orence
was defenceless and weak, and it was a proud thought that he had been
able to render her any protection and assistance. Florence was the most
grateful little creature in the world, and it was delightful to see her
bright gratitude beaming in her face. Florence was neglected and coldly
looked upon, and his breast was full of youthful interest for the
slighted child in her dull, stately home.

Thus it came about that, perhaps some half-a-dozen times in the course
of the year, Walter pulled off his hat to Florence in the street,
and Florence would stop to shake hands. Mrs Wickam (who, with a
characteristic alteration of his name, invariably spoke of him as
'Young Graves') was so well used to this, knowing the story of their
acquaintance, that she took no heed of it at all. Miss Nipper, on the
other hand, rather looked out for these occasions: her sensitive young
heart being secretly propitiated by Walter's good looks, and inclining
to the belief that its sentiments were responded to.

In this way, Walter, so far from forgetting or losing sight of his
acquaintance with Florence, only remembered it better and better. As to
its adventurous beginning, and all those little circumstances which gave
it a distinctive character and relish, he took them into account, more
as a pleasant story very agreeable to his imagination, and not to be
dismissed from it, than as a part of any matter of fact with which he
was concerned. They set off Florence very much, to his fancy; but not
himself. Sometimes he thought (and then he walked very fast) what a
grand thing it would have been for him to have been going to sea on the
day after that first meeting, and to have gone, and to have done wonders
there, and to have stopped away a long time, and to have come back an
Admiral of all the colours of the dolphin, or at least a Post-Captain
with epaulettes of insupportable brightness, and have married Florence
(then a beautiful young woman) in spite of Mr Dombey's teeth, cravat,
and watch-chain, and borne her away to the blue shores of somewhere or
other, triumphantly. But these flights of fancy seldom burnished the
brass plate of Dombey and Son's Offices into a tablet of golden hope, or
shed a brilliant lustre on their dirty skylights; and when the Captain
and Uncle Sol talked about Richard Whittington and masters' daughters,
Walter felt that he understood his true position at Dombey and Son's,
much better than they did.

So it was that he