"Mr. Dombey, being a good deal in the statue way himself, was well enough pleased to see his handsome wife immovable and proud and cold. Her deportment being always elegant and graceful, this as a general behavior was agreeable and congenial to him. Presiding, therefore, with his accustomed dignity, and not at all reflecting on his wife by any warmth or hilarity of his own, he performed his share of the honours of the table with a cool satisfaction; and the installation dinner, though not regarded downstairs as a great success, or very promising beginning, passed off, above, in a sufficiently polite, genteel, and frosty manner."

I wonder what "hilarity" meant to Dickens in this quote. My definition of it makes it seem very inappropriate.

I think hilarity here means great laughter. The idea being that Mr. Dombey's behaviour was not so full of warmth and merriment as to contrast with his wife's and give a bad impression of her.

Bingley