Peps, they went
upstairs; the family practitioner opening the room door for that
distinguished professional, and following him out, with most obsequious
politeness.

To record of Mr Dombey that he was not in his way affected by this
intelligence, would be to do him an injustice. He was not a man of whom
it could properly be said that he was ever startled, or shocked; but
he certainly had a sense within him, that if his wife should sicken and
decay, he would be very sorry, and that he would find a something gone
from among his plate and furniture, and other household possessions,
which was well worth the having, and could not be lost without sincere
regret. Though it would be a cool, business-like, gentlemanly,
self-possessed regret, no doubt.

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!'

Mr Dombey coughed.

'It's so extraordinary,' said Louisa; smiling through her tears,
which indeed were not overpowering, 'as to be perfectly ridiculous. So
completely our family. 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.'

Mr Dombey promptly supplied her with these re