to her harp, and Mr Dombey rose and stood
beside her, listening. He had little taste for music, and no knowledge
of the strain she played, but he saw her bending over it, and perhaps
he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of his own, that
tamed the monster of the iron road, and made it less inexorable.

Cleopatra had a sharp eye, verily, at picquet. It glistened like a
bird's, and did not fix itself upon the game, but pierced the room from
end to end, and gleamed on harp, performer, listener, everything.

When the haughty beauty had concluded, she arose, and receiving Mr
Dombey's thanks and compliments in exactly the same manner as before,
went with scarcely any pause to the piano, and began there.

Edith Granger, any song but that! Edith Granger, you are very handsome,
and your touch upon the keys is brilliant, and your voice is deep and
rich; but not the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son!

Alas, he knows it not; and if he did, what air of hers would stir him,
rigid man! Sleep, lonely Florence, sleep! Peace in thy dreams, although
the night has turned dark, and the clouds are gathering, and threaten to
discharge themselves in hail!

CHAPTER 22. A Trifle of Management by Mr Carker the Manager

Mr Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual,
reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing
them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their business
purport required, and parcelling them out into little heaps for
distribution through the several departments of the House. The post had
come in heavy that morning, and Mr Carker the Manager had a good deal to
do.

The general action of a man so engaged--pausing to look over a bundle
of papers in his hand, dealing them round in various portions, taking
up another bundle and examining its contents with knitted brows and
pursed-out lips--dealing, and sorting, and pondering by turns--would
easily suggest some whimsical resemblance to a player at cards. The face
of Mr Carker the Manager was in good keeping with such a fancy. It was
the face of a man who studied his play, warily: who made himself master
of all the strong and weak points of the game: who registered the cards
in his mind as they fell about him, knew exactly what was on them, what
they missed, and what they made: who was crafty to find out what the
other players held, and who never betrayed his own hand.

The letters were in