Hard Times by Charles Dickens (ebooks that read to you txt) 📕

that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent mariners from that bold rock her Roman nose and the dark and craggy region in its neighbourhood, but for the placidity of her manner. Although it was hard to believe that her retiring for the night could be anything but a form, so severely wide awake were those classical eyes of hers, and so impossible did it seem that her rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her manner of sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty mittens (they were constructed of a cool fabric like a meat-safe), or of ambling to unknown places of destination with her foot in her cotton stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that most observers would have been constrained to suppose her a dove, embodied by some freak of nature, in the earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook-beaked order.

She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from story to story was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and dignity on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go at a great pace.

She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant conversation with him soon after her arrival. She made him her stately curtsey in the garden, one morning before breakfast.

“It appears but yesterday, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “that I had the honour of receiving you at the Bank, when you were so good as to wish to be made acquainted with Mr. Bounderby’s address.”

“An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the course of ages,” said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs. Sparsit with the most indolent of all possible airs.

“We live in a singular world, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit.

“I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to have made a remark, similar in effect, though not so epigrammatically expressed.”

“A singular world, I would say, sir,” pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of her dark eyebrows, not altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its dulcet tones; “as regards the intimacies we form at one time, with individuals we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, that on that occasion you went so far as to say you were actually apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.”

“Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves. I availed myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and it is unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit’s talent for⁠—in fact for anything requiring accuracy⁠—with a combination of strength of mind⁠—and family⁠—is too habitually developed to admit of any question.” He was almost falling asleep over this compliment; it took him so long to get through, and his mind wandered so much in the course of its execution.

“You found Miss Gradgrind⁠—I really cannot call her Mrs. Bounderby; it’s very absurd of me⁠—as youthful as I described her?” asked Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly.

“You drew her portrait perfectly,” said Mr. Harthouse. “Presented her dead image.”

“Very engaging, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly to revolve over one another.

“Highly so.”

“It used to be considered,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “that Miss Gradgrind was wanting in animation, but I confess she appears to me considerably and strikingly improved in that respect. Ay, and indeed here is Mr. Bounderby!” cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head a great many times, as if she had been talking and thinking of no one else. “How do you find yourself this morning, sir? Pray let us see you cheerful, sir.”

Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and lightenings of his load, had by this time begun to have the effect of making Mr. Bounderby softer than usual towards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder than usual to most other people from his wife downward. So, when Mrs. Sparsit said with forced lightness of heart, “You want your breakfast, sir, but I dare say Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to preside at the table,” Mr. Bounderby replied, “If I waited to be taken care of by my wife, ma’am, I believe you know pretty well I should wait till Doomsday, so I’ll trouble you to take charge of the teapot.” Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her old position at table.

This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. She was so humble withal, that when Louisa appeared, she rose, protesting she never could think of sitting in that place under existing circumstances, often as she had had the honour of making Mr. Bounderby’s breakfast, before Mrs. Gradgrind⁠—she begged pardon, she meant to say Miss Bounderby⁠—she hoped to be excused, but she really could not get it right yet, though she trusted to become familiar with it by and by⁠—had assumed her present position. It was only (she observed) because Miss Gradgrind happened to be a little late, and Mr. Bounderby’s time was so very precious, and she knew it of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the moment, that she had taken the liberty of complying with his request; long as his will had been a law to her.

“There! Stop where you are, ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, “stop where you are! Mrs. Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of the trouble, I believe.”

“Don’t say that, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost with severity, “because that is very unkind to Mrs. Bounderby. And to be unkind is not to be you, sir.”

“You may set your mind at rest, ma’am.⁠—You can take it very quietly, can’t you, Loo?” said Mr. Bounderby, in a blustering way to his wife.

“Of course. It is of no moment. Why should it be of any importance to me?”

“Why