g
him to rest. How green the banks were now, how bright the flowers
growing on them, and how tall the rushes! Now the boat was out at sea,
but gliding smoothly on. And now there was a shore before him. Who stood
on the bank--!

He put his hands together, as he had been used to do at his prayers. He
did not remove his arms to do it; but they saw him fold them so, behind
her neck.

'Mama is like you, Floy. I know her by the face! But tell them that the
print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. The light about
the head is shining on me as I go!'

The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred
in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our
first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its
course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old
fashion--Death!

Oh thank GOD, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of
Immortality! And look upon us, angels of young children, with regards
not quite estranged, when the swift river bears us to the ocean!

'Dear me, dear me! To think,' said Miss Tox, bursting out afresh that
night, as if her heart were broken, 'that Dombey and Son should be a
Daughter after all!'

CHAPTER 17. Captain Cuttle does a little Business for the Young People

Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for deep-laid
and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in men of
transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be endowed by
nature, had gone to Mr Dombey's house on the eventful Sunday, winking
all the way as a vent for his superfluous sagacity, and had presented
himself in the full lustre of the ankle-jacks before the eyes of
Towlinson. Hearing from that individual, to his great concern, of the
impending calamity, Captain Cuttle, in his delicacy, sheered off
again confounded; merely handing in the nosegay as a small mark of his
solicitude, and leaving his respectful compliments for the family in
general, which he accompanied with an expression of his hope that they
would lay their heads well to the wind under existing circumstances, and
a friendly intimation that he would 'look up again' to-morrow.

The Captain's compliments were never heard of any more. The Captain's
nosegay, after lying in the hall all night, was swept into the dust-bin
next morning; and the Captain's sly arrangement, involved in one
catastrophe with greater hopes and loftier designs, w