Chapter 60. Chiefly Matrimonial

Dombey and Son

by Charles Dickens

The grand half-yearly festival holden by Doctor and Mrs Blimber,
on which occasion they requested the pleasure of the company of every
young gentleman pursuing his studies in that genteel establishment,
at an early party, when the hour was half-past seven o'clock, and
when the object was quadrilles, had duly taken place, about this
time; and the young gentlemen, with no unbecoming demonstrations of
levity, had betaken themselves, in a state of scholastic repletion,
to their own homes. Mr Skettles had repaired abroad, permanently to
grace the establishment of his father Sir Barnet Skettles, whose
popular manners had obtained him a diplomatic appointment, the
honours of which were discharged by himself and Lady Skettles, to the
satisfaction even of their own countrymen and countrywomen: which was
considered almost miraculous. Mr Tozer, now a young man of lofty
stature, in Wellington boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as
to be nearly on a par with a genuine ancient Roman in his knowledge
of English: a triumph that affected his good parents with the
tenderest emotions, and caused the father and mother of Mr Briggs
(whose learning, like ill-arranged luggage, was so tightly packed
that he couldn't get at anything he wanted) to hide their diminished
heads. The fruit laboriously gathered from the tree of knowledge by
this latter young gentleman, in fact, had been subjected to so much
pressure, that it had become a kind of intellectual Norfolk Biffin,
and had nothing of its original form or flavour remaining. Master
Bitherstone now, on whom the forcing system had the happier and not
uncommon effect of leaving no impression whatever, when the forcing
apparatus ceased to work, was in a much more comfortable plight; and
being then on shipboard, bound for Bengal, found himself forgetting,
with such admirable rapidity, that it was doubtful whether his
declensions of noun-substantives would hold out to the end of the
voyage.

When Doctor Blimber, in pursuance of the usual course, would
have said to the young gentlemen, on the morning of the party,
'Gentlemen, we will resume our studies on the twenty-fifth of next
month,' he departed from the usual course, and said, 'Gentlemen, when
our friend Cincinnatus retired to his farm, he did not present to the
senate any Roman who he sought to nominate as his successor.' But
there is a Roman here,' said Doctor Blimber, laying his hand on the
shoulder of Mr Feeder, B.A., adolescens imprimis gravis et doctus,
gentlemen, whom I, a retiring Cincinnatus, wish to present to my
little senate, as their future Dictator. Gentlemen, we will resume
our studies on the twenty-fifth of next month, under the auspices of
Mr Feeder, B.A.' At this (which Doctor Blimber had previously called
upon all the parents, and urbanely explained), the young gentlemen
cheered; and Mr Tozer, on behalf of the rest, instantly presented the
Doctor with a silver inkstand, in a speech containing very little of
the mother-tongue, but fifteen quotations from the Latin, and seven
from the Greek, which moved the younger of the young gentlemen to
discontent and envy: they remarking, 'Oh, ah. It was all very well
for old Tozer, but they didn't subscribe money for old Tozer to show
off with, they supposed; did they? What business was it of old
Tozer's more than anybody else's? It wasn't his inkstand. Why
couldn't he leave the boys' property alone?' and murmuring other
expressions of their dissatisfaction, which seemed to find a greater
relief in calling him old Tozer, than in any other available vent.

Not a word had been said to the young gentlemen, nor a hint
dropped, of anything like a contemplated marriage between Mr Feeder,
B.A., and the fair Cornelia Blimber. Doctor Blimber, especially,
seemed to take pains to look as if nothing would surprise him more;
but it was perfectly well known to all the young gentlemen
nevertheless, and when they departed for the society of their
relations and friends, they took leave of Mr Feeder with awe.

Mr Feeder's most romantic visions were fulfilled. The Doctor had
determined to paint the house outside, and put it in thorough repair;
and to give up the business, and to give up Cornelia. The painting
and repairing began upon the very day of the young gentlemen's
departure, and now behold! the wedding morning was come, and
Cornelia, in a new pair of spectacles, was waiting to be led to the
hymeneal altar.

The Doctor with his learned legs, and Mrs Blimber in a lilac
bonnet, and Mr Feeder, B.A., with his long knuckles and his bristly
head of hair, and Mr Feeder's brother, the Reverend Alfred Feeder,
M.A., who was to perform the ceremony, were all assembled in the
drawing-room, and Cornelia with her orange-flowers and bridesmaids
had just come down, and looked, as of old, a little squeezed in
appearance, but very charming, when the door opened, and the
weak-eyed young man, in a loud voice, made the following
proclamation:

'Mr and Mrs Toots!'

Upon which there entered Mr Toots, grown extremely stout, and on
his arm a lady very handsomely and becomingly dressed, with very
bright black eyes. 'Mrs Blimber,' said Mr Toots, 'allow me to present
my wife.'

Mrs Blimber was delighted to receive her. Mrs Blimber was a
little condescending, but extremely kind.

'And as you've known me for a long time, you know,' said Mr
Toots, 'let me assure you that she is one of the most remarkable
women that ever lived.'

'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs Toots.

'Upon my word and honour she is,' said Mr Toots. 'I - I assure
you, Mrs Blimber, she's a most extraordinary woman.'

Mrs Toots laughed merrily, and Mrs Blimber led her to Cornelia.
Mr Toots having paid his respects in that direction and having
saluted his old preceptor, who said, in allusion to his conjugal
state, 'Well, Toots, well, Toots! So you are one of us, are you,
Toots?' - retired with Mr Feeder, B.A., into a window.

Mr Feeder, B.A., being in great spirits, made a spar at Mr
Toots, and tapped him skilfully with the back of his hand on the
breastbone.

'Well, old Buck!' said Mr Feeder with a laugh. 'Well! Here we
are! Taken in and done for. Eh?'

'Feeder,' returned Mr Toots. 'I give you joy. If you're as - as-
as perfectly blissful in a matrimonial life, as I am myself, you'll
have nothing to desire.'

'I don't forget my old friends, you see,' said Mr Feeder. 'I ask
em to my wedding, Toots.'

'Feeder,' replied Mr Toots gravely, 'the fact is, that there
were several circumstances which prevented me from communicating with
you until after my marriage had been solemnised. In the first place,
I had made a perfect Brute of myself to you, on the subject of Miss
Dombey; and I felt that if you were asked to any wedding of mine, you
would naturally expect that it was with Miss Dombey, which involved
explanations, that upon my word and honour, at that crisis, would
have knocked me completely over. In the second place, our wedding was
strictly private; there being nobody present but one friend of myself
and Mrs Toots's, who is a Captain in - I don't exactly know in what,'
said Mr Toots, 'but it's of no consequence. I hope, Feeder, that in
writing a statement of what had occurred before Mrs Toots and myself
went abroad upon our foreign tour, I fully discharged the offices of
friendship.'

'Toots, my boy,' said Mr Feeder, shaking his hands, 'I was
joking.'

'And now, Feeder,' said Mr Toots, 'I should be glad to know what
you think of my union.'

'Capital!' returned Mr Feeder.

'You think it's capital, do you, Feeder?'said Mr Toots solemnly.
'Then how capital must it be to Me! For you can never know what an
extraordinary woman that is.'

Mr Feeder was willing to take it for granted. But Mr Toots shook
his head, and wouldn't hear of that being possible.

'You see,' said Mr Toots, 'what I wanted in a wife was - in
short, was sense. Money, Feeder, I had. Sense I - I had not,
particularly.'

Mr Feeder murmured, 'Oh, yes, you had, Toots!' But Mr Toots
said:

'No, Feeder, I had not. Why should I disguise it? I had not. I
knew that sense was There,' said Mr Toots, stretching out his hand
towards his wife, 'in perfect heaps. I had no relation to object or
be offended, on the score of station; for I had no relation. I have
never had anybody belonging to me but my guardian, and him, Feeder, I
have always considered as a Pirate and a Corsair. Therefore, you know
it was not likely,' said Mr Toots, 'that I should take his
opinion.'

'No,' said Mr Feeder.

'Accordingly,' resumed Mr Toots, 'I acted on my own. Bright was
the day on which I did so! Feeder! Nobody but myself can tell what
the capacity of that woman's mind is. If ever the Rights of Women,
and all that kind of thing, are properly attended to, it will be
through her powerful intellect - Susan, my dear!' said Mr Toots,
looking abruptly out of the windows 'pray do not exert yourself!'

'My dear,' said Mrs Toots, 'I was only talking.'

'But, my love,' said Mr Toots, 'pray do not exert yourself. You
really must be careful. Do not, my dear Susan, exert yourself. She's
so easily excited,' said Mr Toots, apart to Mrs Blimber, 'and then
she forgets the medical man altogether.'

Mrs Blimber was impressing on Mrs Toots the necessity of
caution, when Mr Feeder, B.A., offered her his arm, and led her down
to the carriages that were waiting to go to church. Doctor Blimber
escorted Mrs Toots. Mr Toots escorted the fair bride, around whose
lambent spectacles two gauzy little bridesmaids fluttered like moths.
Mr Feeder's brother, Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., had already gone on, in
advance, to assume his official functions.

The ceremony was performed in an admirable manner. Cornelia,
with her crisp little curls, 'went in,' as the Chicken might have
said, with great composure; and Doctor Blimber gave her away, like a
man who had quite made up his mind to it. The gauzy little
bridesmaids appeared to suffer most. Mrs Blimber was affected, but
gently so; and told the Reverend Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A., on the way
home, that if she could only have seen Cicero in his retirement at
Tusculum, she would not have had a wish, now, ungratified.

There was a breakfast afterwards, limited to the same small
party; at which the spirits of Mr Feeder, B.A., were tremendous, and
so communicated themselves to Mrs Toots that Mr Toots was several
times heard to observe, across the table, 'My dear Susan, don't exert
yourself!' The best of it was, that Mr Toots felt it incunbent on him
to make a speech; and in spite of a whole code of telegraphic
dissuasions from Mrs Toots, appeared on his legs for the first time
in his life.

'I really,' said Mr Toots, 'in this house, where whatever was
done to me in the way of - of any mental confusion sometimes - which
is of no consequence and I impute to nobody - I was always treated
like one of Doctor Blimber's family, and had a desk to myself for a
considerable period - can - not - allow - my friend Feeder to be -
'

Mrs Toots suggested 'married.'

'It may not be inappropriate to the occasion, or altogether
uninteresting,' said Mr Toots with a delighted face, 'to observe that
my wife is a most extraordinary woman, and would do this much better
than myself - allow my friend Feeder to be married - especially to -
'

Mrs Toots suggested 'to Miss Blimber.'

'To Mrs Feeder, my love!' said Mr Toots, in a subdued tone of
private discussion: "'whom God hath joined," you know, "let no man" -
don't you know? I cannot allow my friend Feeder to be married -
especially to Mrs Feeder - without proposing their - their - Toasts;
and may,' said Mr Toots, fixing his eyes on his wife, as if for
inspiration in a high flight, 'may the torch of Hymen be the beacon
of joy, and may the flowers we have this day strewed in their path,
be the - the banishers of- of gloom!'

Doctor Blimber, who had a taste for metaphor, was pleased with
this, and said, 'Very good, Toots! Very well said, indeed, Toots!'
and nodded his head and patted his hands. Mr Feeder made in reply, a
comic speech chequered with sentiment. Mr Alfred Feeder, M.A, was
afterwards very happy on Doctor and Mrs Blimber; Mr Feeder, B.A.,
scarcely less so, on the gauzy little bridesmaids. Doctor Blimber
then, in a sonorous voice, delivered a few thoughts in the pastoral
style, relative to the rushes among which it was the intention of
himself and Mrs Blimber to dwell, and the bee that would hum around
their cot. Shortly after which, as the Doctor's eyes were twinkling
in a remarkable manner, and his son-in-law had already observed that
time was made for slaves, and had inquired whether Mrs Toots sang,
the discreet Mrs Blimber dissolved the sitting, and sent Cornelia
away, very cool and comfortable, in a post-chaise, with the man of
her heart

Mr and Mrs Toots withdrew to the Bedford (Mrs Toots had been
there before in old times, under her maiden name of Nipper), and
there found a letter, which it took Mr Toots such an enormous time to
read, that Mrs Toots was frightened.

'My dear Susan,' said Mr Toots, 'fright is worse than exertion.
Pray be calm!'

'Who is it from?' asked Mrs Toots.

'Why, my love,' said Mr Toots, 'it's from Captain Gills. Do not
excite yourself. Walters and Miss Dombey are expected home!'

'My dear,' said Mrs Toots, raising herself quickly from the
sofa, very pale, 'don't try to deceive me, for it's no use, they're
come home - I see it plainly in your face!'

'She's a most extraordinary woman!' exclaimed Mr Toots, in
rapturous admiration. 'You're perfectly right, my love, they have
come home. Miss Dombey has seen her father, and they are
reconciled!'

'Reconciled!' cried Mrs Toots, clapping her hands.

'My dear,' said Mr Toots; 'pray do not exert yourself. Do
remember the medical man! Captain Gills says - at least he don't say,
but I imagine, from what I can make out, he means - that Miss Dombey
has brought her unfortunate father away from his old house, to one
where she and Walters are living; that he is lying very ill there -
supposed to be dying; and that she attends upon him night and
day.'

Mrs Toots began to cry quite bitterly.

'My dearest Susan,' replied Mr Toots, 'do, do, if you possibly
can, remember the medical man! If you can't, it's of no consequence -
but do endeavour to!'

His wife, with her old manner suddenly restored, so pathetically
entreated him to take her to her precious pet, her little mistress,
her own darling, and the like, that Mr Toots, whose sympathy and
admiration were of the strongest kind, consented from his very heart
of hearts; and they agreed to depart immediately, and present
themselves in answer to the Captain's letter.

Now some hidden sympathies of things, or some coincidences, had
that day brought the Captain himself (toward whom Mr and Mrs Toots
were soon journeying) into the flowery train of wedlock; not as a
principal, but as an accessory. It happened accidentally, and
thus:

The Captain, having seen Florence and her baby for a moment, to
his unbounded content, and having had a long talk with Walter, turned
out for a walk; feeling it necessary to have some solitary meditation
on the changes of human affairs, and to shake his glazed hat
profoundly over the fall of Mr Dombey, for whom the generosity and
simplicity of his nature were awakened in a lively manner. The
Captain would have been very low, indeed, on the unhappy gentleman's
account, but for the recollection of the baby; which afforded him
such intense satisfaction whenever it arose, that he laughed aloud as
he went along the street, and, indeed, more than once, in a sudden
impulse of joy, threw up his glazed hat and caught it again; much to
the amazement of the spectators. The rapid alternations of light and
shade to which these two conflicting subjects of reflection exposed
the Captain, were so very trying to his spirits, that he felt a long
walk necessary to his composure; and as there is a great deal in the
influence of harmonious associations, he chose, for the scene of this
walk, his old neighbourhood, down among the mast, oar, and block
makers, ship-biscuit bakers, coal-whippers, pitch-kettles, sailors,
canals, docks, swing-bridges, and other soothing objects.

These peaceful scenes, and particularly the region of Limehouse
Hole and thereabouts, were so influential in calming the Captain,
that he walked on with restored tranquillity, and was, in fact,
regaling himself, under his breath, with the ballad of Lovely Peg,
when, on turning a corner, he was suddenly transfixed and rendered
speechless by a triumphant procession that he beheld advancing
towards him.

This awful demonstration was headed by that determined woman Mrs
MacStinger, who, preserving a countenance of inexorable resolution,
and wearing conspicuously attached to her obdurate bosom a stupendous
watch and appendages, which the Captain recognised at a glance as the
property of Bunsby, conducted under her arm no other than that
sagacious mariner; he, with the distraught and melancholy visage of a
captive borne into a foreign land, meekly resigning himself to her
will. Behind them appeared the young MacStingers, in a body,
exulting. Behind them, two ladies of a terrible and steadfast aspect,
leading between them a short gentleman in a tall hat, who likewise
exulted. In the wake, appeared Bunsby's boy, bearing umbrellas. The
whole were in good marching order; and a dreadful smartness that
pervaded the party would have sufficiently announced, if the intrepid
countenances of the ladies had been wanting, that it was a procession
of sacrifice, and that the victim was Bunsby.

The first impulse of the Captain was to run away. This also
appeared to be the first impulse of Bunsby, hopeless as its execution
must have proved. But a cry of recognition proceeding from the party,
and Alexander MacStinger running up to the Captain with open arms,
the Captain struck.

'Well, Cap'en Cuttle!' said Mrs MacStinger. 'This is indeed a
meeting! I bear no malice now, Cap'en Cuttle - you needn't fear that
I'm a going to cast any reflections. I hope to go to the altar in
another spirit.' Here Mrs MacStinger paused, and drawing herself up,
and inflating her bosom with a long breath, said, in allusion to the
victim, 'My 'usband, Cap'en Cuttle!'

The abject Bunsby looked neither to the right nor to the left,
nor at his bride, nor at his friend, but straight before him at
nothing. The Captain putting out his hand, Bunsby put out his; but,
in answer to the Captain's greeting, spake no word.

'Cap'en Cuttle,' said Mrs MacStinger, 'if you would wish to heal
up past animosities, and to see the last of your friend, my 'usband,
as a single person, we should be 'appy of your company to chapel.
Here is a lady here,' said Mrs MacStinger, turning round to the more
intrepid of the two, 'my bridesmaid, that will be glad of your
protection, Cap'en Cuttle.'

The short gentleman in the tall hat, who it appeared was the
husband of the other lady, and who evidently exulted at the reduction
of a fellow creature to his own condition, gave place at this, and
resigned the lady to Captain Cuttle. The lady immediately seized him,
and, observing that there was no time to lose, gave the word, in a
strong voice, to advance.

The Captain's concern for his friend, not unmingled, at first,
with some concern for himself - for a shadowy terror that he might be
married by violence, possessed him, until his knowledge of the
service came to his relief, and remembering the legal obligation of
saying, 'I will,' he felt himself personally safe so long as he
resolved, if asked any question, distinctly to reply I won't' - threw
him into a profuse perspiration; and rendered him, for a time,
insensible to the movements of the procession, of which he now formed
a feature, and to the conversation of his fair companion. But as he
became less agitated, he learnt from this lady that she was the widow
of a Mr Bokum, who had held an employment in the Custom House; that
she was the dearest friend of Mrs MacStinger, whom she considered a
pattern for her sex; that she had often heard of the Captain, and now
hoped he had repented of his past life; that she trusted Mr Bunsby
knew what a blessing he had gained, but that she feared men seldom
did know what such blessings were, until they had lost them; with
more to the same purpose.

All this time, the Captain could not but observe that Mrs Bokum
kept her eyes steadily on the bridegroom, and that whenever they came
near a court or other narrow turning which appeared favourable for
flight, she was on the alert to cut him off if he attempted escape.
The other lady, too, as well as her husband, the short gentleman with
the tall hat, were plainly on guard, according to a preconcerted
plan; and the wretched man was so secured by Mrs MacStinger, that any
effort at self-preservation by flight was rendered futile. This,
indeed, was apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their
perception of the fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread
MacStinger was inflexibly indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared
in a state of unconsciousness.

The Captain made many attempts to accost the philosopher, if
only in a monosyllable or a signal; but always failed, in consequence
of the vigilance of the guard, and the difficulty, at all times
peculiar to Bunsby's constitution, of having his attention aroused by
any outward and visible sign whatever. Thus they approached the
chapel, a neat whitewashed edifice, recently engaged by the Reverend
Melchisedech Howler, who had consented, on very urgent solicitation,
to give the world another two years of existence, but had informed
his followers that, then, it must positively go.

While the Reverend Melchisedech was offering up some extemporary
orisons, the Captain found an opportunity of growling in the
bridegroom's ear:

'What cheer, my lad, what cheer?'

To which Bunsby replied, with a forgetfulness of the Reverend
Melchisedech, which nothing but his desperate circumstances could
have excused:

'D-----d bad,'

'Jack Bunsby,' whispered the Captain, 'do you do this here, of
your own free will?'

Mr Bunsby answered 'No.'

'Why do you do it, then, my lad?' inquired the Captain, not
unnaturally.

Bunsby, still looking, and always looking with an immovable
countenance, at the opposite side of the world, made no reply.

'Why not sheer off?' said the Captain. 'Eh?' whispered Bunsby,
with a momentary gleam of hope. 'Sheer off,' said the Captain.

'Where's the good?' retorted the forlorn sage. 'She'd capter me
agen.

'Try!' replied the Captain. 'Cheer up! Come! Now's your time.
Sheer off, Jack Bunsby!'

Jack Bunsby, however, instead of profiting by the advice, said
in a doleful whisper:

'It all began in that there chest o' yourn. Why did I ever
conwoy her into port that night?'

'My lad,' faltered the Captain, 'I thought as you had come over
her; not as she had come over you. A man as has got such opinions as
you have!'

Mr Bunsby merely uttered a suppressed groan.

'Come!' said the Captain, nudging him with his elbow, 'now's
your time! Sheer off! I'll cover your retreat. The time's a flying.
Bunsby! It's for liberty. Will you once?'

Bunsby was immovable. 'Bunsby!' whispered the Captain, 'will you
twice ?' Bunsby wouldn't twice.

'Bunsby!' urged the Captain, 'it's for liberty; will you three
times? Now or never!'

Bunsby didn't then, and didn't ever; for Mrs MacStinger
immediately afterwards married him.

One of the most frightful circumstances of the ceremony to the
Captain, was the deadly interest exhibited therein by Juliana
MacStinger; and the fatal concentration of her faculties, with which
that promising child, already the image of her parent, observed the
whole proceedings. The Captain saw in this a succession of man-traps
stretching out infinitely; a series of ages of oppression and
coercion, through which the seafaring line was doomed. It was a more
memorable sight than the unflinching steadiness of Mrs Bokum and the
other lady, the exultation of the short gentleman in the tall hat, or
even the fell inflexibility of Mrs MacStinger. The Master MacStingers
understood little of what was going on, and cared less; being chiefly
engaged, during the ceremony, in treading on one another's
half-boots; but the contrast afforded by those wretched infants only
set off and adorned the precocious woman in Juliana. Another year or
two, the Captain thought, and to lodge where that child was, would be
destruction.

The ceremony was concluded by a general spring of the young
family on Mr Bunsby, whom they hailed by the endearing name of
father, and from whom they solicited half-pence. These gushes of
affection over, the procession was about to issue forth again, when
it was delayed for some little time by an unexpected transport on the
part of Alexander MacStinger. That dear child, it seemed, connecting
a chapel with tombstones, when it was entered for any purpose apart
from the ordinary religious exercises, could not be persuaded but
that his mother was now to be decently interred, and lost to him for
ever. In the anguish of this conviction, he screamed with astonishing
force, and turned black in the face. However touching these marks of
a tender disposition were to his mother, it was not in the character
of that remarkable woman to permit her recognition of them to
degenerate into weakness. Therefore, after vainly endeavouring to
convince his reason by shakes, pokes, bawlings-out, and similar
applications to his head, she led him into the air, and tried another
method; which was manifested to the marriage party by a quick
succession of sharp sounds, resembling applause, and subsequently, by
their seeing Alexander in contact with the coolest paving-stone in
the court, greatly flushed, and loudly lamenting.

The procession being then in a condition to form itself once
more, and repair to Brig Place, where a marriage feast was in
readiness, returned as it had come; not without the receipt, by
Bunsby, of many humorous congratulations from the populace on his
recently-acquired happiness. The Captain accompanied it as far as the
house-door, but, being made uneasy by the gentler manner of Mrs
Bokum, who, now that she was relieved from her engrossing duty - for
the watchfulness and alacrity of the ladies sensibly diminished when
the bridegroom was safely married - had greater leisure to show an
interest in his behalf, there left it and the captive; faintly
pleading an appointment, and promising to return presently. The
Captain had another cause for uneasiness, in remorsefully reflecting
that he had been the first means of Bunsby's entrapment, though
certainly without intending it, and through his unbounded faith in
the resources of that philosopher.

To go back to old Sol Gills at the wooden Midshipman's, and not
first go round to ask how Mr Dombey was - albeit the house where he
lay was out of London, and away on the borders of a fresh heath - was
quite out of the Captain's course. So he got a lift when he was
tired, and made out the journey gaily.

The blinds were pulled down, and the house so quiet, that the
Captain was almost afraid to knock; but listening at the door, he
heard low voices within, very near it, and, knocking softly, was
admitted by Mr Toots. Mr Toots and his wife had, in fact, just
arrived there; having been at the Midshipman's to seek him, and
having there obtained the address.

They were not so recently arrived, but that Mrs Toots had caught
the baby from somebody, taken it in her arms, and sat down on the
stairs, hugging and fondling it. Florence was stooping down beside
her; and no one could have said which Mrs Toots was hugging and
fondling most, the mother or the child, or which was the tenderer,
Florence of Mrs Toots, or Mrs Toots of her, or both of the baby; it
was such a little group of love and agitation.

'And is your Pa very ill, my darling dear Miss Floy?' asked
Susan.

'He is very, very ill,' said Florence. 'But, Susan, dear, you
must not speak to me as you used to speak. And what's this?' said
Florence, touching her clothes, in amazement. 'Your old dress, dear?
Your old cap, curls, and all?'

Susan burst into tears, and showered kisses on the little hand
that had touched her so wonderingly.

'My dear Miss Dombey,' said Mr Toots, stepping forward, 'I'll
explain. She's the most extraordinary woman. There are not many to
equal her! She has always said - she said before we were married, and
has said to this day - that whenever you came home, she'd come to you
in no dress but the dress she used to serve you in, for fear she
might seem strange to you, and you might like her less. I admire the
dress myself,' said Mr Toots, 'of all things. I adore her in it! My
dear Miss Dombey, she'll be your maid again, your nurse, all that she
ever was, and more. There's no change in her. But, Susan, my dear,'
said Mr Toots, who had spoken with great feeling and high admiration,
'all I ask is, that you'll remember the medical man, and not exert
yourself too much!'