Chapter 26 - Page 2

Under the circumstances, I didn’t expect it yet. Rome wasn’t built in a day, ma’am.’

‘Very true, sir,’ said Mrs Sparsit, shaking her head.

‘Nor yet in a week, ma’am.’

‘No, indeed, sir,’ returned Mrs Sparsit, with a gentle melancholy upon her.

‘In a similar manner, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, ‘I can wait, you know. If Romulus and Remus could wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait. They were better off in their youth than I was, however. They had a she-wolf for a nurse; I had only a she-wolf for a grandmother. She didn’t give any milk, ma’am; she gave bruises. She was a regular Alderney at that.’

‘Ah!’ Mrs Sparsit sighed and shuddered.

‘No, ma’am,’ continued Bounderby, ‘I have not heard anything more about it. It’s in hand, though; and young Tom, who rather sticks to business at present — something new for him; he hadn’t the schooling I had — is helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow over. Do what you like under the rose, but don’t give a sign of what you’re about; or half a hundred of ’em will combine together and get this fellow who has bolted, out of reach for good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves will grow in confidence by little and little, and we shall have ’em.’

‘Very sagacious indeed, sir,’ said Mrs Sparsit. ‘Very interesting. The old woman you mentioned, sir — ’

‘The old woman I mentioned, ma’am,’ said Bounderby, cutting the matter short, as it was nothing to boast about, ‘is not laid hold of; but, she may take her oath she will be, if that is any satisfaction to her villanous old mind. In the meantime, ma’am, I am of opinion, if you ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked about, the better.’

The same evening, Mrs Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting from her packing operations, looked towards her great staircase and saw Louisa still descending.

She sat by Mr Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking very low, he stood leaning over her, as they whispered together, and his face almost touched her hair. ‘If not quite!’ said Mrs Sparsit, straining her hawk’s eyes to the utmost. Mrs Sparsit was too distant to hear a word of their discourse, or even to know that they were speaking softly, otherwise than from the expression of their figures; but what they said was this:

‘You recollect the man, Mr Harthouse?’

‘Oh, perfectly!’

‘His face, and his manner, and what he said?’

‘Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. It was knowing to hold