's path--some obstacle removed--which
clears his way before him.

Now the rosy children living opposite to Mr Dombey's house, peep from
their nursery windows down into the street; for there are four black
horses at his door, with feathers on their heads; and feathers tremble
on the carriage that they draw; and these, and an array of men with
scarves and staves, attract a crowd. The juggler who was going to twirl
the basin, puts his loose coat on again over his fine dress; and his
trudging wife, one-sided with her heavy baby in her arms, loiters to
see the company come out. But closer to her dingy breast she presses her
baby, when the burden that is so easily carried is borne forth; and
the youngest of the rosy children at the high window opposite, needs
no restraining hand to check her in her glee, when, pointing with her
dimpled finger, she looks into her nurse's face, and asks 'What's that?'

And now, among the knot of servants dressed in mourning, and the weeping
women, Mr Dombey passes through the hall to the other carriage that is
waiting to receive him. He is not 'brought down,' these observers think,
by sorrow and distress of mind. His walk is as erect, his bearing is as
stiff as ever it has been. He hides his face behind no handkerchief, and
looks before him. But that his face is something sunk and rigid, and is
pale, it bears the same expression as of old. He takes his place within
the carriage, and three other gentlemen follow. Then the grand funeral
moves slowly down the street. The feathers are yet nodding in the
distance, when the juggler has the basin spinning on a cane, and has the
same crowd to admire it. But the juggler's wife is less alert than
usual with the money-box, for a child's burial has set her thinking that
perhaps the baby underneath her shabby shawl may not grow up to be a
man, and wear a sky-blue fillet round his head, and salmon-coloured
worsted drawers, and tumble in the mud.

The feathers wind their gloomy way along the streets, and come within
the sound of a church bell. In this same church, the pretty boy received
all that will soon be left of him on earth--a name. All of him that is
dead, they lay there, near the perishable substance of his mother. It
is well. Their ashes lie where Florence in her walks--oh lonely, lonely
walks!--may pass them any day.

The service over, and the clergyman withdrawn, Mr Dombey looks round,
demanding in a low voice, whether the person who has been re