“Sir,” returned the lady, “this is indeed not the first time that you have honoured me with similar expressions of your good opinion.”

“ Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, “I am going to astonish you.”

“Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “I hope you may be happy, Mr. Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you may be happy, sir!” And she said it with such great condescension as well as with such great compassion for him, that Bounderby⁠—far more disconcerted than if she had thrown her workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the hearthrug⁠—corked up the smelling-salts tight in his pocket, and thought, “Now confound this woman, who could have even guessed that she would take it in this way!”

“However, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “there are apartments at the Bank, where a born and bred lady, as keeper of the place, would be rather a catch than otherwise; and if the same terms⁠—”

“I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to promise that you would always substitute the phrase, annual compliment.”

“Well, ma’am, annual compliment. If the same annual compliment would be acceptable there, why, I see nothing to part us, unless you do.”

“Sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “The proposal is like yourself, and if the position I shall assume at the Bank is one that I could occupy without descending lower in the social scale⁠—”

“Why, of course it is,” said Bounderby. “If it was not, ma’am, you don’t suppose that I should offer it to a lady who has moved in the society you have moved in. Not that I care for such society, you know! But you do.”

“ Mr. Bounderby, you are very considerate.”

“You’ll have your own private apartments, and you’ll have your coals and your candles, and all the rest of it, and you’ll have your maid to attend upon you, and you’ll have your light porter to protect you, and you’ll be what I take the liberty of considering precious comfortable,” said Bounderby.

“Sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, “say no more. In yielding up my trust here, I shall not be freed from the necessity of eating the bread of dependence:” she might have said the sweetbread, for that delicate article in a savoury brown sauce was her favourite supper: “and I would rather receive it from your hand, than from any other. Therefore, sir, I accept your offer gratefully, and with many sincere acknowledgments for past favours. And I hope, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an impressively compassionate manner, “I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may be all you desire, and deserve!”

Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. It was in vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in any of his explosive ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on him, as a victim. She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful; but, the more polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful, the more hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, she; the forlorner sacrifice and victim, he. She had that tenderness for his melancholy fate, that his great red countenance used to break out into cold perspirations when she looked at him.