and it would be as strong and all-sufficient with me if you haggled and bargained with her for a sixpence. I have done. My saucy tongue says no more, if you wait here till sunrise to-morrow.'

The old woman, who had shown great uneasiness during this speech, which had a tendency to depreciate her expected gains, pulled Mr. Dombey softly by the sleeve, and whispered to him not to mind her. He glanced at them both, by turns, with a haggard look, and said, in a deeper voice than was usual with him:

`Go on--what do you know?'

`Oh, not so fast, your worship! we must wait for some one,' answered the old woman. `It's to be got from some one else--wormed out--screwed and twisted from him.'

`What do you mean?' said Mr. Dombey.

`Patience,' she croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his arm. `Patience. I'll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it back from me,' said Good Mrs. Brown, crooking her ten fingers, `I'd tear it out of him!'

Mr. Dombey followed her with his eyes as she hobbled to the door, and looked out again: and then his glance sought her daughter; but she remained impassive, silent, and regardless of him.

`Do you tell me, woman,' he said, when the bent figure of Mrs. Brown came back, shaking its head and chattering to itself, `that there is another person expected here?'

`Yes!'said the old woman, looking up into his face, and nodding.

`From whom you are to exact the intelligence that is to be useful to me?'

`Yes,' said the old woman, nodding again.

`A stranger?'

`Chut!' said the old woman, with a shrill laugh. `What signifies! Well, well; no. No stranger to your worship. But he won't see you. He'd be afraid of you, and wouldn't talk. You'll stand behind that door, and judge him for yourself. We don't ask to be believed on trust. What! Your worship doubts the room behind the door? Oh the suspicion of you rich gentlefolks! Look at it, then.'

Her sharp eye had detected an involuntary expression of this feeling on his part, which was not unreasonable under the circumstances. In satisfaction of it she now took the candle to the door she spoke of. Mr. Dombey looked in; assured himself that it was an empty, crazy room; and signed to her to put the light back in its place.

`How long,' he asked, `before this person comes?'

`Not long,' she answered. `Would your worship sit down for a few odd minutes?'

He made no answer; but began pacing the room with an irresolute air, as if he were undecided whether to remain or depart, and as if he had some quarrel with himself for being there at all. But soon his tread grew slower and heavier, and his face more sternly thoughtful: as the object with which he had come, fixed itself in his mind, and dilated there again.

While he thus walked up and down with his eyes on the ground, Mrs. Brown, in the chair from which she had risen to receive him, sat listening anew. The monotony of his step, or the uncertainty of age, made her so slow of hearing, that a footfall without had sounded in her daughter's ears for some moments, and she had looked up hastily to warn her mother of its approach, before the old woman was roused by it. But then she started from her seat, and whispering `Here he is!' hurried her visitor to his place