at Brighton
Later, Mr. Dombey's housekeeper

Doctor Blimber Proprietor of a boys' school at Brighton

Major Bagstock A retired army officer

Diogenes Doctor Blimber's dog
Later a pet of Florence's

DOMBEY AND SON

I

LITTLE PAUL

In London there was once a business house known as Dombey and Son. It
had borne that name for generations, though at the time this story
begins Mr. Dombey, the head of the house, had no son. He was a merchant,
hard, cold and selfish, who thought the world was made only for his firm
to trade in. He had one little daughter, Florence, but never since her
birth had he loved or petted her because of his disappointment that she
was not a boy.

When at last a son was born to him it wakened something at the bottom of
his cold and heavy heart that he had never known before. He scarcely
grieved for his wife, who died when the baby was born, but gave all his
thought to the child. He named him Paul, and began at once to long for
the time when he should become old enough to be a real member of the
firm in which all his own interest centered--Dombey and Son. He hired
the best nurse he could find, and, when he was not at his office, would
sit and watch the baby Paul hour after hour, laying plans for his
future. So selfishly was the father's soul wrapped up in this that he
scarcely ever noticed poor, lonely little Florence, whose warm heart was
starving for affection.

Little Paul's nurse was very fond of him, and of his sister, too; but
she had children of her own also, and one day, instead of walking up and
down with Florence and the baby near the Dombey house, she took the
children to another part of the city to visit her own home.

This was a wrong thing to do, and resulted in a very unhappy adventure
for Florence. On their way home a mad bull broke away from his keepers
and charged through the crowded street. There was great screaming and
confusion and people ran in every direction, Florence among the rest.
She ran for a long way, and when she stopped, her nurse was nowhere to
be seen. Terrified to find herself lost in the great city, she began to
cry.

The next thing she knew, an ugly old woman, with red-rimmed eyes and a
mouth that mumbled all the while, grasped her by the wrist and dragged
her through the shabby doorway of a dirty house in