Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a chair before the fire, with his arms on the back, and his sulky face on his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner by the fireside, now looking at him, now looking at the bright sparks as they dropped upon the hearth.

“Why, of course I do. What’s the use of talking about it!” returned Tom, chafing his face on his coat-sleeve, as if to mortify his flesh, and have it in unison with his spirit.

“It’s a great pity,” said Louisa, after another pause, and speaking thoughtfully out of her dark corner: “it’s a great pity, Tom. It’s very unfortunate for both of us.”

“But don’t disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as father thinks, and is a great deal rougher, and not half so kind.”

“Oh!” said Tom, laughing; “I don’t mind that. I shall very well know how to manage and smooth old Bounderby!”

Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the high presses in the room were all blended together on the wall and on the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were overhung by a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful imagination⁠—if such treason could have been there⁠—might have made it out to be the shadow of their subject, and of its lowering association with their future.

“What is your great mode of smoothing and managing, Tom? Is it a secret?”

“Oh!” said Tom, “if it is a secret, it’s not far off. It’s you. You are his little pet, you are his favourite; he’ll do anything for you. When he says to me what I don’t like, I shall say to him, ‘My sister Loo will be hurt and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She always used to tell me she was sure you would be easier with me than this.’ That’ll bring him about, or nothing will.”

After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, Tom wearily relapsed into the present time, and twined himself yawning round and about the rails of his chair, and rumpled his head more and more, until he suddenly looked up, and asked:

“Have you gone to sleep, Loo?”

“No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.”

“You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I could find,” said Tom. “Another of the advantages, I suppose, of being a girl.”

“Tom,” enquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious tone, as if she were reading what she asked in the fire, and it was not quite plainly written there, “do you look forward with any satisfaction to this change to Mr. Bounderby’s?”

“Why, there’s one thing to be said of it,” returned Tom, pushing his chair from him, and standing up; “it will be getting away from home.”

“There is one thing to be said of it,” Louisa repeated in her former curious tone; “it will be getting away from home. Yes.”

“Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave you, Loo, and to leave you here. But I must go, you know, whether I like it or not; and I had better go where I can take with me some advantage of your influence, than where I should lose it altogether. Don’t you see?”