Ten Girls from Dickens Part 20

Gradgrind in her invalidism, with a sweet patience that endeared her to the poor woman. Indeed the entire household were deeply attached to Sissy, and, seeing the unselfishness of her daily life, even Mr.

Gradgrind himself was forced to acknowledge that there was a greater Teacher than M'Choak.u.mchild, with a system of education superior to the Gradgrind system, and that the same great Teacher had educated the clown's daughter to a higher degree of usefulness and courage than the Gradgrind system had yet been able to produce.

In fact, as time went on, Mr. Gradgrind was slowly discovering the flaws in his mathematical theories; finding out that laws and logic can never take the place of love in the development of a nature, and the discovery was a bitter one to him.

Despite their careful bringing-up by rule and measure, neither Louisa nor Thomas Gradgrind, in their maturity, did any credit to their father's system, and when his mistakes with them became evident to the cold, proud man, and he realized how nearly he had wrecked their lives by those errors, the weight of his suffering was heavy upon him. Then, realizing that all the Facts in his storehouse of learning, could not teach him how to save his children, and win their love, it was to Sissy that he turned for the information that he needed.

When young Thomas Gradgrind robbed the Bank with which he was connected, and was obliged to flee from justice, it was Sissy who saved him from ruin. She sent him, with a note of explanation, to her old friend, Mr.

Sleary,--whose whereabouts she happened to know at the time, and asked him to hide young Thomas until he should have further advice from her.

Then she and Louisa and Mr. Gradgrind journeyed hurriedly to the town, where they found the Circus. A performance was just beginning when they arrived, and they found the culprit in the ring, disguised as a black servant.

When the performance was over, Mr. Sleary came out and greeted them with great heartiness, exclaiming; "Thethilia, it doth me good to thee you.

You wath always a favorite with uth, and you've done uth credit thinth the old timeth, I'm thure."

He then suggested that such members of his troupe as would remember her be called to see her, and presently Sissy found herself amid the familiar scenes of her childhood, surrounded by an eager and affectionate group of her old comrades. While she was busily talking with them, Mr. Sleary entered into a consultation with Mr. Gradgrind upon the subject of his erring son's future. He then told the poor, distressed father that for Sissy's sake, and because Mr. Gradgrind had been so kind to her, he would help the culprit to escape from the country, secretly, by night Then, growing confidential, he added:

"Thquire, you don't need to be told that dogth ith wonderful animalth."

"Their instinct," said Mr. Gradgrind, "is surprising."

"Whatever you call it--and I'm bletht if I know what to call it"--said Sleary, "it ith athtonithing. Ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, thinthe we wath at Chethter. One morning there cometh into our Ring, by the thage door, a dog. He had travelled a long way, he wath in very bad condition, he wath lame and pretty well blind. He went round as if he wath a theeking for a child he know'd; and then he comed to me, and thood on hith two fore-legth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died. Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth."

"Sissy's father's dog!"

"Thethilia's fatherth old dog. Now, Thquire, I can take my oath, from my knowledge of that dog, that that man wath dead--and buried--afore that dog came back to me. We talked it over a long time, whether I thould write or not, but we agreed, No. There'th nothing comfortable to tell; why unthettle her mind, and make her unhappy? Tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he broke his own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him, never will be known, now, Thquire, till we know how the dogth findth uth out!"

"She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour, and she will believe in his affection to the last moment of her life," said Mr.

Gradgrind.

"It theemth to prethent two things to a perthon, don't it?" said Mr.

Sleary musingly, "one, that there ith a love in the world, not all thelf-interest, after all, but thomething very different; t'other, that it hath a way of its own of calculating with ith as hard to give a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!"

Mr. Gradgrind looked out of the window, and made no reply. He was deep in thought, and the result of his meditation became evident from that day in a gradual broadening of his nature and purposes. He never again attempted to replace nature's instincts and affections by his own system of education, and as the years went by he made no further attempt to destroy Sissy's loving faith in that father who had left her long ago; he only tried to compensate her for that loss as best he could;--and for the education which led to the softening of his hard, cold nature, the credit belongs to the daughter of a clown, to whom love meant more than logic.

FLORENCE DOMBEY

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLORENCE DOMBEY]

FLORENCE DOMBEY

There never was a child more loving or more lovable than Florence Dombey. There never was a child more ready to respond to loving ministrations than she, more eager to yield herself in docile obedience to a parent's wish; and to her mother she clung with a desperate affection at variance with her years.

But the sad day came when, clasped in her mother's arms, the little creature, with her perfectly colorless face, and deep, dark eyes, never moved her soft cheek from her mother's face, nor looked on those who stood around, nor shed a tear, understanding that soon she would be bereft of that mother's care and love.

"Mamma!" cried the child at last, sobbing aloud; "Oh, dear mamma! oh, dear mamma!"

Then, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the world, leaving Florence and the new-born baby brother in the father's care.

Alas for Florence! To that father,--the pompous head of the great firm of Dombey and Son--girls never showed a sufficient justification for their existence, and this one of his own was an object of supreme indifference to him; while upon the tiny boy, his heir and future partner in the firm, he lavished all his interest, centred all his hopes and affection.

After her mother's death, Florence was taken away by an aunt; and a nurse, named Polly Richards, was secured for baby Paul. A few weeks later, as Polly was sitting in her own room with her young charge, the door was quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little girl looked in.

"It's Miss Florence, come home from her aunt's, no doubt," thought Richards, who had never seen the child before. "Hope I see you well, miss."

"Is that my brother?" asked the child, pointing to the baby.

"Yes, my pretty," answered Richards, "come and kiss him."

But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the face, and said:

"What have you done with my mamma?"

"Lord bless the little creetur!" cried Richards. "What a sad question!

_I_ done? Nothing, miss."

"What have they done with my mamma?" cried the child.

"I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!" said Richards. "Come nearer here; come, my dear miss! Don't be afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you," said the child, drawing nearer, "but I want to know what they have done with my mamma."

"My darling," said Richards, "come and sit down by me, and I'll tell you a story."

With a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she had asked, little Florence sat down on a stool at the nurse's feet, looking up into her face.

"Once upon a time," said Richards, "there was a lady--a very good lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her--who, when G.o.d thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill, and died. Died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in the ground where the trees grow."

"The cold ground," said the child, shuddering.

"No, the warm ground," returned Polly, seizing her advantage, "where the ugly little seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into gra.s.s, and into corn, and I don't know what all besides. Where good people turn into bright angels, and fly away to heaven!"

The child who had drooped her head, raised it again, and sat looking at her intently.

"So; let me see," said Polly, not a little flurried between this earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success, and her very slight confidence in her own powers. "So, when this lady died, she went to G.o.d! and she prayed to Him, this lady did," said Polly, affecting herself beyond measure, being heartily in earnest, "to teach her little daughter to be sure of that in her heart; and to know that she was happy there, and loved her still; and to hope and try--oh, all her life--to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any more."

"It was my mamma!" exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping her around the neck.

"And the child's heart," said Polly, drawing her to her breast, "the little daughter's heart was so full of the truth of this, that even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it right, but was a poor mother herself, and that was all, she found a comfort in it--didn't feel so lonely--sobbed and cried upon her bosom--took kindly to the baby lying in her lap--and--there, there, there!" said Polly, smoothing the child's curls, and dropping tears upon her. "There, poor dear!"

"Oh, well, Miss Floy! and won't your pa be angry neither?" cried a quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown womanly girl of fourteen, with little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads, "when it was tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit the nurse."

"She don't worry me," was the surprised rejoinder of Polly. "I'm very fond of children. Miss Florence has just come home, hasn't she?"

"Yes, Mrs. Richards, and here, Miss Floy, before you've been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a-smearing your wet face against the expensive mourning that Mrs. Richards is a-wearing for your ma!" With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was Susan Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench--as if she were a tooth. But she seemed to do it more in the sharp exercise of her official functions, than with any deliberate unkindness.