ourishment.

'Cut off,' said Miss Tox, in a plaintive whisper, 'from one common
fountain!'

'If it was ungrateful case,' said Mrs Chick, solemnly, 'and I had your
reflections, Richards, I should feel as if the Charitable Grinders'
dress would blight my child, and the education choke him.'

For the matter of that--but Mrs Chick didn't know it--he had been pretty
well blighted by the dress already; and as to the education, even its
retributive effect might be produced in time, for it was a storm of sobs
and blows.

'Louisa!' said Mr Dombey. 'It is not necessary to prolong these
observations. The woman is discharged and paid. You leave this house,
Richards, for taking my son--my son,' said Mr Dombey, emphatically
repeating these two words, 'into haunts and into society which are not
to be thought of without a shudder. As to the accident which befel Miss
Florence this morning, I regard that as, in one great sense, a happy and
fortunate circumstance; inasmuch as, but for that occurrence, I never
could have known--and from your own lips too--of what you had been
guilty. I think, Louisa, the other nurse, the young person,' here Miss
Nipper sobbed aloud, 'being so much younger, and necessarily influenced
by Paul's nurse, may remain. Have the goodness to direct that this
woman's coach is paid to'--Mr Dombey stopped and winced--'to Staggs's
Gardens.'

Polly moved towards the door, with Florence holding to her dress, and
crying to her in the most pathetic manner not to go away. It was a
dagger in the haughty father's heart, an arrow in his brain, to see how
the flesh and blood he could not disown clung to this obscure stranger,
and he sitting by. Not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or
from whom turned away. The swift sharp agony struck through him, as he
thought of what his son might do.

His son cried lustily that night, at all events. Sooth to say, poor Paul
had better reason for his tears than sons of that age often have, for he
had lost his second mother--his first, so far as he knew--by a stroke
as sudden as that natural affliction which had darkened the beginning of
his life. At the same blow, his sister too, who cried herself to sleep
so mournfully, had lost as good and true a friend. But that is quite
beside the question. Let us waste no words about it.

CHAPTER 7. A Bird's-eye Glimpse of Miss Tox's Dwelling-place: also of
the State of Miss Tox's Affections

Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house