′Oh! bless your heart, Mrs Richards,′ cried Susan, ′temporaries always orders permanencies here, didn′t you know that, why wherever was you born, Mrs Richards? But wherever you was born, Mrs Richards,′ pursued Spitfire, shaking her head resolutely, ′and whenever, and however (which is best known to yourself), you may bear in mind, please, that it′s one thing to give orders, and quite another thing to take ′em. A person may tell a person to dive off a bridge head foremost into five-and-forty feet of water, Mrs Richards, but a person may be very far from diving.′
′There now,′ said Polly, ′you′re angry because you′re a good little thing, and fond of Miss Florence; and yet you turn round on me, because there′s nobody else.′
′It′s very easy for some to keep their tempers, and be soft-spoken, Mrs Richards,′ returned Susan, slightly mollified, ′when their child′s made as much of as a prince, and is petted and patted till it wishes its friends further, but when a sweet young pretty innocent, that never ought to have a cross word spoken to or of it, is rundown, the case is very different indeed. My goodness gracious me, Miss Floy, you naughty, sinful child, if you don′t shut your eyes this minute, I′ll call in them hobgoblins that lives in the cock-loft to come and eat you up alive!′
Here Miss Nipper made a horrible lowing, supposed to issue from a conscientious goblin of the bull species, impatient to discharge the severe duty of his position. Having further composed her young charge by covering her head with the bedclothes, and making three or four angry dabs at the pillow, she folded her arms, and screwed up her mouth, and sat looking at the fire for the rest of the evening.
Though little Paul was said, in nursery phrase, ′to take a deal of notice for his age,′ he took as little notice of all this as of the preparations for his christening on the next day but one; which nevertheless went on about him, as to his personal apparel, and that of his sister and the two nurses, with great activity. Neither did he, on the arrival of the appointed morning, show any sense of its importance; being, on the contrary, unusually inclined to sleep, and unusually inclined to take it ill in his attendants that they dressed him to go out.
It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east wind blowing - a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr Dombey represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard and cold as the weather; and when he looked out through the glass room, at the trees in the little garden, their brown and yellow leaves came fluttering down, as if he blighted them.
Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning, like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size, and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that was a freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all familiarities. Mr Pitt, in bronze, on the top, with no trace of his celestial origin′ about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an enchanted Moor. A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at one blow, seemed fraught with melancholy meditations.
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