'
'I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the red
sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. It made
me think, after all, how short my life would be, and how little I
could hope to do in it.'
'Nonsense!' said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost energetic.
'Nonsense! Don't stand there and tell me such stuff, Louisa, to my
face, when you know very well that if it was ever to reach your
father's ears I should never hear the last of it. After all the
trouble that has been taken with you! After the lectures you have
attended, and the experiments you have seen! After I have heard
you myself, when the whole of my right side has been benumbed,
going on with your master about combustion, and calcination, and
calorification, and I may say every kind of ation that could drive
a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd way
about sparks and ashes! I wish,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking
a chair, and discharging her strongest point before succumbing
under these mere shadows of facts, 'yes, I really do wish that I
had never had a family, and then you would have known what it was
to do without me!'
CHAPTER IX - SISSY'S PROGRESS
SISSY JUPE had not an easy time of it, between Mr.
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