to see me. I'm not going for long. I'm
coming back. Surely they can wait, till I come back!'

Cleopatra looked all round the table as she said it, and appeared very
uneasy.

'I won't have Vistors--really don't want visitors,' she said; 'little
repose--and all that sort of thing--is what I quire. No odious brutes
must proach me till I've shaken off this numbness;' and in a grisly
resumption of her coquettish ways, she made a dab at the Major with her
fan, but overset Mr Dombey's breakfast cup instead, which was in quite a
different direction.

Then she called for Withers, and charged him to see particularly that
word was left about some trivial alterations in her room, which must be
all made before she came back, and which must be set about immediately,
as there was no saying how soon she might come back; for she had a great
many engagements, and all sorts of people to call upon. Withers received
these directions with becoming deference, and gave his guarantee for
their execution; but when he withdrew a pace or two behind her, it
appeared as if he couldn't help looking strangely at the Major, who
couldn't help looking strangely at Mr Dombey, who couldn't help looking
strangely at Cleopatra, who couldn't help nodding her bonnet over one
eye, and rattling her knife and fork upon her plate in using them, as if
she were playing castanets.

Edith alone never lifted her eyes to any face at the table, and never
seemed dismayed by anything her mother said or did. She listened to
her disjointed talk, or at least, turned her head towards her when
addressed; replied in a few low words when necessary; and sometimes
stopped her when she was rambling, or brought her thoughts back with
a monosyllable, to the point from which they had strayed. The mother,
however unsteady in other things, was constant in this--that she was
always observant of her. She would look at the beautiful face, in its
marble stillness and severity, now with a kind of fearful admiration;
now in a giggling foolish effort to move it to a smile; now with
capricious tears and jealous shakings of her head, as imagining herself
neglected by it; always with an attraction towards it, that never
fluctuated like her other ideas, but had constant possession of her.
From Edith she would sometimes look at Florence, and back again at
Edith, in a manner that was wild enough; and sometimes she would try to
look elsewhere, as if to escape from her daughter's face; but back to