which follows Arthur Clennam as he walks away.

Honest John Chivery, foolish in his poor head, but hopelessly faithful to Little Dorrit in his heart, and prolific of dismal epitaphs.

Empty Sparkler, who likes the flippant Fanny because she has "no nonsense about her," and who is the worthy son of Mrs. Merdle, the "presiding bosom" and lifeless effigy of ultrafashionable wifehood.

Stately Mrs. General, whose "papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prisms" bear rather heavily on Little Dorrit, who altogether is much put down by that giddy whirl of Fortune's wheel which rolls the other Dorrits to the top.

The glittering dinner, growing suddenly strange and ghastly as Mr. Dorrit becomes once more the "ha--the Father of the Marshalsea," and states to all his staring guests that he is "ready-ha-to receive any-humlittle testimonial." Then the night when the Dorrit brothers pass "far beyond the twilight judgments of this world."

The little church, whence Arthur Clennam and the "Child of the Marshalsea" walk down together into that quiet path which lies before them through the world.

The Master's head leans on his hand;

A warrior still, though something weary of the strife. Deep shadows, speaking of the inner ways of life, Are in his eyes, so true and grand.

Among his locks a line of silver here and there; Upon his brow the wrinkle-written legend, Care.

It was in the year of "Anno Dombei and Son," as Dombey the father thought, when little Paul was born, and his mother, though strenuously urged by Mrs. Chick to "make an effort," floated out upon "the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the world." On the funeral occasion Mr. Chick is lugubriously merry with "Toor-rul-such is life I meanrumpty iddity-bowwowwow-that is, we're here one moment and gone the next."

Miss Susan Nipper, nursing holy yet sputter ing indignation in.behalf of the neglected, gentle Florence, bursting out quite irrelevantly with, "A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head foremost, into five-and-forty feet of water, but a person may be very far from diving."

66

Mrs. Pipchin, ogress and child-queller," widowed by the "Peruvian mines," is a study for Paul, who sits beside her in the fire-light, and wonders, in his childish way, if, by any impossible accommodation of circumstances, she can be ultimately supposed to go to heaven.

Miss Cornelia Blimber, the "ghoul of the dead languages," surmounts little Paul with a pyramid of books, under which he goes staggering down the staircase, while the clock importunately ticks, "How-is-my-little-friend?" and Mrs. Blimber assures Mr. Dombey that she "thinks if she could have known Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at Tusculum-beautiful Tusculumshe could have died contented."

"The organ sounded faintly in the church below;" swelling by degrees beneath Tom Pinch's lingering, loving touch, "the melody ascended to the roof, and filled the choir and nave." Then Little Nell:

I sing for him who sang for me;

O Master dear and true!

Look back from heaven's new joy and see
How many weep for you.

I know not of the skillful art
That weaves a lofty strain;

I know, in all my grateful heart,
Who grieved for childhood's pain.

Weep for him and your loss, O world!
Weep ye in prisons and in want;
With sword of truth in fearless sweep

He cut your way through pride and cant. Once more, far up the winding stair, pale Trotty smote the eloquent bells:

"Who turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind, abandons them as vile, and does not trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which they fell from Good grasping in their fall some tufts and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still when bruised and dying in the gulf below-does wrong to Heaven and Man, to Time and to Eternity."

carries it through moaning waves from the Old World to the New.

And now from his quiet room the simple walls have rolled away.

The bowed head is there, but it is in the dim heart of a vast cathedral, spreading far away, with sounding aisles, and belfry in the clouds.

I hear the lamentation far as winds can blow; a mighty surge that, growing near, fills all the hallowed place. The countless mourners of the dead are there; his children first, the creatures of his brain; and then the world, the world he loved, rebuked; for whom he worked and died. Who shall sing his praise?

Ah! who so willing, who so fit as Little Nell, upon whose "light brown hair," from the stained window far above, descends the chastened glory of the sun!

Far up the dim and winding stair went weeping Trotty Veck; "up, up, and higher up," and smote upon those spirit bells that silent swung in shadows there.

"Who hears in us, his chimes, one note bespeaking disregard, or stern regard, of any hope or joy or pain or sorrow of the many-sorrowed throng-who hears us make response to any creed that gauges human passions and affections, as it ganges the amount of miserable food on which humanity may pine and wither, does him wrong."

The tender plaining of the bells is taken up by Little Nell:

O children of the Master's brain,
Can he be dead, and we live on!
We wait to bear to him at last

His later triumphs, to be won.
Joy! that his noble work goes on;
That his armor is only laid aside,
Calmly, in golden eventide;
Joy! for his welcome rest begun.

This song was borne to me as from a great remoteness, yet as clear as if the little singer breathed it in my ear; and then the solemn vision, the mourning multitude, the vast cathedral, and the heavenly music passed away; and

"Sad heart, be comforted, rejoice for the great voice of Human Love, which is not dead; which never dies; which cheers the struggling, rests

Mercy on the ignorance and suffering of sin." And the Master's voice, coming from where I could no longer look, saying:

"Oh, thank God for that older fashion yet of

These hives of men contain the worst and best; And thither swarm the drones, the helpless poorThe blind among the rest.

Here sits a woman in a tattered shawl,

Hugging the babe she shelters from the wind;
There stands a man, unshorn, against the wall,
Both labeled, "I am blind!"

One feels the way before him with his cane,
A wary man that never comes to harm;
Another peddles-less for bread than gain-
The brushes on his arm.

A squalid woman next, in maudlin tears,
Led by a girl who tells a piteous tale;
A man and boy-the man is well in years—
Haggard and thin and pale.

I know the last, a pensioner of mine

In better times (return, ye golden days!),
He lacks the beggar's rags, the beggar's whine-
Little it is he says.

The lad speaks for him, tries to sell his ware,
Pencils, or pens, or next year's Almanac-
A tall but stooping man, with grayish hair,
And clad in rusty black.

I shook my head when he came round to-day
(The boy, remember, sees), and would not hear
What he began, but when they turned away
I dropped my alms-a tear!

The man's misfortune, and, forsooth, my own
(My purse, you know, was empty), smote my mind;
I felt dejected-in the world alone,

Aged and poor and blind.

I thought of what he was, or might have been,
Shut up in utter darkness from his kind;
His sorrow and despair, perchance his sin-
What I would be-if blind!

I.

"They gave you nothing?" "Yes, Sir, one; But they are poor, they say." "Where are you going now, my son ?" "We'd better take Broadway."

"Remember, then, I can not see, Nor let them crowd and jostle me,

As you did yesterday."

"No, Sir." "Give me the books, and, mind, You need not beg-say I am blind."

II.

How hard it is for one like me

To beg his daily bread!

I wonder when the end will be!

I would that I were dead!
Day after day I walk the street
With heavy heart and weary feet,
And tears I must not shed:

They soothed me once, but now I find
They leave a bitterness behind.

III.

This boy of mine is eyes to me,
Since I have lost my sight;

He's careful as a boy can be

Whose spirits are so light.

But sometimes when we cross the street He goes too near the horses' feet,

And gives me such a fright!

He's tired of leading me all day-
Poor child! he has no time to play.

IV.

When I was his age (he is ten),
I played from morn till night,
Marbles or ball with Cousin Ben,

Or flew alone my kite,

Or climbed the oak-I liked that best-
For there I found the wild bird's nest,
Whose eggs were blue and white.
My heart was like the summer wind-
My father was not poor-and blind!

V.

Some streets are very dear to me;

I wonder how they look!

I see them as they used to be
In memory's happy book.

"I met my Lucy there," I say;
"And here, one bright December day,
The new-made bride I took.

In that old house the baby died-
Would I were lying by its side!"

VI.

If-but you can not know aright,

Ye happy ones who see,

What 'tis, like me, to lose your sight-
I'm sure you'd pity me.
Think-not to see the sun and moon,
The waving woods, the rose of June,
Or friend, or child, or she
Who beautifies your common life-
No, not the face of your own wife!

VII.

"Tis years--what long and weary years!Since I have looked on mine;

But in my thoughts she shines through tears, Like something half divine.

She must be worn and haggard now,

For there are wrinkles on her brow,

And how her heart must pine!

"You're weeping, mother." "No, not I." It is a woman's loving lie!

VIII.

They lead a life of want and woe,

And yet they are so good;
Though I have never been, I know,
What husband, father should.
My child a beggar in the street,
My wife at work that I may eat-

She has to cut my food.

Has she enough ?-(that I could see!)Be sure she gives the best to me.

IX.

There never was a woman yet
So tender and so true;

I never hear the least regret-
She knows just what to do.

Dear wife of mine! dear, patient wife!
You are the angel of my life,

And I could die for you!

And when we meet I shall not mind That I am poor and old and blind.