from anticipating so signal a success, withdrew as soon as she could, to communicate it to her best of friends; and Mr. Dombey was left alone in his library.

There was anything but solitude in the nursery; for there, Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox were enjoying a social evening, so much to the disgust of Miss Susan Nipper, that that young lady embraced every opportunity of making wry faces behind the door. Her feelings were so much excited on the occasion, that she found it indispensable to afford them this relief, even without having the comfort of any audience or sympathy whatever. As the knight-errants of old relieved their minds by carving their mistress's names in deserts, and wildernesses, and other savage places where there was no probability of there ever being anybody to red them, so did Miss Susan Nipper curl her snub nose into drawers and wardrobes, put away winks of disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into stone pitchers, and contradict and call names out in the passage.

The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young lady's sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of undressing, airy exercise, supper and bed; and then sat down to tea before the fire. The two children now lay, through the good offices of Polly, in one room; and it was not until the ladies were established at their tea-table that happening to look towards the little beds, they thought of Florence.

`How sound she sleeps!' said Miss Tox.

`Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the course of the day,' returned Mrs. Chicks, `playing about little Paul so much.'

`She is a curious child,' said Miss Tox.

`My dear,' retorted Mrs. Chick, in a low voice: `Her mama, all over!'

`Indeed!' said Miss Tox. `Ah dear me!'

A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though she had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.

`Florence will never, never, never, be a Dombey,' said Mrs. Chick, `not if she lives to be a thousand years old.'

Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of commiseration.

`I quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs. Chick, with a sigh of modest merit. `I really don't see what is to become of her when she grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't gain on her papa in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is so very unlike a Dombey?'

Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument as that, at all.

`And the child, you see,' said Mrs. Chick, in deep confidence, `has poor Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after-life I'll venture to say. Never! she'll never wind and twine herself about her papa's heart like--'

`Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox.

`Like the ivy,' Mrs. Chick assented. `Never! she'll never glide and nestle into the bosom of her papa's affections like--the--'

`Startled fawn?' suggested Miss Tox.

`Like the startled fawn,' said Mrs. Chick. `Never! Poor Fanny! Yet, how I loved her!'