This allusion to her favorite feature overpowered
Mrs. Sparsit. She sat down stiffly in
a chair, as if she were frozen; and, with a
fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated
her mittens against one another, as if they
were frozen too.

"My dear Josiah! " cried Mrs. Pegler,
trembling. "My darling boy! I am not to
blame. It's not my fault, Josiah. I told
this lady over and over again, that I knew
she was doing what would not be agreeable to
you, but she would do it."

'' What did you let her bring you for?
Couldn't you knock her cap off, or her tooth
out, or scratch her, or do something or other
to her? " asked Bounderby.

"My own boy! She threatened me that
if I resisted her, I should be brought by
constables, and it was better to come quietly
than make that stir in such a—  " Mrs. Pegler
glanced timidly but proudly round the walls
—" such a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed,
it is not my fault! My dear, noble, stately boy!
I have always lived quiet and secret, Josiah,
my dear. I have never broken the condition
once. I have never said I was your mother.
I have admired you at a distance; and if I
have come to town sometimes, with long
times between, to take a proud peep at you,
I have done it unbeknown, my love, and gone
away again."

Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his
pockets, walked in impatient mortification up
and down at the side of the long dining-table,
while the spectators greedily took in every
syllable of Mrs. Pegler's appeal, and at each
succeeding syllable became more and more
round-eyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking up
and down when Mrs. Pegler had done, Mr.
Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady:

"I am surprised, madam," he observed
with severity, "that in your old age you have
the face to claim Mr. Bounderby for your
son, after your unnatural and inhuman
treatment of him."

"Me unnatural! " cried poor old Mrs.
Pegler. "Me inhuman! To my dear boy!"

"Dear? " repeated Mr. Gradgrind. "Yes;
dear in his self-made prosperity, madam, I
dare say. Not very dear, however, when you
deserted him in his infancy, and left him to
the brutality of a drunken grandmother."

"I deserted my Josiah! " cried Mrs.
Pegler, clasping her hands. "Now, Lord forgive
you, sir, for your wicked imaginations, and
for your scandal against the memory of my
poor mother, who died in my arms before
Josiah was born. May you repent of it, sir,
and live to know better!"

She was so very earnest and injured, that
Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by the possibility
which dawned upon him, said in a gentler
tone:

"Do you deny, then, madam, that you left
your son to—to be brought up in the gutter?"

"Josiah in the gutter!" exclaimed Mrs.
Pegler. "No such a thing, sir. Never! For
shame on you! My dear boy knows, and
will give you to know, that though he come
of humble parents, he come of parents that
loved him as dear as the best could, and never
thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a
bit that he might write and cypher beautiful,
and I've his books at home to show it! Aye,
have I! " said Mrs. Pegler with indignant
pride. "And my dear boy knows, and will
give you to know, sir, that after his beloved
father died when he was eight year old, his
mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her
duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it,
to help him out in life, and put him 'prentice.
And a steady lad he was, and a kind
master he had to lend him a hand, and
well he worked his own way forward to be
rich and thriving. And I'll give you to
know, sir—for this my dear boy won't—that
though his mother kept but a little village
shop, he never forgot her, but pensioned me
on thirty pound a-year—more than I want,
for I put by out of it—only making the
condition that I was to keep down in my
own part, and make no boasts about him,
and not trouble him. And I never have,
except with looking at him once a year,
when he has never knowed it. And it's
right," said poor old Mrs. Pegler, in
affectionate championship, "that I should keep
down in my own part, and I have no doubts
that if I was here I should do a many
unbefitting things, and I am well contented,
and I can keep my pride in my Josiah to
myself, and I can love for love's own sake!
And I am ashamed of you, sir," said Mrs.
Pegler, lastly, "for your slanders and
suspicions. And I never stood here before, nor
never wanted to stand here when my dear son
said no. And I shouldn't be here now, if
it hadn't been for being brought here. And for
shame upon you, O for shame, to accuse me of
being a bad mother to my son, with my son
standing here to tell you so different!"

The bystanders, on and off the dining-
room chairs, raised a murmur of sympathy
with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. Gradgrind felt
himself innocently placed in a very distressing
predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who
had never ceased walking up and down, and
had every moment swelled larger and larger
and grown redder and redder, stopped short.

"I don't exactly know," said Mr. Bounderby,
"how I come to be favored with the
attendance of the present company, but I
don't inquire. When they're quite satisfied,
perhaps they'll be so good as to disperse;
whether they're satisfied or not, perhaps
they'll be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound
to deliver a lecture on my family affairs, I
have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a
going to do it. Therefore those who expect
any explanation whatever upon that branch
of the subject, will be disappointed—particularly
Tom Gradgrind, and he can't know it
too soon. In reference to the Bank robbery,
there has been a mistake made, concerning