was took away, and though I’m nothing to be boasted of you ’re used to me and oh my own dear mistress through so many years don’t think of going anywhere without me, for it mustn’t and can’t be!"
"Dear Susan, I am going on a long, long voyage."
"Well Miss Floy, and what of that? the more you ’ll want me. Lengths of voyages ain’t an object in my eyes, thank God!" said the impetuous Susan Nipper.
"But, Susan, I am going with Walter, and I would go with Walter anywhere—everywhere! Walter is poor, and I am very poor, and I must learn, now, both to help myself, and help him."
"Dear Miss Floy!" cried Susan, bursting out afresh, and shaking her head violently, "it’s nothing new to you to help yourself and others too and be the patientest and truest of noble hearts, but let me talk to Mr. Walter Gay and settle it with him, for suffer you to go away across the world alone I cannot, and I won’t."
"Alone, Susan?" returned Florence. "Alone? and Walter taking me with him!" Ah, what a bright, amazed, enraptured smile was on her face!—He should have seen it. "I am sure you will not speak to Walter if I ask you not," she added tenderly; "and pray don’t, dear."
Susan sobbed "Why not, Miss Floy?"
"Because," said Florence, "I am going to be his wife, to give him up my whole heart, and to live with him and die with him. He might think, if you said to him what you have said to me, that I am afraid of what is before me, or that you have some cause to be afraid for me. Why, Susan, dear, I love him!"
Miss Nipper was so much affected by the quiet fervour of these words, and the simple, heartfelt, all-pervading earnestness expressed in them, and making the speaker’s face more beautiful and pure than ever, that she could only cling to her again, crying. Was her little mistress really, really going to be married, and pitying, caressing, and protecting her, as she had done before.
But the Nipper, though susceptible of womanly weaknesses, was almost as capable of putting constraint upon herself as of attacking the redoubtable Mac Stinger. From that time, she never returned to the subject, but was always cheerful, active, bustling, and hopeful. She did, indeed, inform Mr. Toots privately, that she was only "keeping up" for the time, and that when it was all over, and Miss Dombey was gone, she might be expected to become a spectacle distressful; and Mr. Toots did also express that it was his case too, and that they would mingle their tears together; but she never otherwise indulged her private feelings in the presence of Florence or within the precincts of the Midshipman.
Limited and plain as Florence’s wardrobe was—what a contrast to that prepared for the last marriage in which she had taken part!—there was a good deal to do in getting it ready, and Susan Nipper worked away at her side, all day, with the concentrated zeal of fifty sempstresses. The wonderful contributions Captain Cuttle would have made to this branch of the outfit, if he had been permitted—as pink parasols, tinted silk stockings, blue shoes, and other articles no less necessary on shipboard—would occupy some space in the recital. He was induced, however, by various fraudulent representations, to limit his contributions to a workbox and
