She had seldom been there, since her
marriage. Her father was usually sifting and
sifting at his parliamentary cinder-heap in
London (without being observed to turn up
many precious articles among the rubbish),
and was still hard at it in the national dust-
yard. Her mother had taken it rather as a
disturbance than otherwise, to be visited,
as she reclined upon her sofa; young people,
Louisa felt herself all unfit for; Sissy she
had never softened to again, since the night
when the stroller's child had raised her eyes
to look at Mr. Bounderby's intended wife.
She had no inducements to go back, and
had rarely gone.

Neither, as she approached her old home
now, did any of the best influences of old
home descend upon her. The dreams of
childhood—its airy fables; its graceful, beautiful,
humane, impossible adornments of the
world beyond; so good to be believed in
once, so good to be remembered when
outgrown, for then the least among them rises to
the stature of a great Charity in the heart,
suffering little children to come into the midst of
it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden
in the stony ways of this world, wherein it were
better for all the children of Adam that they
should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful,
and not worldly-wise—what had she to
do with these? Remembrances of how she
had journeyed to the little that she knew, by
the enchanted roads of what she and millions
of innocent creatures had hoped and
imagined; of how, first coming upon Reason
through the tender light of Fancy, she had
seen it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as
great as itself: not a grim Idol, cruel and
cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and
its big dumb shape set up with a sightless
stare, never to be moved by anything but so
many calculated tons of leverage—what had
she to do with these? Her remembrances of
home and childhood, were remembrances of
the drying up of every spring and fountain in
her young heart as it gushed out. The golden
waters were not there. They were flowing for
the fertilisation of the land where grapes are
gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles.

She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of
sorrow upon her, into the house and into her
mother's room. Since the time of her leaving
home, Sissy had lived with the rest of the
family on equal terms. Sissy was at her
mother's side; and Jane, her sister, now ten
or twelve years old, was in the room.

There was great trouble before it could be
made known to Mrs. Gradgrind that her
eldest child was there. She reclined, propped
up, from mere habit, on a couch: as nearly
in her old usual attitude, as anything so
helpless could be kept in. She had positively
refused to take to her bed; on the ground that
if she did, she would never hear the last of it.

Her feeble voice sounded so far away in
her bundle of shawls, and the sound of
another voice addressing her seemed to take
such a long time in getting down to her ears,
that she might have been lying at the
bottom of a well. The poor lady was nearer
Truth than she ever had been: which had
much to do with it.

On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was
there, she replied, at cross-purposes, that she
had never called him by that name since he
married Louisa; that pending her choice of
an unobjectionable name, she had called him
J; and that she could not at present depart
from that regulation, not being yet provided
with a permanent substitute. Louisa had sat
by her for some minutes, and had spoken to
her often, before she arrived at a clear
understanding who it was. She then seemed to
come to it all at once.

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Gradgrind,
"and I hope you are going on satisfactorily
to yourself. It was all your father's doing.
He set his heart upon it. And he ought to
know."

"I want to hear of you, mother; not of
myself."

"You want to hear of me, my dear?
That's something new, I am sure, when
anybody wants to hear of me. Not at all well,
Louisa. Very faint and giddy."

"Are you in pain, dear mother?"

"I think there's a pain somewhere in the
room," said Mrs. Gradgrind, "but I couldn't
positively say that I have got it."

After this strange speech, she lay silent
for some time. Louisa, holding her hand,
could feel no pulse; but kissing it, could see a
slight thin thread of life in fluttering motion.

"You very seldom see your sister," said
Mrs. Gradgrind. "She grows like you. I wish
you would look at her. Sissy, bring her here."

She was brought, and stood with her hand
in her sister's. Louisa had observed her
with her arm round Sissy's neck, and she
felt the difference of this approach.

"Do you see the likeness, Louisa?"

"Yes, mother. I should think her like
me. But"——

"Eh? Yes, I always say so," Mrs.
Gradgrind cried, with unexpected quickness.
"And that reminds me. I want to speak to
you, my dear. Sissy, my good girl, leave us
alone a minute."

Louisa had relinquished the hand; had
thought that her sister's was a better and
brighter face than hers had ever been; had
seen in it, not without a rising feeling of
resentment, even in that place and at that
time, something of the gentleness of the other
face in the room: the sweet face with the
trusting eyes, made paler than watching and
sympathy made it, by the rich dark hair.

Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw
her lying with an awful lull upon her face,
like one who was floating away upon some
great water, all resistance over, content to be
carried down the stream. She put the
shadow of a hand to her lips again, and
recalled her.