for
whom she didn't care a button, but whom she accepted on account of
his property, which was immense. When Jack returned to town, after
the nuptials, a man he knew, meeting him in the lobby of the House
of Commons, says, "Well, Jack, how are the ill-matched couple?"
"Ill-matched," says Jack "Not at all. It's a perfectly and equal
transaction. She is regularly bought, and you may take your oath he is
as regularly sold!"'

In his full enjoyment of this culminating point of his story, the
shudder, which had gone all round the table like an electric spark,
struck Cousin Feenix, and he stopped. Not a smile occasioned by the only
general topic of conversation broached that day, appeared on any face.
A profound silence ensued; and the wretched mild man, who had been as
innocent of any real foreknowledge of the story as the child unborn, had
the exquisite misery of reading in every eye that he was regarded as the
prime mover of the mischief.

Mr Dombey's face was not a changeful one, and being cast in its mould of
state that day, showed little other apprehension of the story, if any,
than that which he expressed when he said solemnly, amidst the silence,
that it was 'Very good.' There was a rapid glance from Edith towards
Florence, but otherwise she remained, externally, impassive and
unconscious.

Through the various stages of rich meats and wines, continual gold and
silver, dainties of earth, air, fire, and water, heaped-up fruits, and
that unnecessary article in Mr Dombey's banquets--ice--the dinner slowly
made its way: the later stages being achieved to the sonorous music
of incessant double knocks, announcing the arrival of visitors, whose
portion of the feast was limited to the smell thereof. When Mrs Dombey
rose, it was a sight to see her lord, with stiff throat and erect head,
hold the door open for the withdrawal of the ladies; and to see how she
swept past him with his daughter on her arm.

Mr Dombey was a grave sight, behind the decanters, in a state of
dignity; and the East India Director was a forlorn sight near the
unoccupied end of the table, in a state of solitude; and the Major was a
military sight, relating stories of the Duke of York to six of the seven
mild men (the ambitious one was utterly quenched); and the Bank Director
was a lowly sight, making a plan of his little attempt at a pinery,
with dessert-knives, for a group of admirers; and Cousin Feenix was
a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long