Therefore, sir, I accept your offer gratefully, and with many
sincere acknowledgments for past favours. And I hope, sir,' said
Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an impressively compassionate manner,
'I fondly hope that Miss Gradgrind may be all you desire, and
deserve!'
Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. It was in
vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in any of his
explosive ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on
him, as a Victim. She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful;
but, the more polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful, the
more hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, she; the forlorner
Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that tenderness for his
melancholy fate, that his great red countenance used to break out
into cold perspirations when she looked at him.
Meanwhile the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight
weeks' time, and Mr. Bounderby went every evening to Stone Lodge as
an accepted wooer. Love was made on these occasions in the form of
bracelets; and, on all occasions during the period of betrothal,
took a manufacturing aspect.
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