Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/461

382 Toodle on her way to it, untied her bonnet strings, and said that in the first place she must beg the dear children, one and all, to come and kiss her.

The ill-starred youngest Toodle but one, who would appear, from the frequency of his domestic troubles, to have been born under an unlucky planet, was prevented from performing his part in this general salutation by having fixed the sou’wester hat (with which he had been previously trifling) deep on his head, hind side before, and being unable to get it off again; which accident presenting to his terrified imagination a dismal picture of his passing the rest of his days in darkness, and in hopeless seclusion from his friends and family, caused him to struggle with great violence, and to utter suffocating cries. Being released, his face was discovered to be very hot, and red, and damp; and Miss Tox took him on her lap, much exhausted.

"You have almost forgotten me, Sir, I dare say," said Miss Tox to Mr. Toodle.

"No, Ma’am, no," said Toodle. "But we ’ve all on us got a little older since then."

"And how do you find yourself, Sir?" inquired Miss Tox, blandly.

"Hearty, Ma’am, thank’ee," replied Toodle. "How do you find yourself, Ma’am? Do the rheumaticks keep off pretty well, Ma’am? We must all expect to grow into 'em, as we gets on."

"Thank you," said Miss Tox. "I have not felt any inconvenience from that disorder yet."

"You ’re wery fortunate, Ma’am," returned Mr. Toodle. "Many people at your time of life, Ma’am, is martyrs to it. There was my mother" But catching his wife’s eye here, Mr. Toodle judiciously buried the rest in another mug of tea.

"You never mean to say, Mrs. Richards," cried Miss Tox, looking at Rob, "that that is your—"

"Eldest, Ma’am," said Polly. "Yes, indeed, it is. That’s the little fellow, Ma’am, that was the innocent cause of so much."

"This here, Ma’am,’ said Toodle, "is him with the short legs—and they was," said Mr. Toodle, with a touch of poetry in his tone, "unusual short for leathers—as Mr. Dombey made a Grinder on."

The recollection almost overpowered Miss Tox. The subject of it had a peculiar interest for her directly. She asked him to shake hands, and congratulated his mother on his frank, ingenuous face. Rob, overhearing her, called up a look, to justify the eulogium, but it was hardly the right look.

"And now, Mrs. Richards," said Miss Tox,—"and you too, Sir," addressing Toodle—"I ’ll tell you, plainly and truly, what I have come here for. You may be aware, Mrs. Richards—and, possibly, you may be aware too, Sir—that a little distance has interposed itself between me and some of my friends, and that where I used to visit a good deal, I do not visit now."

Polly, who, with a woman’s tact, understood this at once, expressed as much in a little look. Mr. Toodle, who had not the faintest idea of what Miss Tox was talking about, expressed that also, in a stare.

"Of course," said Miss Tox, "how our little coolness has arisen is of no moment, and does not require to be discussed. It is sufficient for me