Bounderby. There were occasions when in
looking at him she was involuntarily moved to shake her head, as
who would say, 'Alas, poor Yorick!' After allowing herself to be
betrayed into these evidences of emotion, she would force a lambent
brightness, and would be fitfully cheerful, and would say, 'You
have still good spirits, sir, I am thankful to find;' and would
appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that Mr. Bounderby bore
up as he did. One idiosyncrasy for which she often apologized, she
found it excessively difficult to conquer. She had a curious
propensity to call Mrs. Bounderby 'Miss Gradgrind,' and yielded to
it some three or four score times in the course of the evening.
Her repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. Sparsit with modest
confusion; but indeed, she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss
Gradgrind: whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady whom
she had had the happiness of knowing from a child could be really
and truly Mrs. Bounderby, she found almost impossible.
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