colder and colder, when Mr
Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping her
hands, and standing On tip-toe before the throne of his son and heir,
lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her. Some
honest act of Richards's may have aided the effect, but he did look
down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he
followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry to
him, he sprang up and crowed lustily--laughing outright when she ran in
upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands, while she
smothered him with kisses.

Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the
relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were
unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the
children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so
fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the laughing
eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet his.

It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute's pause and
silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.

'Mr John,' said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his hat
and gloves. 'Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss Tox's.
You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very careful.'

In Mr Dombey's carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick, Richards,
and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan Nipper and the
owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without intermission, as
a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the large face of that
gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled that he was putting up
in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment for herself.

Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the
amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss
Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief difference
between the christening party and a party in a mourning coach consisted
in the colours of the carriage and horses.

Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous beadle.'
Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and standing near
him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A beadle less
gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life; the beadle of
our business and our bosoms.

Miss Tox's hand trembled as she slipped it through