sister will miss you. You are everything to her."

"Am I?" returned Sissy, shaking her
head. "I would be something to you, if I might."

"What?" said Louisa, almost sternly.

"Whatever you want most, if I could be
that. At all events, I would like to try to be
as near it as I can. And however far off that
may be, I will never tire of trying. Will
you let me?"

"My father sent you to ask me."

"No indeed," replied Sissy." He told me
that I might come in now, but he sent me
away from the room this morning—or at
least—" She hesitated and stopped.

"At least, what?" said Louisa, with her
searching eyes upon her.

"I thought it best myself that I should be
sent away, for I felt very uncertain whether
you would like to find me here."

"Have I always hated you so much?"

"I hope not, for I have always loved you,
and have always wished that you should
know it. But you changed to me a little,
shortly before you left home. Not that
I wondered at it. You knew so much, and I
knew so little, and it was so natural in many
ways, going as you were among other friends,
that I had nothing to complain of, and was
not at all hurt."

Her color rose as she said it modestly and
hurriedly. Louisa understood the loving
pretence, and her heart smote her.

"May I try?" said Sissy, emboldened to
raise her hand to the neck that was insensibly
drooping towards her.

Louisa, taking down the hand that would
have embraced her in another moment, held
it in one of hers, and answered:

"First, Sissy, do you know what I am?
I am so proud and so hardened, so confused
and troubled, so resentful and unjust to every
one and to myself, that everything is stormy,
dark, and wicked to me. Does not that repel
you?"

"No!"

"I am so unhappy, and all that should have
made me otherwise is so laid waste, that if I
had been bereft of sense to this hour, and
instead of being as learned as you think me, had
to begin to acquire the simplest truths, I could
not want a guide to peace, contentment,
honor, all the good of which I am quite
devoid, more abjectly than I do. Does not
that repel you?"

"No!"

In the innocence of her brave affection, and
the brimming up of her old devoted spirit,
the once deserted girl shone like a beautiful
light upon the darkness of the other.

Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp
her neck, and join its fellow there. She fell
upon her knees, and clinging to this stroller's
child looked up at her almost with veneration.

"Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have
compassion on my great need, and let me lay
this head of mine upon a loving heart!"

"O lay it here!" cried Sissy." Lay it
here, my dear."

CHAPTER XXX.

MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE passed a whole
night and a day in a state of so much hurry,
that the World, with its best glass in its eye,
would scarcely have recognised him during
that insane interval, as the brother Jem of
the honorable and jocular member. He was
positively agitated. He several times spoke
with an emphasis, similar to the vulgar manner.
He went in and went out in an
unaccountable way, like a man with an object.
He rode like a highwayman. In a word, he
was so horribly bored by existing circumstances,
that he forgot to go in for boredom
in the manner prescribed by the authorities.

After putting his horse at Coketown
through the storm, as if it were a leap, he
waited up all night: from time to time ringing
his bell with the greatest fury, charging
the porter who kept watch with delinquency
in withholding letters or messages that could
not fail to have been entrusted to him, and
demanding restitution on the spot. The
dawn coming, the morning coming, and the
day coming, and neither message nor letter
coming with either, he went down to the
country house. There, the report was, Mr.
Bounderby away, and Mrs. Bounderby in
town. Left for town suddenly last evening.
Not even known to be gone until receipt of
message, importing that her return was not
to be expected for the present.

In these circumstances he had nothing for
it but to follow her to town. He went to the
house in town. Mrs. Bounderby not there.
He looked in at the Bank. Mr. Bounderby
away, and Mrs. Sparsit away. Mrs. Sparsit
away? Who could have been reduced to
sudden extremity for the company of that
griffin!

"Well! I don't know," said Tom, who had
his own reasons for being uneasy about it.
"She was off somewhere at daybreak this
morning. She's always full of mystery; I
hate her. So I do that white chap; he's
always got his blinking eyes upon a fellow."

"Where were you last night, Tom?"

"Where was I last night!" said Tom.
"Come! I like that. I was waiting for you,
Mr. Harthouse, till it came down as I never
saw it come down before. Where was I too!
Where were you, you mean."

"I was prevented from coming—detained."

"Detained!" murmured Tom. "Two of us
were detained. I was detained looking for you,
till I lost every train but the mail. It would
have been a pleasant job to go down by that
on such a night, and have to walk home
through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in
town after all."

"Where?"