'There is nothing the matter?' inquired Florence.

'Oh no, Miss.'

'There are great alterations going on.'

'Yes, Miss, great alterations,' said Towlinson.

Florence passed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried upstairs. The
garish light was in the long-darkened drawing-room and there were steps
and platforms, and men In paper caps, in the high places. Her mother's
picture was gone with the rest of the moveables, and on the mark where
it had been, was scrawled in chalk, 'this room in panel. Green and
gold.' The staircase was a labyrinth of posts and planks like the
outside of the house, and a whole Olympus of plumbers and glaziers was
reclining in various attitudes, on the skylight. Her own room was not
yet touched within, but there were beams and boards raised against
it without, baulking the daylight. She went up swiftly to that other
bedroom, where the little bed was; and a dark giant of a man with a pipe
in his mouth, and his head tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, was staring
in at the window.

It was here that Susan Nipper, who had been in quest of Florence, found
her, and said, would she go downstairs to her Papa, who wished to speak
to her.

'At home! and wishing to speak to me!' cried Florence, trembling.

Susan, who was infinitely more distraught than Florence herself,
repeated her errand; and Florence, pale and agitated, hurried down
again, without a moment's hesitation. She thought upon the way down,
would she dare to kiss him? The longing of her heart resolved her, and
she thought she would.

Her father might have heard that heart beat, when it came into his
presence. One instant, and it would have beat against his breast.

But he was not alone. There were two ladies there; and Florence stopped.
Striving so hard with her emotion, that if her brute friend Di had not
burst in and overwhelmed her with his caresses as a welcome home--at
which one of the ladies gave a little scream, and that diverted her
attention from herself--she would have swooned upon the floor.

'Florence,' said her father, putting out his hand: so stiffly that it
held her off: 'how do you do?'

Florence took the hand between her own, and putting it timidly to her
lips, yielded to its withdrawal. It touched the door in shutting it,
with quite as much endearment as it had touched her.

'What dog is that?' said Mr Dombey, displeased.

'It is a dog, Papa--from Brighton.'

'Well!' said Mr Dombey; and a cloud passed over