much--too much--of his childish affection on
his sister. Whether their separation--' Mr Dombey said no more, but sat
silent.

'Hoity-toity!' exclaimed Mrs Pipchin, shaking out her black bombazeen
skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. 'If she don't like
it, Mr Dombey, she must be taught to lump it.' The good lady apologised
immediately afterwards for using so common a figure of speech, but said
(and truly) that that was the way she reasoned with 'em.

Mr Dombey waited until Mrs Pipchin had done bridling and shaking her
head, and frowning down a legion of Bitherstones and Pankeys; and then
said quietly, but correctively, 'He, my good madam, he.'

Mrs Pipchin's system would have applied very much the same mode of cure
to any uneasiness on the part of Paul, too; but as the hard grey eye was
sharp enough to see that the recipe, however Mr Dombey might admit its
efficacy in the case of the daughter, was not a sovereign remedy for the
son, she argued the point; and contended that change, and new society,
and the different form of life he would lead at Doctor Blimber's, and
the studies he would have to master, would very soon prove sufficient
alienations. As this chimed in with Mr Dombey's own hope and belief,
it gave that gentleman a still higher opinion of Mrs Pipchin's
understanding; and as Mrs Pipchin, at the same time, bewailed the loss
of her dear little friend (which was not an overwhelming shock to her,
as she had long expected it, and had not looked, in the beginning, for
his remaining with her longer than three months), he formed an equally
good opinion of Mrs Pipchin's disinterestedness. It was plain that he
had given the subject anxious consideration, for he had formed a plan,
which he announced to the ogress, of sending Paul to the Doctor's as a
weekly boarder for the first half year, during which time Florence
would remain at the Castle, that she might receive her brother there, on
Saturdays. This would wean him by degrees, Mr Dombey said; possibly
with a recollection of his not having been weaned by degrees on a former
occasion.

Mr Dombey finished the interview by expressing his hope that Mrs Pipchin
would still remain in office as general superintendent and overseer of
his son, pending his studies at Brighton; and having kissed Paul, and
shaken hands with Florence, and beheld Master Bitherstone in his collar
of state, and made Miss Pankey cry by patting her on the head (in which
region she was