CHARLES DICKENS DOMBEY AND SON CHAPTER I Dombey and ...

eams belonging to Miss Tox; then would he perhaps have understood the
nature of that lady's faltering investment in the Dombey Firm.
If the child himself could have awakened in the night, and seen, gathered
about his cradle-curtains, faint reflections of the dreams that other people
had of him, they might have scared him, with good reason. But he slumbered
on, alike unconscious of the kind intentions of Miss Tox, the wonder of the
Major, the early sorrows of his sister, and the stern visions of his father;
and innocent that any spot of earth contained a Dombey or a Son.
CHAPTER VIII
Paul's further Progress, Growth, and Character
BENEATH the watching and attentive eyes of Time--so far another
Major--Paul's slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke in upon
them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an accumulating crowd
of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest; and so he passed from
babyhood to childhood, and became a talking, walking, wondering Dombey.
On the downfall and banishment of Richards, the nursery may be said to have
been put into commission: as a Public Department is sometimes, when no
individual Atlas can be found to support it. The Commissioners were, of
course, Mrs. Chick and Miss Tox: who devoted themselves to their duties with
such astonishing ardour that Major Bagstock had every day some new reminder
of his being forsaken, while Mr. Chick, bereft of domestic supervision, cast
himself upon the gay world, dined at clubs and coffee-houses, smelt of smoke
on three different occasions, went to the play by himself, and in short,
loosened (as Mrs. Chick once told him) every social bond, and moral