His meditations on the subject were soon interrupted, first by the rustling of garments on the staircase, and then by the sudden whisking into the room of a lady rather past the middle age than otherwise, but dressed in a very juvenile manner, particularly as to the tightness of her bodice, who, running up to him with a kind of screw in her face and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion, flung her arms around his neck, and said, in a choking voice,
“My dear Paul! He’s quite a Dombey!”
“Well, well!” returned her brother—for Mr. Dombey was her brother—“I think he is like the family. Don’t agitate yourself, Louisa.”
“It’s very foolish of me,” said Louisa, sitting down, and taking out her pocket-handkerchief, “but he’s—he’s such a perfect Dombey! I never saw anything like it in my life!”
“But what is this about Fanny, herself?” said Mr. Dombey. “How is Fanny?”
“My dear Paul,” returned Louisa, “it’s nothing whatever. Take my word, it’s nothing whatever. There is exhaustion, certainly, but nothing like what I underwent myself, either with George or Frederick. An effort is necessary. That’s all. If dear Fanny were a Dombey!—But I daresay she’ll make it; I have no doubt she’ll make it. Knowing it to be required of her, as a duty, of course she’ll make it. My dear Paul, it’s very weak and silly of me, I know, to be so trembly and shaky from head to foot; but I am so very queer that I must ask you for a glass of wine and a morsel of that cake. I thought I should have fallen out of the staircase window as I came down from seeing dear Fanny, and that tiddy ickle sing.” These last words originated in a sudden vivid reminiscence of the baby.
They were succeeded by a gentle tap at the door.
“Mrs. Chick,” said a very bland female voice outside, “how are you now, my dear friend?”
“My dear Paul,” said Louisa in a low voice, as she rose from her seat, “it’s Miss Tox. The kindest creature! I never could have got here without her! Miss Tox, my brother Mr. Dombey. Paul, my dear, my very particular friend Miss Tox.”
The lady thus specially presented, was a long lean figure, wearing such a faded air that she seemed not to have been made in what linen-drapers call “fast colours” originally, and to have, by little and little, washed out. But for this she might have been described as the very pink of general propitiation and politeness. From a long habit of listening admiringly to everything that was said in her presence, and looking at the speakers as if she were mentally engaged in taking off impressions of their images upon her soul, never to part with the same but with life, her head had quite settled on one side. Her hands had contracted a spasmodic habit of raising themselves of their own accord as in involuntary admiration. Her eyes were liable to a similar affection. She had the softest voice that ever was heard; and her nose, stupendously aquiline, had a little knob in the very centre or keystone of the bridge, whence it tended downwards towards her face, as in an invincible determination never to turn up at anything.
Miss Tox’s dress, though perfectly genteel and good, had a certain character of angularity and scantiness. She was accustomed to wear odd weedy little flowers in her bonnets and caps. Strange grasses were sometimes perceived in her hair; and it was observed by the curious, of all her collars, frills, tuckers, wristbands, and other gossamer articles—indeed of everything she wore which had two ends to it intended to unite—that the two ends were never on good terms, and wouldn’t quite meet without a struggle. She had furry articles for winter wear, as tippets, boas, and muffs, which stood up on end in rampant manner, and were not at all sleek. She was much given to the carrying about of small bags with snaps to them, that went off like little pistols when they were shut up; and when full-dressed, she wore round her neck the barrenest of lockets, representing a fishy old eye, with no approach to speculation in it. These and other appearances of a similar nature, had served to propagate the opinion, that Miss Tox was a lady of what is called a limited independence, which she turned to the best account. Possibly her mincing gait encouraged the belief, and suggested that her clipping a step of ordinary compass into two or three, originated in her habit of making the most of everything.
“I am sure,” said Miss Tox, with a prodigious curtsey, “that to have the honour of being presented to Mr. Dombey is a distinction which I have long sought, but very little expected at the present moment. My dear Mrs. Chick—may I say Louisa!”
Mrs. Chick took Miss Tox’s hand in hers, rested the foot of her wineglass upon it, repressed a tear, and said in a low voice, “God bless you!”
“My dear Louisa then,” said Miss Tox, “my sweet friend, how are you now?”
“Better,” Mrs. Chick returned. “Take some wine. You have been almost as anxious as I have been, and must want it, I am sure.”
Mr. Dombey of course officiated.
“Miss Tox, Paul,” pursued Mrs. Chick, still retaining her hand, “knowing how much I have been interested in the anticipation of the event of today, has been working at a little gift for Fanny, which I promised to present. It is only a pincushion for the toilette table, Paul but I do say, and will say, and must say, that Miss Tox has very prettily adapted the sentiment to the occasion. I call ‘Welcome little Dombey’ Poetry, myself!”
“Is that the device?” inquired her brother.
“That is the device,” returned Louisa.
“But do me the justice
