“I’m not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational cramming before then,” said Bounderby. “By the Lord Harry, he’ll have enough of it, first and last! He’d open his eyes, that boy would, if he knew how empty of learning my young maw was, at his time of life.” Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he had heard of it often enough. “But it’s extraordinary the difficulty I have on scores of such subjects, in speaking to anyone on equal terms. Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this morning about tumblers. Why, what do you know about tumblers? At the time when, to have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in the lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn’t a penny to buy a link to light you.”

“Egad, ma’am, so was I,” said Bounderby, “⁠—with the wrong side of it. A hard bed the pavement of its Arcade used to make, I assure you. People like you, ma’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on down feathers, have no idea how hard a paving-stone is, without trying it. No, no, it’s of no use my talking to you about tumblers. I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West End of London, and Mayfair, and lords and ladies and honourables.”

Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, she curtseyed to Mr. Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; but in her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the blustrous Bounderby had the following remarks to make:

“I hope, Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, “that this was merely an oversight.”

“Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when Merrylegs was always there.”

“Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing frown. “I don’t ask about him. I understand you to have been in the habit of reading to your father?”

“O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the happiest⁠—O, of all the happy times we had together, sir!”

It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked at her.

“And what,” asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, “did you read to your father, Jupe?”

“About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the Genies,” she sobbed out; “and about⁠—”

“Hush!” said Mr. Gradgrind, “that is enough. Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more. Bounderby, this is a case for rigid training, and I shall observe it with interest.”

“Well,” returned Mr. Bounderby, “I have given you my opinion already, and I shouldn’t do as you do. But, very well, very well. Since you are bent upon it, very well!”

So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, good or bad. And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the evening.