The story opens with the death of Mrs. Dombey, who has left her husband the proud possessor of a baby son and heir. He neglects his daughter Florence and loves Paul, in whom all his ambitions and worldly hopes are centred; but the boy dies. Mr. Dombey marries a beautiful woman, who is as cold and proud as he, and who has sold herself to him to escape from a designing mother. She grows fond of Flor...