friend," returned the doctor. "Dombey, Dombey, you
have always been my favourite pupil."

"God bless you!" said Cornelia, taking both Paul's hands in hers. And it
showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for
Miss Blimber meant it--though she _was_ a Forcer--and felt it.

There was a general move after Paul and Florence down the staircase, in
which the whole Blimber family were included. Such a circumstance, Mr.
Feeder said aloud, as has never happened in the case of any former young
gentleman within his experience. The servants, with the butler--a stern
man--at their head, had all an interest in seeing little Dombey go;
while the young gentlemen pressed to shake hands with him, crying
individually "Dombey, don't forget me!"

Once for a last look, Paul turned and gazed upon the faces addressed to
him, and from that time whenever he thought of Dr. Blimber's it came
back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed to be a
real place, but always a dream, full of faces.

_IV.--Paul Goes Out with the Stream_

From the night they brought him home from Dr. Blimber's Paul 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 everywhere about him with observing eyes.

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.

By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of
the carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and would
fall asleep or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense of a rushing
river. "Why will it never stop, Floy?" he would sometimes ask her. "It
is bearing me away, I think!"

But Floy could always soothe him.

He was visited by as many as three grave doctors, and the room was so
quiet, and Paul was so observant of them, that he even knew the
difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest centred in
Sir Parker Peps; for Paul had heard them say long ago that that
gentleman had been with his mamma when she clasped Florence in her arms
and died. And he could not forget it now. He liked him for it. He was
not afraid.

The people in the room were always changing, and in the night-time Paul
began to wonder languidly who the figure was, with its head upon its
hand, that returned so often and rem