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The brother and sister remained together for a time at Mrs. Pipchin’s, then went back to their home in London, where little Paul’s life ebbed away, and his father’s hopes were crushed by the blow.

There was a hush through Mr. Dombey’s great mansion when the child was gone, and Florence;–was she so alone in the bleak world that nothing else remained to her except her little maid? Nothing.

At first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course she could do nothing but weep, and wander up and down, and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her own chamber, lay her face down on her bed, and know no consolation. But it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and unkindly long. Soon, in the midst of the dismal house, her low voice in the twilight slowly touched an old air to which she had so often listened with Paul’s head upon her arm. And after that, and when it was quite dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room, repeated often, in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys when the sweet voice was hushed in tears.

One day Florence was amazed at receiving a visit from Mr. Toots, who entered the room with much hesitation, and, with a series of chuckles, laughs, and blushes, informed her that he had brought her little Paul’s pet, the dog Diogenes, as a companion in her loneliness.

“He ain’t a lady’s dog, you know,” said Mr. Toots, “but I hope you won’t mind that. If you would like to have him, he’s at the door.”

In fact, Diogenes was at that moment staring through the window of a hackney cabriolet, into which he had been ensnared on a false pretence of rats among the straw. Sooth to say, he was as unlike a lady’s dog as dog might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get out, gave short yelps, and overbalancing himself by the intensity of his efforts, tumbled down into the straw, and then sprung up panting again, putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to a Dispensary to be examined for his health.

But though Diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a summer’s day; a blundering, ill-favored, clumsy, bullet-headed dog, continually acting on the wrong idea that there was an enemy in the neighborhood whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his eyes, and a comical nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice,–he was dearer to Florence, in virtue of Paul’s parting remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. So dear, indeed, was this same ugly Diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she kissed the hand of Mr. Toots in her gratitude. And when Diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and, bouncing into the room, dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron chain that dangled from his neck round legs of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes nearly started out of his head; and when he growled at Mr. Toots, who affected familiarity, Florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of discretion.

Mr. Toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and so delighted to see Florence bending over Diogenes, smoothing his coarse back with her little delicate hand–Diogenes graciously allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance–that he felt it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt have been a much longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by Diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to bay at Mr. Toots, and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. Not exactly seeing his way to the end of these demonstrations, Mr. Toot with chuckles, lapsed out of the door, and got away.