ladies - born ladies -
belonging to families - Families! - who next to worship the ground I walk on.«
    He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law's head.
    »Whereas your daughter,« proceeded Bounderby, »is far from being a born
lady. That you know, yourself. Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff about
such things, for you are very well aware I don't; but that such is the fact, and
you, Tom Gradgrind, can't change it. Why do I say this?«
    »Not, I fear,« observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, »to spare me.«
    »Hear me out,« said Bounderby, »and refrain from cutting in till your turn
comes round. I say this, because highly connected females have been astonished
to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself, and to witness her
insensibility. They have wondered how I have suffered it. And I wonder myself
now, and I won't suffer it.«
    »Bounderby,« returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, »the less we say to-night the
better, I think.«
    »On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say to-night, the better, I
think. That is,« the consideration checked him, »till I have said all I mean to
say, and then I don't care how soon we stop. I come to a question that may
shorten the business. What do you mean by the proposal you made just now?«
    »What do I mean, Bounderby?«
    »By your visiting proposition,« said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk of
the hayfield.
    »I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner, for
allowing Louisa a period of repose and reflection here, which may tend to a
gradual alteration for the better in many respects.«
    »To a softening down of your ideas of the incompatibility?« said Bounderby.
    »If you put it in those terms.«
    »What made you think of this?« said Bounderby.
    »I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood. Is it asking
too much, Bounderby, that you, so far her elder, should aid in trying to set her
right? You have accepted a great charge of her; for better for worse, for -«
    Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to
Stephen Blackpool, but