The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs; and the fixed eye of Philosophy—­and its rolling eye, too,—­soon lost the three figures, and the basket in the darkness of the street.

To Mr. Bounderby’s house the weeping Sissy was conducted, and remained there while Mr. Gradgrind returned to Stone Lodge to mature his plans for the clown’s daughter.  He soon came back to Mr. Bounderby’s, bringing his daughter Louisa with him, and Sissy Jupe stood before them, with downcast eyes, while Mr. Gradgrind thus addressed her: 

“Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and when you are not at school, to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an invalid.  I have explained to Miss Louisa—­this is Miss Louisa—­the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to understand that the subject is not to be referred to any more.  From this time you begin your history.  You are at present ignorant, I know.”

“Yes, sir, very,” she answered curtseying.

“I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; and you will be a living proof of the advantages of the training you will receive.  You will be reclaimed and formed.  You have been in the habit now of reading to your father, and those people I found you among, I dare say?” said Mr. Gradgrind.

“Only to father and to Merrylegs, sir.  At least I mean to father, when Merrylegs was always there.”

“Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind with a frown.  “I don’t ask about him.  I understand you have been in the habit of reading to your father, and what did you read to him, Jupe?”

“About the fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the Genies,” she sobbed out:  “And about—­”

“Hush!” exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, “that is enough.  Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more.”

Then Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to Stone Lodge, where she speedily grew as pale as wax, and as heavy-eyed as all the other victims of Mr. Gradgrind’s practical system of training.  She 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.  She 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?  Mr. 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 after eight weeks of induction into the elements of Political Economy, she had only yesterday returned 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.”