had to unfold his arms (for they all assumed the professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary) and give her a parting kiss—Master Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature there was an original flavour of the misanthrope, who was also known to have harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide, he took her by both her hands and would have sprung her up and down, after the riding-master manner of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid act, but there was no rebound in Sissy and she only stood before him crying.

“Good-bye, my dear!” said Sleary. “You’ll make your fortune, I hope, and none of our poor folkth will ever trouble you, I’ll ’pound it. I with your father hadn’t taken hith dog with him; ith a ill-conwenienth to have the dog out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn’t have performed without hith mathter, tho ith ath broad ath ith long!”

With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his company with his loose one, kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to Mr. Gradgrind as to a horse.

“There the ith, Thquire,” he said, sweeping her with a professional glance as if she were being adjusted in her seat, “and the’ll do you juthtithe. Good-bye, Thethilia!”

“Good-bye, Cecilia!” “Good-bye, Sissy!” “God bless you, dear!” in a variety of voices from all the room.

But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in her bosom, and he now interposed with, “Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me!”

“No, no!” she said, in another burst of tears. “Oh, no! Pray let me keep it for Father till he comes back! He will want it when he comes back. He had never thought of going away when he sent me for it. I must keep it for him, if you please!”

“Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell, Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith, Thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, when you’re grown up and married and well off, you come upon any horthe-riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, give it a bethpeak if you can, and think you might do wurth. People must be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,” continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever by so much talking; “they can’t be alwayth a-working, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a-learning. Make the betht of uth, not the wurtht. I’ve got my living out of the horthe-riding all my life, I know; but I conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to you, Thquire, make the betht of uth, not the wurtht!”

The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs; and the fixed eye of Philosophy—and its rolling eye, too—soon lost the three figures and the basket in the darkness of the street.

CHAPTER VII

Mrs. Sparsit

MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs. Sparsit was this lady’s name, and she was a prominent figure in attendance on Mr. Bounderby’s car as it rolled along in triumph with the Bully of humility inside.

For Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days but was highly connected. She had a great-aunt living in these very times called Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by the mother’s side what Mrs. Sparsit still called “a Powler.” Strangers of limited information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed not to know what a Powler was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might be a business, or a political party, or a profession of faith. The better class of minds, however, did not need to be informed that the Powlers were an ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves—which they had rather frequently done, as respected horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent Debtors’ Court.

The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother’s side a Powler, married this lady, being by the father’s side a Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher’s meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for