
qualified to fill that position, I am sure.«
    »Oh!« murmured the family practitioner. »Praise from Sir Hubert Stanley!«
    »You are good enough,« returned Doctor Parker Peps, »to say so. Mr. Pilkins
who, from his position, is best acquainted with the patient's constitution in
its normal state (an acquaintance very valuable to us in forming our opinions on
these occasions), is of opinion, with me, that Nature must be called upon to
make a vigorous effort in this instance; and that if our interesting friend the
Countess of Dombey - I beg your pardon; Mrs. Dombey - should not be -«
    »Able,« said the family practitioner.
    »To make that effort successfully,« said Doctor Parker Peps, »then a crisis
might arise, which we should both sincerely deplore.«
    With that, they stood for a few seconds looking at the ground. Then, on the
motion - made in dumb show - of Doctor Parker Peps, they went up stairs; 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 boddice, who, running up to him
with a kind of screw in her face and carriage, expressive of suppressed emotion,
flung her arms round 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
