 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. M'Choakumchild and Mrs.
Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months of her
probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long so very hard, and life in
general was opened to her as such a closely ruled ciphering-book, that assuredly
she would have run away, but for only one restraint.
    It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result of no
arithmetical process, was self-imposed in defiance of all calculation, and went
dead against any table of probabilities that any Actuary would have drawn up
from the premises. The girl believed that her father had not deserted her; she
lived in the hope that he would come back, and in the faith that he would be
made the happier by her remaining where she was.
    The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, rejecting
the superior comfort of knowing, on a sound arithmetical basis, that her father
was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet, what was to be
done? M'Choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that,
once possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest
conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that she was extremely slow in
the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected
therewith; that she would burst into tears on being required (by the mental
process) immediately to name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps
at fourteen-pence halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school, as low
could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of Political
Economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a prattler three feet high,
for returning to the question, »What is the first principle of this science?«
the absurd answer, »To do unto others as I would that they should do unto me.«
    Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; that
it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge, as per
system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular statements A to Z; and that
Jupe »must be kept to it.« So Jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but
no wiser.
    »It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!« she said, one
