gave utterance to a
little sound between a groan and a sigh, as if she would have said that
nobody but Cicero could have proved a lasting consolation under that
failure of the Peruvian MInes, but that he indeed would have been a very
Davy-lamp of refuge.

Cornelia looked at Mr Dombey through her spectacles, as if she would
have liked to crack a few quotations with him from the authority in
question. But this design, if she entertained it, was frustrated by a
knock at the room-door.

'Who is that?' said the Doctor. 'Oh! Come in, Toots; come in. Mr Dombey,
Sir.' Toots bowed. 'Quite a coincidence!' said Doctor Blimber. 'Here
we have the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega Our head boy, Mr
Dombey.'

The Doctor might have called him their head and shoulders boy, for he
was at least that much taller than any of the rest. He blushed very much
at finding himself among strangers, and chuckled aloud.

'An addition to our little Portico, Toots,' said the Doctor; 'Mr
Dombey's son.'

Young Toots blushed again; and finding, from a solemn silence which
prevailed, that he was expected to say something, said to Paul, 'How are
you?' in a voice so deep, and a manner so sheepish, that if a lamb had
roared it couldn't have been more surprising.

'Ask Mr Feeder, if you please, Toots,' said the Doctor, 'to prepare
a few introductory volumes for Mr Dombey's son, and to allot him a
convenient seat for study. My dear, I believe Mr Dombey has not seen the
dormitories.'

'If Mr Dombey will walk upstairs,' said Mrs Blimber, 'I shall be more
than proud to show him the dominions of the drowsy god.'

With that, Mrs Blimber, who was a lady of great suavity, and a wiry
figure, and who wore a cap composed of sky-blue materials, pied upstairs
with Mr Dombey and Cornelia; Mrs Pipchin following, and looking out
sharp for her enemy the footman.

While they were gone, Paul sat upon the table, holding Florence by the
hand, and glancing timidly from the Doctor round and round the room,
while the Doctor, leaning back in his chair, with his hand in his breast
as usual, held a book from him at arm's length, and read. There
was something very awful in this manner of reading. It was such a
determined, unimpassioned, inflexible, cold-blooded way of going to
work. It left the Doctor's countenance exposed to view; and when the
Doctor smiled suspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or shook
his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, 'Don