es,
put away winks of disparagement in cupboards, shed derisive squints into
stone pitchers, and contradict and call names out in the passage.

The two interlopers, however, blissfully unconscious of the young lady's
sentiments, saw little Paul safe through all the stages of undressing,
airy exercise, supper and bed; and then sat down to tea before the fire.
The two children now lay, through the good offices of Polly, in
one room; and it was not until the ladies were established at their
tea-table that, happening to look towards the little beds, they thought
of Florence.

'How sound she sleeps!' said Miss Tox.

'Why, you know, my dear, she takes a great deal of exercise in the
course of the day,' returned Mrs Chick, 'playing about little Paul so
much.'

'She is a curious child,' said Miss Tox.

'My dear,' retorted Mrs Chick, in a low voice: 'Her Mama, all over!'

'In deed!' said Miss Tox. 'Ah dear me!'

A tone of most extraordinary compassion Miss Tox said it in, though she
had no distinct idea why, except that it was expected of her.

'Florence will never, never, never be a Dombey,'said Mrs Chick, 'not if
she lives to be a thousand years old.'

Miss Tox elevated her eyebrows, and was again full of commiseration.

'I quite fret and worry myself about her,' said Mrs Chick, with a sigh
of modest merit. 'I really don't see what is to become of her when she
grows older, or what position she is to take. She don't gain on her Papa
in the least. How can one expect she should, when she is so very unlike
a Dombey?'

Miss Tox looked as if she saw no way out of such a cogent argument as
that, at all.

'And the child, you see,' said Mrs Chick, in deep confidence, 'has poor
dear Fanny's nature. She'll never make an effort in after-life, I'll
venture to say. Never! She'll never wind and twine herself about her
Papa's heart like--'

'Like the ivy?' suggested Miss Tox.

'Like the ivy,' Mrs Chick assented. 'Never! She'll never glide and
nestle into the bosom of her Papa's affections like--the--'

'Startled fawn?' suggested Miss Tox.

'Like the startled fawn,' said Mrs Chick. 'Never! Poor Fanny! Yet, how I
loved her!'

'You must not distress yourself, my dear,' said Miss Tox, in a soothing
voice. 'Now really! You have too much feeling.'

'We have all our faults,' said Mrs Chick, weeping and shaking her head.
'I daresay we have. I never was blind to hers. I never said I was. Far
from it. Yet how I loved her!'

Wh