s Skewton and her daughter in the Pump-room; on the day
after, they met them again very near the place where they had met them
first. After meeting them thus, three or four times in all, it became
a point of mere civility to old acquaintances that the Major should go
there one evening. Mr Dombey had not originally intended to pay visits,
but on the Major announcing this intention, he said he would have the
pleasure of accompanying him. So the Major told the Native to go round
before dinner, and say, with his and Mr Dombey's compliments, that they
would have the honour of visiting the ladies that same evening, if the
ladies were alone. In answer to which message, the Native brought back a
very small note with a very large quantity of scent about it, indited by
the Honourable Mrs Skewton to Major Bagstock, and briefly saying, 'You
are a shocking bear and I have a great mind not to forgive you, but
if you are very good indeed,' which was underlined, 'you may come.
Compliments (in which Edith unites) to Mr Dombey.'

The Honourable Mrs Skewton and her daughter, Mrs Granger, resided, while
at Leamington, in lodgings that were fashionable enough and dear enough,
but rather limited in point of space and conveniences; so that the
Honourable Mrs Skewton, being in bed, had her feet in the window and
her head in the fireplace, while the Honourable Mrs Skewton's maid was
quartered in a closet within the drawing-room, so extremely small, that,
to avoid developing the whole of its accommodations, she was obliged to
writhe in and out of the door like a beautiful serpent. Withers, the
wan page, slept out of the house immediately under the tiles at a
neighbouring milk-shop; and the wheeled chair, which was the stone of
that young Sisyphus, passed the night in a shed belonging to the same
dairy, where new-laid eggs were produced by the poultry connected with
the establishment, who roosted on a broken donkey-cart, persuaded, to
all appearance, that it grew there, and was a species of tree.

Mr Dombey and the Major found Mrs Skewton arranged, as Cleopatra,
among the cushions of a sofa: very airily dressed; and certainly not
resembling Shakespeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On their
way upstairs they had heard the sound of a harp, but it had ceased
on their being announced, and Edith now stood beside it handsomer and
haughtier than ever. It was a remarkable characteristic of this lady's
beauty that it appeared to vaunt and asser