Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On
coming in, she curtseyed to Mr. Bounderby,
and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also
to Louisa; but in her confusion unluckily
omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the
blustrous Bounderby had the following
remarks to make:

"Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name
of that lady by the teapot, is Mrs. Sparsit.
That lady acts as mistress of this house,
and she is a highly connected lady.
Consequently, if ever you come again into any room
in this house, you will make a short stay in it
if you don't behave towards that lady in your
most respectful manner. Now, I don't care a
button what you do to me, because I don't
affect to be anybody. So far from having high
connections, I have no connections at all, and
I come of the scum of the earth. But towards
that lady, I do care what you do; and you
shall do what is deferential and respectful, or
you shall not come here."

"I hope, Bounderby," said Mr. Gradgrind,
in a conciliatory voice, " that this was merely
an oversight."

"My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs.
Sparsit," said Bounderby, "that this was
merely an oversight. Very likely. However,
as you are aware, ma'am, I don't allow of even
oversights towards you."

"You are very good indeed, sir," returned
Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head with her State
humility. " It is not worth speaking of."

Sissy, who all this time had been faintly
excusing herself with tears in her eyes, was
now waved over by the master of the house
to Mr. Gradgrind. She stood, looking intently
at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her
eyes upon the ground, while he proceeded
thus:

"Jupe, I have made up my mind to take
you into my house; and, when you are not in
attendance at the school, to employ you
about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an
invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa—
this is Miss Louisa—the miserable but
natural end of your late career; and you are
to expressly understand that the whole of
that subject is past, and is not to be referred
to any more. From this time you begin your
history. You are, at present, ignorant, I
know."

"Yes, sir, very," she answered, curtseying.

"I shall have the satisfaction of causing
you to be strictly educated; and you will be
a living proof to all who come into
communication with you, of the advantages of
the training you will receive. You will be
reclaimed and formed. You have been in the
habit, now, of reading to your father, and those
people I found you among, I dare say? " said
Mr. Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him
before he said so, and dropping his voice.

"Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At
least I mean to father, when Merrylegs was
always there."

"Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe," said Mr.
Gradgrind, with a passing frown. " I don't
ask about him. I understand you to have
been in the habit of reading to your father?"

"O yes, sir, thousands of times. They
were the happiest—O, of all the happy times
we had together, sir!"

It was only now, when her grief broke out,
that Louisa looked at her.

"And what," asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a
still lower voice, " did you read to your
father, Jupe?"

"About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and
the Hunchback, and the Genies," she sobbed
out.

"There! " said Mr. Gradgrind, " that is
enough. Never breathe a word of such
destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby,
this is a case for rigid training, and I shall
observe it with interest."

"Well," returned Mr. Bounderby, " I have
given you my opinion already, and I shouldn't
do as you do. But, very well, very well.
Since you are bent upon it, very well!"

So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took
Cecilia Jupe off with them to Stone Lodge,
and on the way Louisa never spoke one word,
good or bad. And Mr. Bounderby went
about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit
got behind her eyebrows and meditated in
the gloom of that retreat, all the morning.

CHAPTER VIII.

LET us strike the key note again, before
pursuing the tune.

When she was half a dozen years younger,
Louisa had been overheard to begin a
conversation with her brother one day, by
saying " Tom, I wonder "—upon which Mr.
Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing,
stepped forth into the light, and said, "Louisa,
never wonder!"

Herein lay the spring of the mechanical
art and mystery of educating the reason
without stooping to the cultivation of the
sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By
means of addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and division, settle everything somehow, and
never wonder. Bring to me, says
M'Choakumchild, yonder baby just able to walk, and
I will engage that it shall never wonder.

Now, besides very many babies just able to
walk, there happened to be in Coketown a
considerable population of babies who had
been walking against time towards the infinite
world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and
more. These portentous infants being alarming
creatures to stalk about in any human
society, the eighteen denominations
incessantly scratched one another's faces and
pulled one another's hair, by way of agreeing
on the steps to be taken for their
improvement—which they never did; a
surprising circumstance, when the happy
adaptation of the means to the end is
considered. Still, although they differed in
every other particular, conceivable and
inconceivable (especially inconceivable), they were