in a blue cloak and a white hat, that had previously offered for to bribe me — need I say with what success? — was dodging about our court last night as late as twenty minutes after eight o'clock. I see him myself, with his eye at the counting-house keyhole, which being patent is impervious. Another one,' said Mr Perch, 'with military frogs, is in the parlour of the King's Arms all the blessed day. I happened, last week, to let a little obserwation fall there, and next morning, which was Sunday, I see it worked up in print, in a most surprising manner.'
Mr Perch resorted to his breast pocket, as if to produce the paragraph but receiving no encouragement, pulled out his beaver gloves, picked up his hat, and took his leave; and before it was high noon, Mr Perch had related to several select audiences at the King's Arms and elsewhere, how Miss Carker, bursting into tears, had caught him by both hands, and said, 'Oh! dear dear Perch, the sight of you is all the comfort I have left!' and how Mr John Carker had said, in an awful voice, 'Perch, I disown him. Never let me hear hIm mentioned as a brother more!'
'Dear John,' said Harriet, when they were left alone, and had remained silent for some few moments. 'There are bad tidings in that letter.'
'Yes. But nothing unexpected,' he replied. 'I saw the writer yesterday.'
'The writer?'
'Mr Dombey. He passed twice through the Counting House while I was there. I had been able to avoid him before, but of course could not hope to do that long. I know how natural it was that he should regard my presence as something offensive; I felt it must be so, myself.'
'He did not say so?'
'No; he said nothing: but I saw that his glance rested on me for a moment, and I was prepared for what would happen — for what has happened. I am dismissed!'
She looked as little shocked and as hopeful as she could, but it was distressing news, for many reasons.
''I need not tell you'' said John Carker, reading the letter, ''why your name would henceforth have an unnatural sound, in however remote a connexion with mine, or why the daily sight of anyone who bears it, would be unendurable to me. I have to notify the cessation of all engagements between us, from this date, and to request that no renewal of any communication with me, or my establishment, be ever attempted by you.' — Enclosed is an equivalent in money to a generously long notice, and this is my discharge.' Heaven knows, Harriet, it is a lenient and considerate one, when we remember all!'
'If it be lenient and considerate to punish you at all, John, for the misdeed of another,' she replied gently, 'yes.'
'We have been an ill-omened race to him,' said John Carker. 'He has reason to shrink from the sound of our name, and to think that there is something cursed and wicked in our blood. I should almost think it too, Harriet, but for you.'
'Brother, don't speak like this. If you have any special reason, as you say you have, and think you have — though I say, No!— to love me, spare me the hearing of such wild mad words!'
He covered his face with both his hands; but soon permitted her, coming near him, to take one in her own.
'After so many years, this parting is a melancholy thing, I know,' said his sister, 'and the cause of it is dreadful to us both. We have to live, too, and must look about us for the means. Well, well! We can do so, undismayed. It is our pride, not our trouble, to strive, John, and to strive together!'
A smile played on her lips, as she kissed his cheek, and entreated him to be of of good cheer.
'Oh, dearest sister! Tied, of your own noble will, to a ruined man! whose reputation is blighted; who has no friend himself, and has driven every friend of yours away!'
'John!' she laid her hand hastily upon his lips, 'for my sake! In remembrance of our long companionship!' He was silent 'Now, let me tell you, dear,' quietly sitting by his side, 'I have, as you have, expected this; and when I have been thinking of it, and fearing that it would happen, and preparing myself for it, as well as I could, I have resolved to tell you, if it should be so, that I have kept a secret from you, and that we have a friend.'
'What's our friend's name, Harriet?' he answered with a sorrowful smile.
'Indeed, I don't know, but he once made a very earnest protestation to me of his friendship and his wish to serve us: and to this day I believe 'him.'
'Harriet!' exclaimed her wondering brother, 'where does this friend live?'
'Neither do I know that,' she returned. 'But he knows us both, and our history — all our little history, John. That is the reason why, at his own suggestion, I have kept the secret of his coming, here, from you, lest his acquaintance with it should distress you.
'Here! Has he been here, Harriet?'
'Here, in this room. Once.'
'What kind of man?'
'Not young. 'Grey-headed,' as he said, 'and fast growing greyer.'
But generous, and frank, and good, I am sure.'
'And only seen once, Harriet?'
'In this room only once,' said his sister, with the slightest and most transient glow upon her cheek; 'but when here, he entreated me to suffer him to see me once a week as he passed by, in token of our being well, and continuing to need nothing at his hands. For I told him, when he proffered us any service he could render — which was the object of his visit — that we needed nothing.'
'And once a week — '
'Once every week since then, and always on the same day, and at the same hour, he his gone past; always on foot; always going in the same direction — towards London; and never pausing longer than to bow to me, and wave his hand cheerfully, as a kind guardian might. He made that promise when he proposed these curious interviews, and has kept it so faithfully and pleasantly, that if I ever felt any trifling uneasiness about them in the beginning (which I don't think I did, John; his manner was so plain and true) It very soon vanished, and left me quite glad when the day was coming. Last Monday — the first since this terrible event — he did not go by; and I have wondered whether his absence can have been in any way connected with what has happened.'
'How?' inquired her brother.
'I don't know how. I have only speculated on the coincidence; I have not tried to account for it. I feel sure he will return. When he does, dear John, let me tell him that I have at last spoken to you, and let me bring you together. He will certainly help us to a new livelihood. His entreaty was that he might do something to smooth my life and yours; and I gave him my promise that if we ever wanted a friend, I would remember him.'
'Then his name was to be no secret, 'Harriet,' said her brother, who had listened with close attention, 'describe this gentleman to me.
I surely ought to know one who knows me so well.'
His sister painted, as vividly as she could, the features, stature, and dress of her visitor; but John Carker, either from having no knowledge of the original, or from some fault in her description, or from some abstraction of his thoughts as he walked to and fro, pondering, could not recognise the portrait she presented to him.
However, it was agreed between them that he should see the original when he next appeared. This concluded, the sister applied herself, with a less anxious breast, to her domestic occupations; and the grey-haired man, late Junior of Dombey's, devoted the first day of his unwonted liberty to working in the garden.
It was quite late at night, and the brother was reading aloud while the sister plied her needle, when they were interrupted by a knocking at the door. In the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered about them in connexion with their fugitive brother, this sound, unusual there, became almost alarming. The brother going to the door, the sister sat and listened timidly. Someone spoke to him, and he replied and seemed surprised; and after a few words, the two approached together.
'Harriet,' said her brother, lighting in their late visitor, and speaking in a low voice, 'Mr Morfin — the gentleman so long in Dombey's House with James.'
His sister started back, as if a ghost had entered. In the doorway stood the unknown friend, with the dark hair sprinkled with grey, the ruddy face, the broad clear brow, and hazel eyes, whose secret she had kept so long! 'John!' she said, half-breathless. 'It is the gentleman I told you of, today!'
'The gentleman, Miss Harriet,' said the visitor, coming in — for he had stopped a moment in the doorway — 'is greatly relieved to hear you say that: he has been devising ways and means, all the way here, of explaining
