tead. The child immediately started
up with sudden readiness and animation, and raised towards his father in
bidding him good-night, a countenance so much brighter, so much younger,
and so much more child-like altogether, that Mr Dombey, while he felt
greatly reassured by the change, was quite amazed at it.

After they had left the room together, he thought he heard a soft voice
singing; and remembering that Paul had said his sister sung to him, he
had the curiosity to open the door and listen, and look after them. She
was toiling up the great, wide, vacant staircase, with him in her arms;
his head was lying on her shoulder, one of his arms thrown negligently
round her neck. So they went, toiling up; she singing all the way, and
Paul sometimes crooning out a feeble accompaniment. Mr Dombey looked
after them until they reached the top of the staircase--not without
halting to rest by the way--and passed out of his sight; and then he
still stood gazing upwards, until the dull rays of the moon, glimmering
in a melancholy manner through the dim skylight, sent him back to his
room.

Mrs Chick and Miss Tox were convoked in council at dinner next day;
and when the cloth was removed, Mr Dombey opened the proceedings by
requiring to be informed, without any gloss or reservation, whether
there was anything the matter with Paul, and what Mr Pilkins said about
him.

'For the child is hardly,' said Mr Dombey, 'as stout as I could wish.'

'My dear Paul,' returned Mrs Chick, 'with your usual happy
discrimination, which I am weak enough to envy you, every time I am in
your company; and so I think is Miss Tox.'

'Oh my dear!' said Miss Tox, softly, 'how could it be otherwise?
Presumptuous as it is to aspire to such a level; still, if the bird of
night may--but I'll not trouble Mr Dombey with the sentiment. It merely
relates to the Bulbul.'

Mr Dombey bent his head in stately recognition of the Bulbuls as an
old-established body.

'With your usual happy discrimination, my dear Paul,' resumed Mrs Chick,
'you have hit the point at once. Our darling is altogether as stout as
we could wish. The fact is, that his mind is too much for him. His soul
is a great deal too large for his frame. I am sure the way in which
that dear child talks!'said Mrs Chick, shaking her head; 'no one would
believe. His expressions, Lucretia, only yesterday upon the subject of
Funerals!

'I am afraid,' said Mr Dombey, interrupting her testily, 'that some of