“Surely you must know, Louisa,” observed Mr Dombey, “that I don’t question your natural devotion to, and regard for, the future head of my house.”
“I am glad to hear it, Paul,” said Mrs Chick; “but really you are very odd, and sometimes talk very strangely, though without meaning it, I know. If your dear boy’s soul is too much for his body, Paul, you should remember whose fault that is—who he takes after, I mean—and make the best of it. He’s as like his Papa as he can be. People have noticed it in the streets. The very beadle, I am informed, observed it, so long ago as at his christening. He’s a very respectable man, with children of his own. He ought to know.”
“Mr Pilkins saw Paul this morning, I believe?” said Mr Dombey.
“Yes, he did,” returned his sister. “Miss Tox and myself were present. Miss Tox and myself are always present. We make a point of it. Mr Pilkins has seen him for some days past, and a very clever man I believe him to be. He says it is nothing to speak of; which I can confirm, if that is any consolation; but he recommended, today, sea-air. Very wisely, Paul, I feel convinced.”
“Sea-air,” repeated Mr Dombey, looking at his sister.
“There is nothing to be made uneasy by, in that,” said Mrs Chick. “My George and Frederick were both ordered sea-air, when they were about his age; and I have been ordered it myself a great many times. I quite agree with you, Paul, that perhaps topics may be incautiously mentioned upstairs before him, which it would be as well for his little mind not to expatiate upon; but I really don’t see how that is to be helped, in the case of a child of his quickness. If he were a common child, there would be nothing in it. I must say I think, with Miss Tox, that a short absence from this house, the air of Brighton, and the bodily and mental training of so judicious a person as Mrs Pipchin for instance—”
“Who is Mrs Pipchin, Louisa?” asked Mr Dombey; aghast at this familiar introduction of a name he had never heard before.
“Mrs Pipchin, my dear Paul,” returned his sister, “is an elderly lady—Miss Tox knows her whole history—who has for some time devoted all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well connected. Her husband broke his heart in—how did you say her husband broke his heart, my dear? I forget the precise circumstances.
“In pumping water out of the Peruvian Mines,” replied Miss Tox.
“Not being a Pumper himself, of course,” said Mrs Chick, glancing at her brother; and it really did seem necessary to offer the explanation, for Miss Tox had spoken of him as if he had died at the handle; “but having invested money in the speculation, which failed. I believe that Mrs Pipchin’s management of children is quite astonishing. I have heard it commended in private circles ever since I was—dear me—how high!” Mrs Chick’s eye wandered about the bookcase near the bust of Mr Pitt, which was about ten feet from the ground.