Engage his attention, my dear!′
The atmosphere became or might have become colder and colder, when Mr Dombey stood frigidly watching his little daughter, who, clapping her hands, and standing On tip-toe before the throne of his son and heir, lured him to bend down from his high estate, and look at her. Some honest act of Richards′s may have aided the effect, but he did look down, and held his peace. As his sister hid behind her nurse, he followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry to him, he sprang up and crowed lustily - laughing outright when she ran in upon him; and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands, while she smothered him with kisses.
Was Mr Dombey pleased to see this? He testified no pleasure by the relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the laughing eyes of little Florence, when, at last, they happened to meet his.
It was a dull, grey, autumn day indeed, and in a minute′s pause and silence that took place, the leaves fell sorrowfully.
′Mr John,′ said Mr Dombey, referring to his watch, and assuming his hat and gloves. ′Take my sister, if you please: my arm today is Miss Tox′s. You had better go first with Master Paul, Richards. Be very careful.′
In Mr Dombey′s carriage, Dombey and Son, Miss Tox, Mrs Chick, Richards, and Florence. In a little carriage following it, Susan Nipper and the owner Mr Chick. Susan looking out of window, without intermission, as a relief from the embarrassment of confronting the large face of that gentleman, and thinking whenever anything rattled that he was putting up in paper an appropriate pecuniary compliment for herself.
Once upon the road to church, Mr Dombey clapped his hands for the amusement of his son. At which instance of parental enthusiasm Miss Tox was enchanted. But exclusive of this incident, the chief difference between the christening party and a party in a mourning coach consisted in the colours of the carriage and horses.
Arrived at the church steps, they were received by a portentous beadle.′ Mr Dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out, and standing near him at the church door, looked like another beadle. A beadle less gorgeous but more dreadful; the beadle of private life; the beadle of our business and our bosoms.
Miss Tox′s hand trembled as she slipped it through Mr Dombey′s arm, and felt herself escorted up the steps, preceded by a cocked hat and a Babylonian collar. It seemed for a moment like that other solemn institution, ′Wilt thou have this man, Lucretia?′ ′Yes, I will.′
′Please to bring the child in quick out of the air there,′ whispered the beadle, holding open the inner door of the church.
Little Paul might have asked with Hamlet ′into my grave?′ so chill and earthy was the place.
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