ntil now, 'I never did think it was.' Mr Dombey
walked to the window and back again.

'It is not to be supposed, Louisa,' he said (Mrs Chick had nailed her
colours to the mast, and repeated 'I know it isn't,' but he took no
notice of it), 'but that there are many persons who, supposing that
I recognised any claim at all in such a case, have a claim upon me
superior to Miss Tox's. But I do not. I recognise no such thing. Paul
and myself will be able, when the time comes, to hold our own--the
House, in other words, will be able to hold its own, and maintain its
own, and hand down its own of itself, and without any such common-place
aids. The kind of foreign help which people usually seek for their
children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope. So that
Paul's infancy and childhood pass away well, and I see him becoming
qualified without waste of time for the career on which he is destined
to enter, I am satisfied. He will make what powerful friends he pleases
in after-life, when he is actively maintaining--and extending, if that
is possible--the dignity and credit of the Firm. Until then, I am enough
for him, perhaps, and all in all. I have no wish that people should step
in between us. I would much rather show my sense of the obliging conduct
of a deserving person like your friend. Therefore let it be so; and
your husband and myself will do well enough for the other sponsors, I
daresay.'

In the course of these remarks, delivered with great majesty and
grandeur, Mr Dombey had truly revealed the secret feelings of his
breast. An indescribable distrust of anybody stepping in between himself
and his son; a haughty dread of having any rival or partner in the boy's
respect and deference; a sharp misgiving, recently acquired, that he was
not infallible in his power of bending and binding human wills; as sharp
a jealousy of any second check or cross; these were, at that time the
master keys of his soul. In all his life, he had never made a friend.
His cold and distant nature had neither sought one, nor found one. And
now, when that nature concentrated its whole force so strongly on a
partial scheme of parental interest and ambition, it seemed as if its
icy current, instead of being released by this influence, and running
clear and free, had thawed for but an instant to admit its burden, and
then frozen with it into one unyielding block.

Elevated thus to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her
insignifi