'We can do no more.' The windows stood open, and the twilight was gathering without.
The scent of the restoratives that had been tried was pungent in the room, but had no fragrance in the dull and languid air the lady breathed.
There was such a solemn stillness round the bed; and the two medical attendants seemed to look on the impassive form with so much compassion and so little hope, that Mrs Chick was for the moment diverted from her purpose.

But presently summoning courage, and what she called presence of mind, she sat down by the bedside, and said in the low precise tone of one who endeavours to awaken a sleeper: 'Fanny! Fanny!' There was no sound in answer but the loud ticking of Mr Dombey's watch and Doctor Parker Peps's watch, which seemed in the silence to be running a race.
'Fanny, my dear,' said Mrs Chick, with assumed lightness, 'here's Mr Dombey come to see you.

Won't you speak to him?
They want to lay your little boy--the baby, Fanny, you know; you have hardly seen him yet, I think--in bed; but they can't till you rouse yourself a little.

Don't you think it's time you roused yourself a little?
Eh ?' She bent her ear to the bed, and listened: at the same time looking round at the bystanders, and holding up her finger.
'Eh ?' she repeated, 'what was it you said, Fanny?
I didn't hear you.' No word or sound in answer.

Mr Dombey's watch and Dr Parker Peps's watch seemed to be racing faster.
'Now, really, Fanny my dear,' said the sister-in-law, altering her position, and speaking less confidently, and more earnestly, in spite of herself, 'I shall have to be quite cross with you, if you don't rouse yourself.