ted. So
unmatched were they, and opposed, so forced and linked together by a
chain which adverse hazard and mischance had forged: that fancy might
have imagined the pictures on the walls around them, startled by the
unnatural conjunction, and observant of it in their several expressions.
Grim knights and warriors looked scowling on them. A churchman, with his
hand upraised, denounced the mockery of such a couple coming to God's
altar. Quiet waters in landscapes, with the sun reflected in their
depths, asked, if better means of escape were not at hand, was there no
drowning left? Ruins cried, 'Look here, and see what We are, wedded to
uncongenial Time!' Animals, opposed by nature, worried one another, as a
moral to them. Loves and Cupids took to flight afraid, and Martyrdom had
no such torment in its painted history of suffering.

Nevertheless, Mrs Skewton was so charmed by the sight to which Mr Carker
invoked her attention, that she could not refrain from saying, half
aloud, how sweet, how very full of soul it was! Edith, overhearing,
looked round, and flushed indignant scarlet to her hair.

'My dearest Edith knows I was admiring her!' said Cleopatra, tapping
her, almost timidly, on the back with her parasol. 'Sweet pet!'

Again Mr Carker saw the strife he had witnessed so unexpectedly among
the trees. Again he saw the haughty languor and indifference come over
it, and hide it like a cloud.

She did not raise her eyes to him; but with a slight peremptory motion
of them, seemed to bid her mother come near. Mrs Skewton thought it
expedient to understand the hint, and advancing quickly, with her two
cavaliers, kept near her daughter from that time.

Mr Carker now, having nothing to distract his attention, began to
discourse upon the pictures and to select the best, and point them
out to Mr Dombey: speaking with his usual familiar recognition of Mr
Dombey's greatness, and rendering homage by adjusting his eye-glass for
him, or finding out the right place in his catalogue, or holding his
stick, or the like. These services did not so much originate with Mr
Carker, in truth, as with Mr Dombey himself, who was apt to assert his
chieftainship by saying, with subdued authority, and in an easy way--for
him--'Here, Carker, have the goodness to assist me, will you?' which the
smiling gentleman always did with pleasure.

They made the tour of the pictures, the walls, crow's nest, and so
forth; and as they were still one little