is outstretched hand.
'And YOU regret the having harboured unjust thoughts of me! YOU with
those grey hairs!'

'Regrets,' said Martin, 'are the natural property of grey hairs; and
I enjoy, in common with all other men, at least my share of such
inheritance. And so enough of that. I regret having been severed from
you so long. If I had known you sooner, and sooner used you as you well
deserve, I might have been a happier man.'

Mr Pecksniff looked up to the ceiling, and clasped his hands in rapture.

'Your daughters,' said Martin, after a short silence. 'I don't know
them. Are they like you?'

'In the nose of my eldest and the chin of my youngest, Mr Chuzzlewit,'
returned the widower, 'their sainted parent (not myself, their mother)
lives again.'

'I don't mean in person,' said the old man. 'Morally, morally.'

''Tis not for me to say,' retorted Mr Pecksniff with a gentle smile. 'I
have done my best, sir.'

'I could wish to see them,' said Martin; 'are they near at hand?'

They were, very near; for they had in fact been listening at the
door from the beginning of this conversation until now, when they
precipitately retired. Having wiped the signs of weakness from his eyes,
and so given them time to get upstairs, Mr Pecksniff opened the door,
and mildly cried in the passage,

'My own darlings, where are you?'

'Here, my dear pa!' replied the distant voice of Charity.

'Come down into the back parlour, if you please, my love,' said Mr
Pecksniff, 'and bring your sister with you.'

'Yes, my dear pa,' cried Merry; and down they came directly (being all
obedience), singing as they came.

Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the two Miss Pecksniffs when
they found a stranger with their dear papa. Nothing could surpass their
mute amazement when he said, 'My children, Mr Chuzzlewit!' But when he
told them that Mr Chuzzlewit and he were friends, and that Mr Chuzzlewit
had said such kind and tender words as pierced his very heart, the two
Miss Pecksniffs cried with one accord, 'Thank Heaven for this!' and
fell upon the old man's neck. And when they had embraced him with
such fervour of affection that no words can describe it, they grouped
themselves about his chair, and hung over him, as figuring to themselves
no earthly joy like that of ministering to his wants, and crowding into
the remainder of his life, the love they would have diffused over their
whole existence, from infancy, if he--dear obdurate!--had but