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54 confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had undergone, and the prospect of encountering her angry father in such an altered state; perplexed and frightened alike by what had passed, and what was passing, and what was yet before her; Florence went upon her weary way with tearful eyes, and once or twice could not help stopping to ease her bursting heart by crying bitterly. But few people noticed her at those times, in the garb she wore: or if they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on. Florence, too, called to her aid all the firmness and self-reliance of a character that her sad experience had prematurely formed and tried: and keeping the end she had in view steadily before her, steadily pursued it.

It was full two hours later in the afternoon than when she had started on this strange adventure, when, escaping from the clash and clangour of a narrow street full of carts and waggons, she peeped into a kind of wharf or landing-place upon the river-side, where there were a great many packages, casks, and boxes, strewn about; a large pair of wooden scales; and a little wooden house on wheels, outside of which, looking at the neighbouring masts and boats, a stout man stood whistling, with his pen behind his ear, and his hands in his pockets, as if his day’s work were nearly done.

"Now then!" said this man, happening to turn round. "We haven’t got anything for you, little girl. Be off!"

"If you please, is this the city?" asked the trembling daughter of the Dombeys.

"Ah! It’s the city. You know that well enough, I dare say. Be off! We haven’t got anything for you."

"I don’t want anything, thank you," was the timid answer. "Except to know the way to Dombey and Son’s."

The man who had been strolling carelessly towards her, seemed surprised by this reply, and looking attentively in her face, rejoined:

"Why, what can you want with Dombey and Son’s?"

"To know the way there, if you please."

The man looked at her yet more curiously, and rubbed the back of his head so hard in his wonderment that he knocked his own hat off.

"Joe!" he called to another man—a labourer—as he picked it up and put it on again.

"Joe it is!" said Joe.

"Where’s that young spark of Dombey’s who’s been watching the shipment of them goods?"

"Just gone, by t’other gate," said Joe.

"Call him back a minute."

Joe ran up an archway, bawling as he went, and very soon returned with a blithe-looking boy.

"You’re Dombey’s jockey, ain’t you?" said the first man.

"I’m in Dombey’s House, Mr. Clark," returned the boy.

"Look’ye here, then," said Mr. Clark.

Obedient to the indication of Mr. Clark’s hand, the boy approached towards Florence, wondering, as well he might, what he had to do with her. But she, who had heard what passed, and who, besides the relief of so suddenly considering herself safe at her journey’s end, felt re-assured beyond all measure by his lively youthful face and manner,