with interest at a parcel of vagabonds,"
returned Bounderby. "When I was a vagabond
myself, nobody looked with any interest at me;
I know that."

"Then comes the question," said the
eminently practical father, with his eyes on the
fire, "in what has this vulgar curiosity its rise?"

"I'll tell you in what. In idle imagination."

"I hope not," said the eminently practical;
"I confess, however, that the misgiving has
crossed me on my way home."

"In idle imagination, Gradgrind," repeated
Bounderby. "A very bad thing for anybody,
but a cursed bad thing for a girl like
Louisa. I should ask Mrs. Gradgrind's pardon
for strong expressions, but that she knows
very well I am not a refined character.
Whoever expects refinement in me will be
disappointed. I hadn't a refined bringing up."

"Whether," said Mr. Gradgrind, pondering
with his hands in his pockets, and his cavernous
eyes on the fire, "whether any instructor
or servant can have suggested anything?
Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been
reading anything? Whether, in spite of all
precautions, any idle story-book can have got into
the house? Because, in minds that have
been practically formed by rule and line,
from the cradle upwards, this is so curious, so
incomprehensible."

"Stop a bit!" cried Bounderby, who all
this time had been standing, as before, on the
hearth, bursting at the very furniture of
the room with explosive humility.  "You
have one of those strollers' children in the
school."

"Cecilia Jupe, by name," said Mr.
Gradgrind, with something of a stricken look at his
friend.

"Now, stop a bit!" cried Bounderby again.
"How did she come there?"

"Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself for
the first time, only just now. She specially
applied here at the house to be admitted, as
not regularly belonging to our town, and
—yes,  you are right, Bounderby, you are
right."

"Now, stop a bit! " cried Bounderby, once
more. "Louisa saw her when she came?"

"Louisa certainly did see her, for she men-
tioned the application to me. But Louisa saw
her, I have no doubt, in Mrs. Gradgrind's
presence."

"Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind," said Bounderby,
"what passed?"

"Oh, my poor health!" returned Mrs.
Gradgrind. "The girl wanted to come to
the school, and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls
to come to the school, and Louisa and Thomas
both said that the girl wanted to come, and,
that Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come,
and how was it possible to contradict them
when such was the fact!"

"Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!" said
Mr. Bounderby. "Turn this girl to the
rightabout, and there's an end of it"

"I am much of your opinion."

"Do it at once," said Bounderby, "has
always been my motto from a child. When
I thought I would run away from my eggbox
and my grandmother, I did it at once.
Do you the same. Do this at once!"

"Are you walking?" asked his friend. "I
have the father's address. Perhaps you
would not mind walking to town with me?"

"Not the least in the world," said Mr.
Bounderby, "as long as you do it at once!"

So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat—he
always threw it on, as expressing a man who
had been far too busily employed in making
himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his
hat—and with his hands in his pockets
sauntered out into the hall. "I never wear
gloves," it was his custom to say. "I didn't
climb up the ladder in them. Shouldn't be so
high up, if I had."

Being left to saunter in the hall a minute
or two while Mr. Gradgriud went upstairs
for the address, he opened the door of the
children's study and looked into that serene
floor-clothed apartment, which, notwithstanding
its bookcases and its cabinets and its
variety of learned and philosophical appliances,
had much of the genial aspect of a
room devoted to hair-cutting. Louisa
languidly leaned upon the window looking out,
without looking at anything, while young
Thomas stood sniffing revengefully at the
fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger
Gradgrinds, were out at lecture in custody;
and little Jane, after manufacturing a good
deal of moist pipe-clay on her face with
slate-pencil and tears, had fallen asleep over
vulgar fractions.

"It's all right now. Louisa; it's all right,
young Thomas," said Mr. Bounderby; "you
won't do so any more. I'll answer for it's
being all over with father. Well, Louisa,
that's worth a kiss, isn't it?"

"You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,"
returned Louisa, when she had coldly paused,
and slowly walked across the room, and
ungraciously raised her cheek towards him, with
her face turned away.

"Always my pet; an't you, Louisa?" said
Mr. Bounderby. "Good bye, Louisa!"

He went his way, but she stood on the
same spot, rubbing the cheek he had kissed,
with her handkerchief, until it was burning
red. She was still doing this, five minutes
afterwards.

"What are you about, Loo?" her brother
sulkily remonstrated. "You'll rub a hole in
your face."

"You may cut the piece out with your
penknife if you like, Tom. I wouldn't cry!"

CHAPTER V.

COKETOWN, to which Messrs. Bounderby and
Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of
fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it
than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike