to be suspected of dropping over the
banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion
suggested the wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was,
that she was never hurried. She would shoot with consummate velocity from the
roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and dignity on
the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go
at a great pace.
    She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant conversation
with him soon after her arrival. She made him her stately curtsey in the garden,
one morning before breakfast.
    »It appears but yesterday, sir,« said Mrs. Sparsit, »that I had the honour
of receiving you at the Bank, when you were so good as to wish to be made
acquainted with Mr. Bounderby's address.«
    »An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the course of
Ages,« said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his head to Mrs. Sparsit with the most
indolent of all possible airs.
    »We live in a singular world, sir,« said Mrs. Sparsit.
    »I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to have made a
remark, similar in effect, though not so epigrammatically expressed.«
    »A singular world, I would say, sir,« pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after
acknowledging the compliment with a drooping of her dark eyebrows, not
altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its dulcet tones; »as
regards the intimacies we form at one time, with individuals we were quite
ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, that on that occasion you went so far as
to say you were actually apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.«
    »Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves. I availed
myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and it is unnecessary to
add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit's talent for - in fact for
anything requiring accuracy - with a combination of strength of mind - and
Family - is too habitually developed to admit of any question.« He was almost
falling asleep over this compliment; it took him so long to get through, and his
mind wandered so much in the course of its execution.
    »You found Miss Gradgrind - I really cannot call her Mrs. Bounderby; it's
very absurd of me - as youthful as I described her?« asked Mrs. Sparsit,
sweetly.
    »You drew her portrait