ay think) that this affair
has been got up solely to degrade and insult me. I shall merely go. I
shall not be missed!'

Mrs Chick rose erect with these words, and took the arm of Mr Chick, who
escorted her from the room, after half an hour's shady sojourn there.
And it is due to her penetration to observe that she certainly was not
missed at all.

But she was not the only indignant guest; for Mr Dombey's list (still
constantly in difficulties) were, as a body, indignant with Mrs Dombey's
list, for looking at them through eyeglasses, and audibly wondering who
all those people were; while Mrs Dombey's list complained of weariness,
and the young thing with the shoulders, deprived of the attentions of
that gay youth Cousin Feenix (who went away from the dinner-table),
confidentially alleged to thirty or forty friends that she was bored to
death. All the old ladies with the burdens on their heads, had greater
or less cause of complaint against Mr Dombey; and the Directors and
Chairmen coincided in thinking that if Dombey must marry, he had better
have married somebody nearer his own age, not quite so handsome, and
a little better off. The general opinion among this class of gentlemen
was, that it was a weak thing in Dombey, and he'd live to repent it.
Hardly anybody there, except the mild men, stayed, or went away, without
considering himself or herself neglected and aggrieved by Mr Dombey or
Mrs Dombey; and the speechless female in the black velvet hat was found
to have been stricken mute, because the lady in the crimson velvet
had been handed down before her. The nature even of the mild men got
corrupted, either from their curdling it with too much lemonade, or from
the general inoculation that prevailed; and they made sarcastic jokes
to one another, and whispered disparagement on stairs and in bye-places.
The general dissatisfaction and discomfort so diffused itself, that the
assembled footmen in the hall were as well acquainted with it as
the company above. Nay, the very linkmen outside got hold of it, and
compared the party to a funeral out of mourning, with none of the
company remembered in the will. At last, the guests were all gone, and
the linkmen too; and the street, crowded so long with carriages, was
clear; and the dying lights showed no one in the rooms, but Mr Dombey
and Mr Carker, who were talking together apart, and Mrs Dombey and her
mother: the former seated on an ottoman; the latter reclining in the
Cleo