'
'What is the matter? How strange you look! And good Heaven,' said
Mr. Gradgrind, wondering more and more, 'have you come here exposed
to this storm?'
She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly knew. 'Yes.'
Then she uncovered her head, and letting her cloak and hood fall
where they might, stood looking at him: so colourless, so
dishevelled, so defiant and despairing, that he was afraid of her.
'What is it? I conjure you, Louisa, tell me what is the matter.'
She dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold hand on his
arm.
'Father, you have trained me from my cradle?'
'Yes, Louisa.'
'I curse the hour in which I was born to such a destiny.'
He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: 'Curse
the hour? Curse the hour?'
'How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable
things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are
the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What
have you done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that
should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here!'
She struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom.
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