Mr. Dombey came down to Brighton every Sunday, and Florence was her brother’s constant companion.

At first, Paul got no stronger, and a little carriage was procured for him, in which he could lie at his ease and be wheeled down to the sea-side; there he would sit or lie for hours together; never so distressed as by the company of children—­Florence alone excepted, always.

“Go away, if you please,” he would say to any child who came up to him.  “Thank you, but I don’t want you.  I think you had better go and play, if you please.”

His favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers; and, with Florence sitting by his side, and the wind blowing on his face, and the water near the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more.

“I want to know what it says,” he said once, looking steadily in her face.  “The sea, Floy, what is it that it keeps on saying?”

She told him that it was only the noise of the rolling waves.

“Yes, yes,” he said.  “But I know that they are always saying something.  Always the same thing.  What place is over there?” He rose up, looking eagerly at the horizon.

She told him that there was another country opposite, but he said he didn’t mean that; he meant farther away—­farther away!

Very often afterwards, in the midst of their talk, he would break off, to try to understand what it was that the waves were always saying, and would rise up on his couch to look at that invisible region far away.

At the end of twelve months at Mrs. Pipchin’s, Paul had grown strong enough to dispense with his little carriage, though he still looked thin and delicate.

Mr. Dombey therefore decided to remove him, not from Brighton, but to Doctor Blimber’s educational establishment.  “I fear,” said Mr. Dombey, addressing Mrs. Pipchin, “that my son in his studies is behind many children of his age.  Now instead of being behind his peers, my son ought to be before them—­far before them.  There is an eminence ready for him to mount upon.  The education of my son must not be delayed.  It must not be left imperfect.”

Doctor Blimber only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, and his establishment was a great hot-house, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work.

Florence would remain at Mrs. Pipchin’s, and for the first six months Paul would return there for the Sunday.

“Now, Paul,” said Mr. Dombey exultingly, when they stood on the doctor’s doorsteps, “This is the way, indeed, to be Dombey and Son, and have money.  You are almost a man already.”

“Almost,” returned the child.

III.—­Doctor Blimber’s Academy

The Doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at his knees, and stockings below them.  He had a bald head, highly polished, a deep voice, and a chin so very double that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases.