treated with
precipitation.

'That any difference between you two,' resumed Mrs Skewton, 'with
the Heart you possess in common, and the excessively charming bond of
feeling that there is between you, must be slight and unimportant? What
words could better define the fact? None. Therefore I am glad to take
this slight occasion--this trifling occasion, that is so replete
with Nature, and your individual characters, and all that--so truly
calculated to bring the tears into a parent's eyes--to say that I attach
no importance to them in the least, except as developing these minor
elements of Soul; and that, unlike most Mamas-in-law (that odious
phrase, dear Dombey!) as they have been represented to me to exist in
this I fear too artificial world, I never shall attempt to interpose
between you, at such a time, and never can much regret, after all, such
little flashes of the torch of What's-his-name--not Cupid, but the other
delightful creature.

There was a sharpness in the good mother's glance at both her
children as she spoke, that may have been expressive of a direct and
well-considered purpose hidden between these rambling words. That
purpose, providently to detach herself in the beginning from all the
clankings of their chain that were to come, and to shelter herself with
the fiction of her innocent belief in their mutual affection, and their
adaptation to each other.

'I have pointed out to Mrs Dombey,' said Mr Dombey, in his most stately
manner, 'that in her conduct thus early in our married life, to which I
object, and which, I request, may be corrected. Carker,' with a nod of
dismissal, 'good-night to you!'

Mr Carker bowed to the imperious form of the Bride, whose sparkling eye
was fixed upon her husband; and stopping at Cleopatra's couch on his
way out, raised to his lips the hand she graciously extended to him, in
lowly and admiring homage.

If his handsome wife had reproached him, or even changed countenance,
or broken the silence in which she remained, by one word, now that they
were alone (for Cleopatra made off with all speed), Mr Dombey would have
been equal to some assertion of his case against her. But the intense,
unutterable, withering scorn, with which, after looking upon him, she
dropped her eyes, as if he were too worthless and indifferent to her to
be challenged with a syllable--the ineffable disdain and haughtiness
in which she sat before him--the cold inflexible resolve with which her
every f