of a Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle
does, can awaken surprise or indignation;
the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire
contempt."

Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman
features like a medal struck to commemorate
her scorn of Mr. Bounderby, surveyed him
fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully
past him, and ascended the staircase. Mr.
Bounderby closed the door, and stood before
the fire; projecting himself after his old
explosive manner into his portrait—and into
futurity.

Into how much of futurity! He saw Mrs.
Sparsit fighting out a daily light, at the points
of all the weapons in the female armoury,
with the grudging, smarting, peevish,
tormenting Lady Scadgers, still laid up in bed
with her mysterious leg, and gobbling her
insufficient income down by about the middle
of every quarter, in a mean little airless
lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib
for two; but did he see more? Did he
catch any glimpse of himself making a show
of Bitzer to strangers, as the rising young
man, so devoted to his master's great merits,
who had won young Tom's place, and had
almost captured young Tom himself, in the
times when by various rascals he was spirited
away? Did he see any faint reflection of his
own image making a vain-glorious will,
whereby five-and-twenty Humbugs past five
and fifty years of age, each taking upon himself
the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown,
should for ever dine in Bounderby Hall, for
ever lodge in Bounderby Buildings, for ever
attend a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to
sleep under a Bounderby chaplain, for ever
be supported out of a Bounderby estate, and
for ever nauseate all healthy stomachs with
a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash and
bluster? Had he any prescience of the day,
five years to come, when Josiah Bounderby
of Coketown was to die of a fit in the
Coketown street, and this same precious
will was to begin its long career of quibble,
plunder, false pretences, vile example, little
service and much law? Probably not. Yet
the portrait was to see it all out.

Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day,
and in the same hour, sitting thoughtful in
his own room. How much of futurity did
he see? Did he see himself, a white-haired
decrepid man, bending his hitherto inflexible
theories to appointed circumstances; making
his facts and figures subservient to Faith,
Hope, and Charity; and no longer trying to
grind that Heavenly trio in his dusty little
mills? Did he catch sight of himself, therefore
much despised by his late political
associates? Did he see them, in the era of its
being quite settled that the national dustmen
have only to do with one another, and owe
no duty to an abstraction called a People,
"taunting the honorable gentleman" with this
and with that and with what not, five nights
a-week, until the small hours of the morning?
Probably he had that much fore-knowledge,
knowing his men.

Here was Louisa on the night of the same
day, watching the fire as in days of yore,
though with a gentler and a humbler face.
How much of the future might arise before
her vision? Broadsides in the streets, signed
with her father's name, exonerating the late
Stephen Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced
suspicion, and publishing the guilt of his
own son, with such extenuation as his
years and temptation (he could not bring
himself to add, his education) might beseech;
were of the Present. So, Stephen Blackpool's
tombstone, with her father's record of
his death, was almost of the Present, for she
knew it was to be. These things she could
plainly see. But, how much of the Future?

A working woman, christened Rachael,
after a long illness once again appearing at
the ringing of the Factory bell, and passing to
and fro at the set hours, among the
Coketown Hands; a woman of a pensive
beauty, always dressed in black, but sweet-
tempered and serene, and even cheerful;
who, of all the people in the place, alone
appeared to have compassion on a degraded,
drunken wretch of her own sex, who was
sometimes seen in the town secretly begging
of her, and crying to her; a woman working,
ever working, but content to do it, and
preferring to do it as her natural lot, until
she should be too old to labor any more?
Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was
to be.

A lonely brother, many thousands of miles
away, writing, on paper blotted with tears,
that her words had too soon come true, and that
all the treasures in the world would be
cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear face?
At length this brother coming nearer home,
with hope of seeing her, and being delayed
by illness; and then a letter in a strange
hand, saying, "he died in hospital, of fever,
such a day, and died in penitence and love of
you: his last word being your name?" Did
Louisa see these things? Such things were
to be.

Herself again a wife—a mother—lovingly
watchful of her children, ever careful that
they should have a childhood of the mind no
less than a childhood of the body, as knowing
it to be even a more beautiful thing, and
a possession, any hoarded scrap of which,
is a blessing and happiness to the wisest?
Did Louisa see this? Such a thing was never
to be.

But, happy Sissy's happy children loving
her; all children loving her; she, grown
learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent
and pretty fancy ever to be despised;
trying hard to know her humbler fellow-
creatures, and to beautify their lives of
machinery and reality with those imaginative
graces and delights, without which the heart