He felt
inclined to call her to him; the words were rising to his lips, when
they were checked by the entrance of his wife, whose haughty bearing and
indifference to him caused the gentle impulse to flee from him, and it
never returned.
The breach between husband and wife was daily growing wider, when one
morning, riding to the city, Mr. Dombey was thrown from his horse, and
being brought home, he gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was
attended by servants, not approached by his wife. Late that night there
arose in Florence's mind the image of her father, wounded and in pain,
alone, in his own home.
With the same child's heart within her as of old, even as with the
child's sweet, timid eyes and clustering hair, Florence, as strange to
her father in her early maiden bloom as in her nursery days, crept down
to his room and looked in. The housekeeper was fast asleep in an
easy-chair before the fire. All was so very still that she knew he was
asleep. There was a cut upon his forehead. One of his arms, resting
outside of the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. After the
first assurance of his sleeping quietly, Florence stole close to the
bed, and softly kissed him and put the arm with which she dared not
touch him, waking, round about him on the pillow, praying to God to
bless her father, and to soften him towards her, if it might be so.
On the following day Susan Nipper braced herself for a great feat which
she had long been contemplating; forced an entrance into Mr.
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