"My sister Loo? " said Tom. "She never
cared for old Bounderby."

"That's the past tense, Tom," returned
Mr. James Harthouse, striking the ash from
his cigar with his little finger. " We are in
the present tense, now."

"Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative
mood, present tense. First person singular,
I do not care; second person singular, thou
dost not care; third person singular, she does
not care," returned Tom.

"Good! Very quaint! " said his friend.
"Though you don't mean it."

"But I do mean it," cried Tom. " Upon my
honor! Why, you won't tell me, Mr.
Harthouse, that you really suppose my sister
Loo does care for old Bounderby."

"My dear fellow," returned the other,
" what am I bound to suppose, when I find
two married people living in harmony and
happiness?"

Tom had by this time got both his legs on
the sofa. If his second leg had not been
already there when he was called a dear
fellow, he would have put it up at that great
stage of the conversation. Feeling it necessary
to do something then, he stretched
himself out at greater length, and, reclining with
the back of his head on the end of the sofa,
and smoking with an infinite assumption of
negligence, turned his common face, and not
too sober eyes, towards the face looking down
upon him so carelessly yet so potently.

"You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,"
said Tom, " and therefore you needn't be
surprised that Loo married old Bounderby.
She never had a lover, and the governor
proposed old Bounderby, and she took him."

"Very dutiful in your interesting sister,"
said Mr. James Harthouse.

"Yes, but she wouldn't have been as
dutiful and it would not have come off as
easily," returned the whelp, " if it hadn't been
for me."

The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows;
but the whelp was obliged to go on.

"I persuaded her," he said, with an
edifying air of superiority. " I was stuck
into old Bounderby's bank (where I never
wanted to be), and I knew I should get
into scrapes there, if she put old
Bounderby's pipe out; so I told her my wishes,
and she came into them. She would do
anything for me. It was very game of her,
wasn't it?"

"It was charming, Tom!"

"Not that it was altogether so important
to her as it was to me," continued Tom coolly,
"because my liberty and comfort, and
perhaps my getting on, depended on it; and
she had no other lover, and staying at
home was like staying in jail— especially when
I was gone. It wasn't as if she gave up
another lover for old Bounderby; but still it
was a good thing in her."

"Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so
placidly."

"Oh," returned Tom, with contemptuous
patronage, "she's a regular girl. A girl
can get on anywhere. She has settled down
to the life, and she don't mind. The life does
just as well for her, as another. Besides, though
Loo is a girl, she's not a common sort of girl.
She can shut herself up within herself, and
think— as I have often known her sit and
watch the fire— for an hour at a stretch."

"Ay, ay? Has resources of her own,"
said Harthouse, smoking quietly.

"Not so much of that as you may suppose,"
returned Tom; " for our governor had her
crammed with all sorts of dry bones and
sawdust. It's his system."

"Formed his daughter on his own model?"
suggested Harthouse.

"His daughter? Ah! and everybody else.
Why, he formed Me that way," said Tom.

"Impossible!"

"He did though," said Tom, shaking his
head. " I mean to say, Mr. Harthouse, that
when I first left home and went to old
Bounderby's, I was as flat as a warming-pan,
and knew no more about life, than any oyster
does."

"Come, Tom! I can hardly believe that.
A joke's a joke."

"Upon my soul! " said the whelp. " I am
serious; I am indeed! " He smoked with
great gravity and dignity for a little while,
and then added, in a highly complacent tone,
"Oh! I have picked up a little, since. I don't
deny that. But I have done it myself; no
thanks to the governor."

"And your intelligent sister?"

"My intelligent sister is about where she
was. She used to complain to me that she
had nothing to fall back upon, that girls
usually fall back upon; and I don't see how
she is to have got over that since. But she
don't mind," he sagaciously added, puffing at
his cigar again. " Girls can always get on,
somehow."

"Calling at the Bank yesterday evening,
for Mr. Bounderby's address, I found an
ancient lady there, who seems to entertain
great admiration for your sister," observed
Mr. James Harthouse, throwing away the last
small remnant of the cigar he had now smoked
out.

"Mother Sparsit?" said Tom. " What! you
have seen her already, have you?"

His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar
out of his mouth, to shut up his eye (which
had grown rather unmanageable) with the
greater expression, and to tap his nose several
times with his finger.

"Mother Sparsit's feeling for Loo is more
than admiration, I should think," said Tom.
"Say affection and devotion. Mother Sparsit
never set her cap at Bounderby when he was
a bachelor. Oh no!"

These were the last words spoken by the
whelp, before a giddy drowsiness came upon
him, followed by complete oblivion. He was
roused from the latter state by an uneasy