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one another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul

looking steadily out of her eyes, 'what I am going to ask you not to

do?'

'I think I can. But I may be wrong.' 'No, you are not wrong,' said

Little Dorrit, shaking her head. 'If we should want it so very, very

badly that we cannot do without it, let me ask you for it.'

'I Will,--I Will.'

'Don't encourage him to ask. Don't understand him if he does ask. Don't

give it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to

think better of him!'

Clennam said--not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her

anxious eyes--that her wish should be sacred with him.

'You don't know what he is,' she said; 'you don't know what he really

is. How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not

gradually, as I have done! You have been so good to us, so delicately

and truly good, that I want him to be better in your eyes than in

anybody's. And I cannot bear to think,' cried Little Dorrit, covering

her tears with her hands, 'I cannot bear to think that you of all the

world should see him in his only moments of degradation.'

'Pray,' said Clennam, 'do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little

Dorrit! This is quite understood now.'

'Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself from

saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew

for certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you.

Not because I am ashamed of him,' she dried her tears quickly, 'but

because I know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud

of him.'

Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone.

Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the

fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best

diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she

drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe

after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent

state, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious! Ain't it hospitally!' When she had

finished the wine and these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket

(she was never without her basket) with every eatable thing upon the

table, and to take especial care to leave no scrap behind. Maggy's

pleasure in doing this and her little mother's pleasure in seeing Maggy

pleased, was as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the

late conversation.

'But the gates will have been locked long ago,' said Clennam, suddenly

remembering it. 'Where are you going?'

'I am going to Maggy's lodging,' answered Little Dorrit. 'I shall be

quite safe, quite well taken care of.'

'I must accompany you there,' said Clennam, 'I cannot let you go alone.'

'Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. Pray do!' begged Little

Dorrit.

She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in

obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand

that Maggy's lodging was of the obscurest sort. 'Come, Maggy,' said

Little Dorrit cheerily, 'we shall do very well; we know the way by this

time, Maggy?'

'Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,' chuckled Maggy. And away

they went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, 'God bless you!' She

said it very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above--who

knows!--as a whole cathedral choir.

Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street before he

followed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time

on Little Dorrit's privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure

in the neighbourhood to which she was accustomed. So diminutive she

looked, so fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather,

flitting along in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in

his compassion, and in his habit of considering her a child apart from

the rest of the rough world, as if he would have been glad to take her

up in his arms and carry her to her journey's end.

In course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the

Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn

down a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further,

and slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of

being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long

afterwards.

But, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in

darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, 'Now, this is a

good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give offence. Consequently,

we will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them

so, we must walk about till day.'

Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. Twice,

Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. All was close

and still. 'Maggy, we must do the best we can, my dear. We must be

patient, and wait for day.'

It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came out

into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past

one. 'In only five hours and a half,' said Little Dorrit, 'we shall be

able to go home.' To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being

so near, was a natural sequence. They went to the closed gate, and

peeped through into the court-yard. 'I hope he is sound asleep,' said

Little Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, 'and does not miss me.'

The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down

Maggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close

together, rested there for some time. While the street was empty and

silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at

a distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was

startled, and whispered, 'Maggy, I see some one. Come away!' Maggy

would then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a

little, and come back again.

As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up pretty

well. But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and

shivered and whimpered. 'It will soon be over, dear,' said Little Dorrit

patiently. 'Oh it's all very fine for you, little mother,' returned

Maggy, 'but I'm a poor thing, only ten years old.' At last, in the dead

of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid

the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she

sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing

the clouds pass over them in their wild flight--which was the dance at

Little Dorrit's party.

'If it really was a party!' she thought once, as she sat there. 'If it

was light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear

was its master, and had never been inside these walls.

And if Mr Clennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to

delightful music, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we could

be! I wonder--' Such a vista of wonder opened out before her, that

she sat looking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy was querulous

again, and wanted to get up and walk.

Three o'clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London

Bridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and

looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little

spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining

like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and

misery. They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in

nooks. They had run from drunkards. They had started from slinking men,

whistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at

full speed. Though everywhere the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit,

happy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely

upon Maggy. And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling

or prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to 'let

the woman and the child go by!'

So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had

sounded from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the east,

already looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came

after them.

'What are you doing with the child?' she said to Maggy.

She was young--far too young to be there, Heaven knows!--and neither

ugly nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally

coarse voice; there was even something musical in its sound. 'What are

you doing with yourself?' retorted Maggy, for want Of a better answer.

'Can't you see, without my telling you?'

'I don't know as I can,' said Maggy.

'Killing myself! Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you doing

with the child?'

The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close

at Maggy's side.

'Poor thing!' said the woman. 'Have you no feeling, that you keep her

out in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no eyes, that

you don't see how delicate and slender she is? Have you no sense (you

don't look as if you had much) that you don't take more pity on this

cold and trembling little hand?'

She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own

two, chafing it. 'Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,' she said, bending

her face, 'and tell me where's she taking you.'

Little Dorrit turned towards her.

'Why, my God!' she said, recoiling, 'you're a woman!'

'Don't mind that!' said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands that

had suddenly released hers. 'I am not afraid of you.'

'Then you had better be,' she answered. 'Have you no mother?'

'No.'

'No father?'

'Yes, a very dear one.'

'Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good night!'

'I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a

child.'

'You can't do it,' said the woman. 'You are kind and innocent; but you

can't look at me out of a child's eyes. I never should have touched you,

but I thought that you were a child.' And with a strange, wild cry, she

went away.

No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of

the streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going

to various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic

at markets; in the stir of the riverside. There was coming day in the

flaring lights, with a feebler colour in them than they would have had

at another time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and

the ghastly dying of the night.

They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it

should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit,

leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going round by the

Church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps

and looked in.

'Who's that?' cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap as if

he were going to bed in a vault.

'It's no one particular, sir,' said Little Dorrit.

'Stop!' cried the man. 'Let's have a look at you!'

This caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to

present herself and her charge before him.

'I thought so!' said he. 'I know YOU.'

'We have often seen each other,' said Little Dorrit, recognising the

sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, 'when I have

been at church here.'

'More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know; you're

one of our curiosities.'

'Indeed!' said Little Dorrit.

'To be sure. As the child of the--by-the-bye, how did you get out so

early?'

'We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.'

'You don't mean it? And there's another hour good yet! Come into the

vestry. You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters.

I'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't be here, you may depend

upon it. One of our curiosities mustn't be cold when we have it in our

power to warm her up comfortable. Come along.'

He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred

the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a

particular volume. 'Here you are, you see,' he said, taking it down and

turning the leaves. 'Here you'll find yourself, as large as life. Amy,

daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of

St George. And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much

as a day's or a night's absence, ever since. Is it true?'

'Quite true, till last night.' 'Lord!' But his surveying her with an

admiring gaze suggested Something else to him, to wit: 'I am sorry to

see, though, that you are faint and tired. Stay a bit. I'll get some

cushions out of the church, and you and your friend shall lie down

before the fire.

Don't be afraid of not going in to join your father when the gate opens.

I'll call you.'

He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground.

'There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind

thanking. I've daughters of my own. And though they weren't born in the

Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of

carrying on, of your father's breed. Stop a bit. I must put something

under the cushion for your head. Here's a burial volume, just the