CHARLES DICKENS DOMBEY AND SON CHAPTER I Dombey and ...

little tokens of her duty and service, as putting everything in order for
him with her own hands, binding little nosegays for his table, changing them
as one by one they withered, and he did not come back, preparing something
for him every day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his
usual seat. To-day, it was a little painted stand for his watch; to-morrow
she would be afraid to leave it, and would substitute some other trifle of
her making not so likely to attract his eye. Waking in the night, perhaps,
she would tremble at the thought of his coming home and angrily rejecting
it, and would hurry down with slippered feet and quickly beating heart, and
bring it away. At another time, she would only lay her face upon his desk,
and leave a kiss there, and a tear.
Still no one knew of this. Unless the household found it out when she was
not there--and they all held Mr. Dombey's rooms in awe--it was as deep a
secret in her breast as what had gone before it. Florence stole into those
rooms at twilight, early in the morning, and at times when meals were served
downstairs. And although they were in every nook the better and the brighter
for her care, she entered and passed out as quietly as any sunbeam,
excepting that she left her light behind.
Shadowy company attended Florence up and down the echoing house, and sat
with her in the dismantled rooms. As if her life were an enchanted vision,
there arose out of her solitude ministering thoughts, that made it fanciful
and unreal. She imagined so often what her life would have been if her
father could have loved her and she had been a favourite child, that
sometimes, for the moment, she almost believed it was so, and, borne on by
the current of that pensive fiction, seemed to remember how they had watched
her brother in his grave together; how they had freely shared his heart
between them; how they were united in the dear remembrance of him; how they
often spoke about him yet; and her kind father, looking at her gently, told
her of their common hope and trust in God. At other times she pictured to
herself her mother yet alive. And oh the happiness of falling on her neck,
and clinging to her with the love and confidence of all her soul! And oh the
desolation of the solitary house again, with evening coming on, and no one
there!