sent down at once to make
friends with her little brother.

When Florence timidly presented herself, had Mr. Dombey looked towards
her with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the
passionate desire to run to him, crying, "Oh, father, try to love
me,--there is no one else"; the dread of a repulse; the fear of being
too bold and of offending him. But he saw nothing of this. He saw her
pause at the door and look towards him, and he saw no more.

"Come here, Florence," said her father coldly. "Have you nothing to say
to me?"

The tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face,
were frozen by the expression it wore. She looked down again, and put
out her trembling hand, which Mr. Dombey took loosely in his own.

"There! be a good girl," he said, patting her on the head, and regarding
her with a disturbed and doubtful look, "go to Richards! go!"

His little daughter hesitated for another instant, as though she would
have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might
raise her in his arms and kiss her. But he dropped her hand and turned
away. Still Polly persevered, and managed so well with little Paul as to
make it very plain that he was all the livelier for his sister's
company. When it was time for Florence to go to bed, the nurse urged her
to say good night to her father, but the child hesitated, and Mr. Dombey
called from the inner room; "It doesn't matter. You can let her come and
go without regarding me."

The child shrunk as she listened, and was gone before her humble friend
looked around again.

* * * * *

Just around the corner from Mr. Dombey's office was the little shop of a
nautical-instrument maker whose name was Solomon Gills. The
stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers, barometers,
telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, and every kind of an instrument
used in the working of a ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's
reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's discovery. Old prints of ships
hung in frames upon the walls; outlandish shells, seaweeds and mosses
decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscoted parlor was lighted by
a skylight, like a cabin, The shop itself seemed almost to become a
sea-going ship-shape concern, wanting only good sea room, in the event
of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island
in the world.

Here Solomon Gills lived, in skipper-like sta