tion of her blessed infants, until he was securely lodged in
his own room.

CHAPTER 18. Father and Daughter

There is a hush through Mr Dombey's house. Servants gliding up and
down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together
constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat and drink,
and enjoying themselves after a grim unholy fashion. Mrs Wickam, with
her eyes suffused with tears, relates melancholy anecdotes; and tells
them how she always said at Mrs Pipchin's that it would be so, and takes
more table-ale than usual, and is very sorry but sociable. Cook's state
of mind is similar. She promises a little fry for supper, and struggles
about equally against her feelings and the onions. Towlinson begins to
think there's a fate in it, and wants to know if anybody can tell him
of any good that ever came of living in a corner house. It seems to all
of them as having happened a long time ago; though yet the child lies,
calm and beautiful, upon his little bed.

After dark there come some visitors--noiseless visitors, with shoes of
felt--who have been there before; and with them comes that bed of
rest which is so strange a one for infant sleepers. All this time, the
bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits
in an inner corner of his own dark room when anyone is there, and never
seems to move at other times, except to pace it to and fro. But in the
morning it is whispered among the household that he was heard to go
upstairs in the dead night, and that he stayed there--in the room--until
the sun was shining.

At the offices in the City, the ground-glass windows are made more
dim by shutters; and while the lighted lamps upon the desks are half
extinguished by the day that wanders in, the day is half extinguished
by the lamps, and an unusual gloom prevails. There is not much business
done. The clerks are indisposed to work; and they make assignations to
eat chops in the afternoon, and go up the river. Perch, the messenger,
stays long upon his errands; and finds himself in bars of public-houses,
invited thither by friends, and holding forth on the uncertainty of
human affairs. He goes home to Ball's Pond earlier in the evening than
usual, and treats Mrs Perch to a veal cutlet and Scotch ale. Mr Carker
the Manager treats no one; neither is he treated; but alone in his
own room he shows his teeth all day; and it would seem that there is
something gone from Mr Carker