o erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze;
Paul with an old, old face peering into the red perspective with the fixed
and rapt attention of a sage, the two so much alike and yet so monstrously
contrasted. On one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly
quiet for a long time, little Paul broke the silence thus:

"Papa, what's money?"

The abrupt question took Mr. Dombey by surprise.

"What is money, Paul?" he answered, "Money?"

"Yes," said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little
chair, and turning his face up towards Mr. Dombey. "What is money?"

Mr. Dombey was in a difficulty. He would have liked to give him some
explanation, involving the terms, currency, bullion, rates of exchange,
etc., but he feared he might not be understood, so he answered:

"Gold and silver and copper. Guineas, shillings, halfpence. You know what
they are?"

"Oh yes, I know what they are," said Paul. "I don't mean that, papa. I
mean what is money after all?"

"What is money after all!"--said Mr. Dombey, backing his chair a little,
that he might the better gaze at the presumptuous atom who propounded such
an inquiry.

"I mean, papa, what can it do?" returned Paul.

Mr. Dombey patted him on the head. "You'll know better by-and-by, my man,"
he said. "Money, Paul, can do anything."

"Anything, papa?"

"Yes, anything--almost," said Mr. Dombey.

"Why didn't money save me my mama?" returned the child. "It isn't cruel,
is it?"

"Cruel?" said Mr. Dombey. "No. A good thing can't be cruel."

"If it's a good thing and can do anything," said the little fellow,
thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, "I wonder why it didn't save
me my mama."

He didn't ask the question of his father this time. Perhaps he had seen,
with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father
uncomfortable. But he repeated the thought aloud, as if it was quite an
old one to him, and had troubled him very much.

"It can't make me strong and quite well, either, papa; can it?" asked
Paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands.

"You are as strong and well as such little people usually are? Eh?" said
Mr. Dombey.

"Florence is older than I am, but I'm not as strong and well as Florence,
I know," returned the child; "I am so tired sometimes," said little Paul,
"and my bones ache so that I don't know what to do."

The unusual tone of that conversation so alarmed Mr. Dombey that the very
next day he began to inquire i