeed. But by dint of asking
her way to the City after a while, and dropping the rest of her inquiry
for the present, she really did advance, by slow degrees, towards the
heart of that great region which is governed by the terrible Lord Mayor.

Tired of walking, repulsed and pushed about, stunned by the noise and
confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she
had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such
an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and
what was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her
weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping
to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed
her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, be