Mr. Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and was so delighted to see Florence bending down over Diogenes, smoothing his coarse back with her little delicate hand—Diogenes graciously allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance—that he felt it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt, have been a much longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to bay Mr. Toots, and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not exactly seeing his way to the end of these demonstrations, and sensible that they placed the pantaloons constructed by the art of Burgess and Co. in jeopardy, Mr. Toots, with chuckles, lapsed out at the door: by which, after looking in again two or three times, without any object at all, and being on each occasion greeted with a fresh run from Diogenes, he finally took himself off and got away.
“Come, then, Di! Dear Di! Make friends with your new mistress. Let us love each other, Di!” said Florence, fondling his shaggy head. And Di, the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear that dropped upon it, and his dog’s heart melted as it fell, put his nose up to her face, and swore fidelity.
Diogenes the man did not speak plainer to Alexander the Great than Diogenes the dog spoke to Florence. He subscribed to the offer of his little mistress cheerfully, and devoted himself to her service. A banquet was immediately provided for him in a corner; and when he had eaten and drunk his fill, he went to the window where Florence was sitting, looking on, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired. Finally, Diogenes coiled himself up at her feet and went to sleep.
Although Miss Nipper was nervous in regard of dogs, and felt it necessary to come into the room with her skirts carefully collected about her, as if she were crossing a brook on stepping-stones; also to utter little screams and stand up on chairs when Diogenes stretched himself, she was in her own manner affected by the kindness of Mr. Toots, and could not see Florence so alive to the attachment and society of this rude friend of little Paul’s, without some mental comments thereupon that brought the water to her eyes. Mr. Dombey, as a part of her reflections, may have been, in the association of ideas, connected with the dog; but, at any rate, after observing Diogenes and his mistress all the evening, and after exerting herself with much goodwill to provide Diogenes a bed in an antechamber outside his mistress’s door, she said hurriedly to Florence, before leaving her for the night:
“Your Pa’s a going off, Miss Floy, tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning, Susan?”
“Yes, Miss; that’s the orders. Early.”
“Do you know,” asked Florence, without looking at her, “where Papa is going, Susan?”
“Not exactly, Miss. He’s going to meet that precious Major first, and I must say if I was acquainted with any Major myself (which Heavens forbid), it shouldn’t be a blue one!”
“Hush, Susan!” urged Florence gently.
“Well, Miss Floy,” returned Miss Nipper, who was full of burning indignation, and minded her stops even less than usual. “I can’t help it, blue he is, and while I was a Christian, although humble, I would have natural-coloured friends, or none.”
It appeared from what she added and had gleaned downstairs, that Mrs. Chick had proposed the Major for Mr. Dombey’s companion, and that Mr. Dombey, after some hesitation, had invited him.
“Talk of him being a change, indeed!” observed Miss Nipper to herself with boundless contempt. “If he’s a change, give me a constancy.”
“Good night, Susan,” said Florence.
“Good night, my darling dear Miss Floy.”
Her tone of commiseration smote the chord so often roughly touched, but never listened to while she or anyone looked on. Florence left alone, laid her head upon her hand, and pressing the other over her swelling heart, held free communication with her sorrows.
It was a wet night; and the melancholy rain fell pattering and dropping with a weary sound. A sluggish wind was blowing, and went moaning round the house, as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill noise quivered through the trees. While she sat weeping, it grew late, and dreary midnight tolled out from the steeples.
Florence was little more than a child in years—not yet fourteen—and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death had lately made its own tremendous devastation, might have set an older fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination was too full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but love—a wandering love, indeed, and castaway—but turning always to her father.
There was nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering of the trees,
