nd Mr
Dombey, in the drawing-room, had paraded himself into a state of solemn
fretfulness (they were all three going out to dinner), Flowers the Maid
appeared with a pale face to Mrs Dombey, saying:

'If you please, Ma'am, I beg your pardon, but I can't do nothing with
Missis!'

'What do you mean?' asked Edith.

'Well, Ma'am,' replied the frightened maid, 'I hardly know. She's making
faces!'

Edith hurried with her to her mother's room. Cleopatra was arrayed in
full dress, with the diamonds, short sleeves, rouge, curls, teeth, and
other juvenility all complete; but Paralysis was not to be deceived, had
known her for the object of its errand, and had struck her at her glass,
where she lay like a horrible doll that had tumbled down.

They took her to pieces in very shame, and put the little of her that
was real on a bed. Doctors were sent for, and soon came. Powerful
remedies were resorted to; opinions given that she would rally from this
shock, but would not survive another; and there she lay speechless, and
staring at the ceiling, for days; sometimes making inarticulate sounds
in answer to such questions as did she know who were present, and the
like: sometimes giving no reply either by sign or gesture, or in her
unwinking eyes.

At length she began to recover consciousness, and in some degree the
power of motion, though not yet of speech. One day the use of her right
hand returned; and showing it to her maid who was in attendance on her,
and appearing very uneasy in her mind, she made signs for a pencil and
some paper. This the maid immediately provided, thinking she was going
to make a will, or write some last request; and Mrs Dombey being from
home, the maid awaited the result with solemn feelings.

After much painful scrawling and erasing, and putting in of wrong
characters, which seemed to tumble out of the pencil of their own
accord, the old woman produced this document:

'Rose-coloured curtains.'

The maid being perfectly transfixed, and with tolerable reason,
Cleopatra amended the manuscript by adding two words more, when it stood
thus:

'Rose-coloured curtains for doctors.'

The maid now perceived remotely that she wished these articles to be
provided for the better presentation of her complexion to the faculty;
and as those in the house who knew her best, had no doubt of the
correctness of this opinion, which she was soon able to establish for
herself the rose-coloure