Mr Dombey's arm,
and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and
a Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn
institution, 'Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?' 'Yes, I will.'

'Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,' whispered the
beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.

Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet 'into my grave?' so chill and
earthy was the place. The tall shrouded pulpit and reading desk; the
dreary perspective of empty pews stretching away under the galleries,
and empty benches mounting to the roof and lost in the shadow of the
great grim organ; the dusty matting and cold stone slabs; the grisly
free seats' in the aisles; and the damp corner by the bell-rope, where
the black trestles used for funerals were stowed away, along with some
shovels and baskets, and a coil or two of deadly-looking rope; the
strange, unusual, uncomfortable smell, and the cadaverous light; were
all in unison. It was a cold and dismal scene.

'There's a wedding just on, Sir,' said the beadle, 'but it'll be over
directly, if you'll walk into the westry here.

Before he turned again to lead the way, he gave Mr Dombey a bow and a
half smile of recognition, importing that he (the beadle) remembered to
have had the pleasure of attending on him when he buried his wife, and
hoped he had enjoyed himself since.

The very wedding looked dismal as they passed in front of the altar. The
bride was too old and the bridegroom too young, and a superannuated beau
with one eye and an eyeglass stuck in its blank companion, was giving
away the lady, while the friends were shivering. In the vestry the fire
was smoking; and an over-aged and over-worked and under-paid attorney's
clerk, 'making a search,' was running his forefinger down the parchment
pages of an immense register (one of a long series of similar volumes)
gorged with burials. Over the fireplace was a ground-plan of the vaults
underneath the church; and Mr Chick, skimming the literary portion of
it aloud, by way of enlivening the company, read the reference to Mrs
Dombey's tomb in full, before he could stop himself.

After another cold interval, a wheezy little pew-opener afflicted with
an asthma, appropriate to the churchyard, if not to the church, summoned
them to the font--a rigid marble basin which seemed to have been playing
a churchyard game at cup and ball with its matter of fact pedestal, and
to have been