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38 departure of Mrs. Chick. But the nursery being at length free of visitors, she made herself some recompense for her late restraint.

"You might keep me in a strait-waistcoat for six weeks," said Nipper, "and when I got it off I’d only be more aggravated, who ever heard the like of them two Griffins, Mrs Richards?"

"And then to talk of having been dreaming, poor dear!" said Polly.

"Oh you beauties!" cried Susan Nipper, affecting to salute the door by which the ladies had departed. "Never be a Dombey won’t she? It’s to be hoped she won’t, we don’t want any more such, one’s enough."

"Don’t wake the children, Susan dear," said Polly.

"I’m very much beholden to you, Mrs Richards," said Susan, who was not by any means discriminating in her wrath, "and really feel it as a honour to receive your commands, being a black slave and a mulotter. Mrs Richards, if there’s any other orders, you can give me, pray mention 'em."

"Nonsense; orders," said Polly.

"Oh! bless your heart, Mrs Richards," cried Susan, "temporaries always orders permanencies here, didn’t you know that, why wherever was you born, Mrs Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs Richards," pursued Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely, "and whenever, and however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind, please, that it’s one thing to give orders, and quite another thing to take 'em. A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head foremost into five-and-forty feet of water, Mrs Richards, but a person may be very far from diving."

"There now," said Polly, "you’re angry because you’re a good little thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me, because there’s nobody else."

"It’s very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken, Mrs Richards," returned Susan, slightly mollified, "when their child’s made as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes its friends further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that never ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is run down, the case is very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you naughty, sinful child, if you don’t shut your eyes this minute, I’ll call in them hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat you up alive!"

Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge by covering her head with the bedclothes, and making three or four angry dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her mouth, and sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening.

Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, "to take a deal of notice for his age," he took as little notice of all this as of the preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that of his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he, on the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its importance; being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and unusually inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed him to go out.

It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east wind blowing—a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr. Dombey represented