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 Shakspeare's Cleopatra, whom age could not wither. On their way up stairs 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 assert itself without her aid, and against her will. She knew that she was beautiful: it was impossible that it could be otherwise: but she seemed with her own pride to defy her very self.

Whether she held cheap, attractions that could only call forth admiration that was worthless to her, or whether she designed to render them more precious to admirers by this usage of them, those to whom they were precious seldom paused to consider.

`I hope, Mrs. Granger,' said Mr. Dombey, advancing a step towards her, `we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?'

`You? oh no!'

`Why do you not go on then, my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra.

`I left off as I began--of my own fancy.'

The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility, for it was pointed with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with which she drew her hand across the strings, and came from that part of the room.

`Do you know, Mr. Dombey,' said her languishing mother, playing with a hand-screen, `that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually almost differ--'

`Not quite, sometimes, Mama?' said Edith.

`Oh never quite, my darling! Fie, fie, it would break my heart,' returned her mother, making a faint attempt to pat her with the screen, which Edith made no movement to meet, `--about these cold conventionalities of manner that are observed in little things? Why are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those yearnings, and gushings, and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our souls, and which are so very charming, why are we not more natural?'

Mr. Dombey said it was very true, very true.

`We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs. Skewton.

Mr. Dombey thought it possible.

`Devil a bit, Ma'am,' said the Major. `We couldn't afford it. Unless the world was peopled with J.B.'s-- tough and blunt old Joes, Ma'am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir--we couldn't afford it. It wouldn't do.'

`You naughty Infidel,' said Mrs. Skewton, `be mute.'