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—and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a Ghoul. Mrs. Blimber, her mamma, was not learned herself, but she pretended to be, and that answered just as well. She said at evening parties, that, if she could have known Cicero, she thought she could have died contented.

As to Mr. Feeder, B. A., Doctor Blimber's assistant, he was a kind of human hand-organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation.

To Doctor Blimber's Paul was taken by his father, on an appointed day. The Doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all around him; Homer over the door and Minerva on the mantel-shelf. "And how do you do, sir?" he said to Mr. Dombey, "and how is my little friend?" When the Doctor left off, the great clock in the hall seemed (to Paul, at least) to take him up, and to go on saying, over and over again, "How, is, my, lit, tle, friend; how, is, my, lit, tle, friend?"

"Mr. Dombey," said Dr. Blimber, "you would wish my little friend to acquire-"

"Everything, if you please, Doctor."

"Yes," said the Doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes, seemed to survey Paul with a sort of interest that he might attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff, "yes, exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I dare say. Permit me. Allow me to present Mrs. Blimber and my daughter Cornelia, who will be associated with the domestic life of our young Pilgrim to Parnassus."

"Now, Dombey," said Miss Blimber, "I'm going out for a constitutional.'

Paul wondered what that was, and why she did n't send the footman out to get it in such unfavorable weather. But he made no observation on the subject, his attention being devoted to a little pile of new books, on which Miss Blimber appeared to have been recently engaged.

"These are yours, Dombey. I am going out for a constitutional; and while I am gone, that is to say in the interval between this and breakfast, Dombey, I wish you to read over what I have marked in these books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn.

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They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin,— names of things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and rules,—a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor little Dombey had spelt out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; fragments of which afterwards obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into number four, which grafted itself on to number two. So that it was an open question with him whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic hæc hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, or three times four was Taurus, a bull.

Such spirits as little Dombey had he soon lost, of course. But he retained all that was strange and old and thoughtful in his character; and even became more strange and old and thoughtful. He loved to be alone, and liked nothing so well as wandering about the house by himself, or sitting on the stairs listening to the great clock in the hall. He was intimate with all the paper-hangings in the house; he saw things that no one else saw in the patterns; and found out miniature tigers and lions running up the bedroom walls.

And so the solitary child lived on and on, surrounded by the arabesque work of his musing fancy, and still no one understood him. He grew fond, now, of a large engraving that hung upon the staircase, where, in the center of the group, one figure that he knew-a figure with a light about its head, benignant, mild, merciful-stood pointing upward. He watched the waves and clouds at twilight with his earnest eyes, and breasted the window of his solitary room when birds flew by, as if he would have emulated them and soared away.

Charles Dickens.

DEATH OF PAUL DOMBEY.

Little Dombey had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but watching it and watching everything.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall, like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. As the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen, deepen, deepen into night. Then he thought how the long unseen streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. His fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he thought how black it was, and how deep it would look reflecting the hosts of stars; and, more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea.

"Floy! What is that?"

"Where, dearest?"

"There! at the bottom of the bed.
"There's nothing there, except papa!"

The figure lifted up its head and rose, and, coming to the bedside, said:

"My own boy! Don't you know me?"

Paul looked it in the face. Before he could reach out both his hands to take it between them and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the little bed, and went out at the door.

The next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he called to it.

"Don't be so sorry for me, dear papa. quite happy!"

Indeed, I am

him, he held

His father coming and bending down to him round the neck, and repeated these words to him several times, and very earnestly; and he never saw his father in his room again at any time, whether it were day or night, but he called out, "Don't be so sorry for me! Indeed, I am quite happy!"

How many times the golden water danced upon the

wall, how many nights the dark river rolled towards the sea in spite of him, Paul never sought to know.

One night he had been thinking of his mother and her picture in the drawing-room downstairs. The train of thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother. For he could not remember whether they had told him, yes or no; the river running very fast, and confusing his mind.

"Floy, did I ever see mamma?”

"No, darling; why?"

"Did I never see any kind face, like a mamma's, looking at me when I was a baby, Floy?"

"O yes, dear!”

"Whose, Floy?"

"Your old nurse's.

Often."

"And where is my old nurse?

Floy, if you please!"

Show me that old nurse,

"She is not here, darling. She shall come to-morrow." "Thank you, Floy!"

Little Dombey closed his eyes with these words, and fell asleep. When he awoke, the sun was high, and the broad day was clear and warm. Then he awoke,woke mind and body,-and sat upright in his bed. He saw them now about him. There was no great mist before them, as there had been sometimes in the night. He knew them every one, and called them by their

names.

"And who is this? Is this my old nurse?" asked the child, regarding, with a radiant smile, a figure coming in. Yes, yes. No other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. No other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. No other woman would have so forgotten everybody there but him and Floy, and been so full of tenderness and pity.

"Floy! this is a kind, good face! I am glad to see it again. Don't go away, old nurse. Stay here! Good by!" "Good by, my child?" cried Mrs. Pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head. "Not good by?"

"Ah, yes! Good by!-Where is papa?"

His father's breath was on his cheek before the words

had parted from his lips.

The feeble hand waved in the air, as if it cried, "Good by!" again.

"Now lay me down; and, Floy, come close to me, and let me see you."

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together."

I

"How fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, Floy! But, it's very near the sea now. hear the waves! They always said so!"

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon stream was lulling him to rest. Now the boat was out at sea. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood on the bank!—

"Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face!" The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion,-Death!

O, thank God, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of immortality! And look upon us, Angels of young children, with regards not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

Charles Dickens.

THE CHARCOAL MAN.

Though rudely blows the wintry blast,
And sifting snows fall white and fast,
Mark Haley drives along the street,
Perched high upon his wagon seat;
His somber face the storm defies,
And thus from morn till eve he cries,-

"Charco'! charco'!"

While echo faint and far replies,

"Hark, O! hark, O!"

"Charco'!"-"Hark, O!”—Such cheery sounds
Attend him on his daily rounds.

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