Don't you dote upon the Middle Ages, Mr Carker ?' 'Very much, indeed,' said Mr Carker.
'Such charming times!' cried Cleopatra.

'So full of faith! So vigorous and forcible! So picturesque! So perfectly removed from commonplace! Oh dear! If they would only leave us a little more of the poetry of existence in these terrible days!' Mrs Skewton was looking sharp after Mr Dombey all the time she said this, who was looking at Edith: who was listening, but who never lifted up her eyes.
'We are dreadfully real, Mr Carker,' said Mrs Skewton; 'are we not ?' Few people had less reason to complain of their reality than Cleopatra, who had as much that was false about her as could well go to the composition of anybody with a real individual existence.

But Mr Carker commiserated our reality nevertheless, and agreed that we were very hardly used in that regard.
'Pictures at the Castle, quite divine!' said Cleopatra.

'I hope you dote upon pictures ?' 'I assure you, Mrs Skewton,' said Mr Dombey, with solemn encouragement of his Manager, 'that Carker has a very good taste for pictures; quite a natural power of appreciating them.

He is a very creditable artist himself.