Determined to do something to bring in money, I have mastered the savage mystery of shorthand, and make a respectable income by reporting the debates in Parliament for a morning newspaper.  Night after night I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify.

I have come out in another way.  I have taken, with fear and trembling, to authorship.  I wrote a little something in secret, and sent it to a magazine, and it was published.  Since then I have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces.

My record is nearly finished.

Peggotty, a widow, is with my aunt, and Mr. Dick is in the room.

“Goodness me!” said my aunt, “who’s this you’re bringing home?”

“Agnes,” said I.

We were to be married within a fortnight.  It was not till I had told Agnes of my love that I learnt from her, as she laid her gentle hands upon my shoulders and looked calmly in my face, that she had loved me all my life.

Let me look back once more, for the last time, before I close these leaves.

I have advanced in fame and fortune.  I have been married ten years, and
I see my children playing in the room.

Here is my aunt, in stronger spectacles, an old woman of fourscore years and more, but upright yet, and godmother to a real, living Betsey Trotwood.  Always with her, here comes Peggotty, my good old nurse, likewise in spectacles.  A newspaper from Australia tells me that Mr. Micawber is now a magistrate and a rising townsman at Port Middlebay.

One face is above all these and beyond them all.  I turn my head and see it, in its beautiful serenity, beside me.  So may thy face be by me, Agnes, when I close my life; and when realities are melting from me, may I still find thee near me, pointing upward!

* * * * *

Dombey and Son

      The publication of “Dombey and Son” began in October, 1846,
     and the story was completed in twenty monthly parts at one
     shilling each, the last number being issued in April, 1848. 
     Its success was striking and immediate, the sale of its first
     number exceeding that of “Martin Chuzzlewit” by more than
     12,000 copies—­a remarkable thing considering the immense
     superiority of “Chuzzlewit.”  “Dombey and Son,” indeed, is by
     no means one of Dickens’s best books; though little Paul will
     always retain the sympathies of the reader, and the story of
     his short life for ever move us with its pathos.  The
     popularity of “Dombey and Son” provoked an impudent
     publication called “Dombey and Daughter,” which was started in
     January, 1847, and was issued monthly at a penny.  Two stage
     versions of “Dombey” appeared—­in London in 1873, and in New
     York in 1888, but in neither case was the adaptation
     particularly successful.  “What are the wild waves saying?” was
     made the subject of a song—­a duet—­which at one time was
     widely sung, but is now, happily forgotten.