should as soon have expected to find my children reading poetry.'

'Dear me,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. 'How can you, Louisa and
Thomas! I wonder at you. I declare you're enough to make one
regret ever having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say
I wish I hadn't. Then what would you have done, I should like to
know?'

Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent
remarks. He frowned impatiently.

'As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't
go and look at the shells and minerals and things provided for you,
instead of circuses!' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'You know, as well as I
do, no young people have circus masters, or keep circuses in
cabinets, or attend lectures about circuses. What can you possibly
want to know of circuses then? I am sure you have enough to do, if
that's what you want. With my head in its present state, I
couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts you have got to
attend to.'

'That's the reason!' pouted Louisa.

'Don't tell me that's the reason, because it can't be nothing of
the sort,' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'Go and be somethingological
directly.' Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and
usually dismissed her children to their studies with this general
injunction to choose their pursuit.

In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind's stock of facts in general was woefully