ma'am; she gave bruises. She was a regular
Alderney at that."

"Ah!" Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered.

"No, ma'am," continued Bounderby, "I
have not heard anything more about it. It's
in hand, though; and young Tom, who rather
sticks to business at present—something new
for him; he hadn't the schooling I had—is
helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet,
and let it seem to blow over. Do what you
like under the rose, but don't give a sign of
what you're about; or half a hundred of 'em
will combine together and get this fellow who
has bolted, out of reach for good. Keep it
quiet, and the thieves will grow in
confidence by little and little, and we shall have
'em."

"Very sagacious indeed, sir," said Mrs.
Sparsit. "Very interesting. The old woman
you mentioned, sir——"

"The old woman I mentioned, ma'am,"
said Bounderby, cutting the matter short, as
it was nothing to boast about, "is not laid
hold of; but, she may take her oath she will be,
if that is any satisfaction to her villainous old
mind. In the mean time, ma'am, I am of
opinion, if you ask me my opinion, that the
less she is talked about, the better."

That same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her
chamber window, resting from her packing
operations, looked towards her great staircase
and saw Louisa still descending.

She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in
the garden, talking very low. He stood
leaning over her, as they whispered together,
and his face almost touched her hair. "If not
quite!" said Mrs. Sparsit, straining her hawk's
eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant
to hear a word of their discourse, or even to
know that they were speaking softly, otherwise
than from the expression of their figures;
but what they said was this:

"You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse?"

"Oh, perfectly!"

"His face, and his manner, and what he
said?"

"Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person
he appeared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy
in the extreme. It was very knowing to
hold forth, in the humble-virtue school of
eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at
the time. 'My good fellow, you are over-doing
this!'"

"It has been very difficult to me to think ill
of that man."

"My dear Louisa—as Tom says." Which
he never did say. "You know no good of
the fellow?"

"No, certainly."

"Nor of any other such person?"

"How can I," she returned, with more of
her first manner on her than he had lately
seen, "when I know nothing of them, men
or women?"

"My dear Mrs. Bounderby! Then
consent to receive the submissive representation
of your devoted friend, who knows
something of several varieties of his excellent
fellow-creatures—for excellent they are,
I have no doubt, in spite of such little foibles
as always helping themselves to what they
can get hold of. This fellow talks. Well;
every fellow talks. His professing morality
only deserves a moment's consideration, as
being a very suspicious circumstance. All
sorts of humbugs profess morality, from the
House of Commons to the House of Correction,
except our people; it really is that exception
which makes our people quite reviving. You
saw and heard the case. Here was a
common man, pulled up extremely short by my
esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby—who, as we
know, is not possessed of that delicacy
which would soften so tight a hand. The
common man was injured, exasperated, left
the house grumbling, met somebody who
proposed to him to go in for some share in this
Bank business, went in, put something in his
pocket which had nothing in it before, and
relieved his mind extremely. Really he
would have been an uncommon, instead of a
common, man, if he had not availed himself of
such an opportunity. Or he may have made
it altogether, if he had the cleverness. Equally
probable!"

"I almost feel as though it must be bad in
me," returned Louisa, after sitting thoughtful
awhile, "to be so ready to agree with
you, and to be so lightened in my heart by
what you say."

"I only say what is reasonable; nothing
worse. I have talked it over with my friend
Tom more than once—of course I remain on
terms of perfect confidence with Tom—and
he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of
his. Will you walk?"

They strolled away, among the lanes
beginning to be indistinct in the twilight—she
leaning on his arm—and she little thought
how she was going down, down, down, Mrs.
Sparsit's staircase.

Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing.
When Louisa had arrived at the
bottom and disappeared in the gulf, it might
fall in upon her if it would; but, until then,
there it was to be, a Building, before Mrs.
Sparsit's eyes. And there Louisa always
was, upon it. Always gliding down, down,
down.

Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come
and go; she heard of him here and there;
she saw the changes of the face he had
studied; she, too, remarked to a nicety how
and when it clouded, how and when it
cleared; she kept her black eyes wide open,
with no touch of pity, with no touch of
compunction, all absorbed in interest; but, in the
interest of seeing her, ever drawing with no
hand to stay her, nearer and nearer to the
bottom of this new Giants' Staircase.

With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby,
as contradistinguished from his portrait,
Mrs. Sparsit had not the smallest intention
of interrupting the descent. Eager to see it