balls, twirl hand-basins, ride upon anything,
jump over everything, and stick at nothing.
All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the
slack wire and the tight rope, and perform
rapid acts on bare-backed steeds; none of them
were at all particular in respect of showing
their legs; and one of them, alone in a Greek
chariot, drove six in hand into every town
they came to. They all assumed to be mighty
rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy
in their private dresses, they were not at all
orderly in their domestic arrangements, and
the combined literature of the whole company
would have produced but a poor letter on any
subject. Yet there was a remarkable gentleness
and childishness about these people, a
special inaptitude for any kind of sharp
practice, and an untiring readiness to help
and pity one another, deserving, often of
as much respect, and always of as much
generous construction, as the every-day
virtues of any class of people in the world.

Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout
man as already mentioned, with one fixed eye
and one loose eye, a voice (if it can be called
so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of
bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled head
which was never sober and never drunk.

"Thquire! " said Mr. Sleary, who was
troubled with asthma, and whose breath came
far too thick and heavy for the letter s,
"Your thervant! Thith ith a bad piethe of
bithnith, thith ith. You've heard of my
Clown and hith dog being thuppothed to have
morrithed?"

He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered
Yes."

"Well Thquire," he returned, taking off
his hat, and rubbing the lining with his
pocket-handkerchief, which he kept inside it
for the purpose. " Ith it your intentionth to
do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?"

"I shall have something to propose to her
when she comes back," said Mr. Gradgrind.

Glad to hear it. Thquire. Not that I
want to get rid of the child, any more than I
want to thtand in her way. I'm willing to
take her prentith, though at her age ith late.
My voithe ith a little husky, Thquire, and
not eathy heard by them ath don't know me;
but if you'd been chilled and heated, heated
and chilled, chilled and heated, in the ring
when you wath young, ath often ath I have
been, your voithe would 'nt have lathted out,
Thquire, no more than mine."

" I dare say not," said Mr. Gradgrind.

" What thall it be, Thquire, while you
wait ? Thall it be Therry ? Give it a name,
Thquire ! " said Mr. Sleary, with hospitable
ease.

" Nothing for me, I thank you," said Mr.
Gradgrind.

" Don't thay nothing, Thquire. What doth
your friend thay? If you have'nt took your
feed yet, have a glath of bitterth."

Here his daughter Josephine—a pretty
fair-haired girl of eighteen, who had been
tied on a horse at two years old, and had
made a will at twelve, which she always
carried about with her, expressive of her
dying desire to be drawn to the grave by the
two piebald ponies—cried " Father, hush !
she has come back ! " Then came Sissy Jupe,
running into the room as she had run out of
it. And when she saw them all assembled,
and saw their looks, and saw no father there,
she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took
refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished
tight-rope lady (herself in the family way),
who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and
to weep over her.

" Ith an infernal thame, upon my thoul it
ith," said Sleary.

" O my dear father, my good kind father,
where are you gone ? You are gone to try
to do me some good, I know ! You are gone
away for my sake, I am sure. And how
miserable and helpless you will be without
me, poor, poor father, until you come back ! "
It was so pathetic to hear her saying many
things of this kind, with her face turned
upward, and her arms stretched out as if she
were trying to stop his departing shadow and
embrace it, that no one spoke a word until
Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the
case in hand.

" Now, good people all," said he, " this is
wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand
the fact. Let her take it from me, if you
like, who have been run away from, myself.
Here, what 's your name ! Your father has
absconded—deserted—you and you mustn't
expect to see him again as long as you live."

They cared so little for plain Fact, these
people, and were in that advanced state of
degeneracy on the subject, that instead of
being impressed by the speaker's strong
common sense, they took it in extraordinary
dudgeon. The men muttered "Shame!" and
the women " Brute! " and Sleary, in some
haste, communicated the following hint, apart
to Mr. Bounderby.

"I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain
to you, my opinion ith that you had better !
cut it thort, and drop it. They're a very good
natur'd people, my people, but they're
accuthtomed to be quick in their movementh; and
if you don't act upon my advithe, I'm damned
if I don't believe they'll pith you out o'
winder."

Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this
mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind found an
opening for his eminently practical exposition
of the subject.

"It is of no moment," said he, " whether
this person is to be expected back at any
time, or the contrary. He is gone away, and
there is no present expectation of his return.
That, I believe, is agreed on all hands."

"Thath agreed, Thquire. Thtick to that!"
From Sleary.

"Well then. I, who came here to inform
the father of the poor girl, Jupe, that she
could not be received at the school any more,