She then walked me on very fast

‟ ‟

say I don’t care—but if he was to come to our house with his great,

shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as

Methuselah, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him. Such asses as he

and Ma make of themselves!”

‟My dear!” I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the vigorous

emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. Your duty as a child—” ‟ ‟Oh! Don’t talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where’s Ma’s duty

as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then let

the public and Africa show duty as a child; it’s much more their affair

than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I shocked too;

so we are both shocked, and there’s an end of it!”

She walked me on faster yet.

‟But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and I

won’t have anything to say to him. I can’t bear him. If there’s any stuff in

the world that I hate and detest, it’s the stuff he and Ma talk. I wonder

the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the patience to stay

there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and contradictions as all

that sounding nonsense, and Ma’s management!”

I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young

gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the

disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada

coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run a

race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked moodily

on at my side while I admired the long successions and varieties of

streets, the quantity of people already going to and fro, the number of

vehicles passing and repassing, the busy preparations in the setting forth

of shop windows and the sweeping out of shops, and the extraordinary

creatures in rags secretly groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins

and other refuse.‟ ‟

say I don’t care—but if he was to come to our house with his great,

shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as

Methuselah, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him. Such asses as he

and Ma make of themselves!”

‟My dear!” I remonstrated, in allusion to the epithet and the vigorous

emphasis Miss Jellyby set upon it. Your duty as a child—” ‟ ‟Oh! Don’t talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where’s Ma’s duty

as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then let

the public and Africa show duty as a child; it’s much more their affair

than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I shocked too;

so we are both shocked, and there’s an end of it!”

She walked me on faster yet.

‟But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and I

won’t have anything to say to him. I can’t bear him. If there’s any stuff in

the world that I hate and detest, it’s the stuff he and Ma talk. I wonder

the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the patience to stay

there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and contradictions as all

that sounding nonsense, and Ma’s management!”

I could not but understand her to refer to Mr. Quale, the young

gentleman who had appeared after dinner yesterday. I was saved the

disagreeable necessity of pursuing the subject by Richard and Ada

coming up at a round pace, laughing and asking us if we meant to run a

race. Thus interrupted, Miss Jellyby became silent and walked moodily

on at my side while I admired the long successions and varieties of

streets, the quantity of people already going to and fro, the number of

vehicles passing and repassing, the busy preparations in the setting forth

of shop windows and the sweeping out of shops, and the extraordinary

creatures in rags secretly groping among the swept-out rubbish for pins

and other refuse.