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write a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say in this

weak letter would be left out of it. In all these foolish thoughts of

mine, which I have been so hardy as to confess to you because I know you

will understand me if anybody can, and will make more allowance for me

than anybody else would if you cannot--in all these thoughts, there is

one thought scarcely ever--never--out of my memory, and that is that

I hope you sometimes, in a quiet moment, have a thought for me. I must

tell you that as to this, I have felt, ever since I have been away, an

anxiety which I am very anxious to relieve. I have been afraid that you

may think of me in a new light, or a new character. Don't do that, I

could not bear that--it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose.

It would break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way

that would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to

me. What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never think

of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never think of me

as dressing any better, or living any better, than when you first

knew me. That you will remember me only as the little shabby girl you

protected with so much tenderness, from whose threadbare dress you have

kept away the rain, and whose wet feet you have dried at your fire.

That you will think of me (when you think of me at all), and of my true

affection and devoted gratitude, always without change, as of your poor

child, LITTLE DORRIT.

P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs

Gowan. Her words were, 'Very well and very happy.' And she looked most

beautiful.

CHAPTER 5. Something Wrong Somewhere

The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was

much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour

of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference

with Mrs General.

The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his

valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed about a

third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his compliments to that

lady, and represent him as desiring the favour of an interview. It being

that period of the forenoon when the various members of the family had

coffee in their own chambers, some couple of hours before assembling at

breakfast in a faded hall which had once been sumptuous, but was now

the prey of watery vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was

accessible to the valet. That envoy found her on a little square of

carpet, so extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone

and marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for

the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come into

possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty purses by

one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had that moment been

transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial saloon with which it had

no connection.

Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty

coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's

apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming to her (which, in his

gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and

escorted Mrs General to the presence. It was quite a walk, by mysterious

staircases and corridors, from Mrs General's apartment,--hoodwinked by

a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in it, and dungeon-like

opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with a thousand downward

stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture in them had been weeping

tears of rust into the Adriatic for centuries--to Mr Dorrit's apartment:

with a whole English house-front of window, a prospect of beautiful

church-domes rising into the blue sky sheer out of the water which

reflected them, and a hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the

doorways below, where his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure,

drowsily swinging in a little forest of piles.

Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap--the dormant grub that

had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into a rare

butterfly--rose to receive Mrs General. A chair to Mrs General. An

easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you about, what do you

mean? Now, leave us!

'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty--'

'By no means,' Mrs General interposed. 'I was quite at your disposition.

I had had my coffee.'

'--I took the liberty,' said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent

placidity of one who was above correction, 'to solicit the favour of

a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather worried

respecting my--ha--my younger daughter. You will have observed a great

difference of temperament, madam, between my two daughters?'

Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never

without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), 'There is a

great difference.'

'May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?' said Mr Dorrit, with a

deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.

'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'has force of character and

self-reliance. Amy, none.'

None? O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs General,

ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who

taught her sister to dance. O Mrs General, Mrs General, ask me, her

father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this

slighted little creature from her childhood up!

No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit's head. He looked at Mrs

General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the

proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, 'True, madam.'

'I would not,' said Mrs General, 'be understood to say, observe,

that there is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material

there--perhaps, indeed, a little too much.'

'Will you be kind enough, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to be--ha--more

explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having--hum--too

much material. What material?'

'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'at present forms too many opinions.

Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.'

Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr Dorrit

hastened to reply, 'Unquestionably, madam, you are right.' Mrs General

returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, 'I believe so.'

'But you are aware, my dear madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that my daughters

had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when they were very

young; and that, in consequence of my not having been until lately

the recognised heir to my property, they have lived with me as

a comparatively poor, though always proud, gentleman, in--ha

hum--retirement!'

'I do not,' said Mrs General, 'lose sight of the circumstance.'

'Madam,'pursued Mr Dorrit, 'of my daughter Fanny, under her present

guidance and with such an example constantly before her--'

(Mrs General shut her eyes.)--'I have no misgivings. There is

adaptability of character in Fanny. But my younger daughter, Mrs

General, rather worries and vexes my thoughts. I must inform you that

she has always been my favourite.'

'There is no accounting,' said Mrs General, 'for these partialities.'

'Ha--no,' assented Mr Dorrit. 'No. Now, madam, I am troubled by noticing

that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does not Care to go

about with us; she is lost in the society we have here; our tastes

are evidently not her tastes. Which,' said Mr Dorrit, summing up with

judicial gravity, 'is to say, in other words, that there is something

wrong in--ha--Amy.'

'May we incline to the supposition,' said Mrs General, with a little

touch of varnish, 'that something is referable to the novelty of the

position?'

'Excuse me, madam,' observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly. 'The daughter

of a gentleman, though--ha--himself at one time comparatively far from

affluent--comparatively--and herself reared in--hum--retirement, need

not of necessity find this position so very novel.'

'True,' said Mrs General, 'true.'

'Therefore, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid an

emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with

urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I took the

liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the

topic to you, and inquire how you would advise me?'

'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'I have conversed with Amy several

times since we have been residing here, on the general subject of the

formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering

exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to

wonder. I have pointed out to her that the celebrated Mr Eustace, the

classical tourist, did not think much of it; and that he compared the

Rialto, greatly to its disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars

Bridges. I need not add, after what you have said, that I have not yet

found my arguments successful. You do me the honour to ask me what to

advise. It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a baseless

assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been accustomed to

exercise influence over the minds of others.'

'Hum--madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I have been at the head of--ha of

a considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not

unaccustomed to--an influential position.'

'I am happy,' returned Mrs General, 'to be so corroborated. I would

therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr Dorrit should speak to

Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes known to her. Being

his favourite, besides, and no doubt attached to him, she is all the

more likely to yield to his influence.'

'I had anticipated your suggestion, madam,' said Mr Dorrit,

'but--ha--was not sure that I might--hum--not encroach on--'

'On my province, Mr Dorrit?' said Mrs General, graciously. 'Do not

mention it.'

'Then, with your leave, madam,' resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his little

bell to summon his valet, 'I will send for her at once.'

'Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?'

'Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for a

minute or two--'

'Not at all.'

So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy's maid, and to

request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit wished to

see her in his own room. In delivering this charge to Tinkler, Mr Dorrit

looked severely at him, and also kept a jealous eye upon him until he

went out at the door, mistrusting that he might have something in his

mind prejudicial to the family dignity; that he might have even got wind

of some Collegiate joke before he came into the service, and might be

derisively reviving its remembrance at the present moment. If Tinkler

had happened to smile, however faintly and innocently, nothing would

have persuaded Mr Dorrit, to the hour of his death, but that this was

the case. As Tinkler happened, however, very fortunately for himself, to

be of a serious and composed countenance, he escaped the secret danger

that threatened him. And as on his return--when Mr Dorrit eyed him

again--he announced Miss Amy as if she had come to a funeral, he left a

vague impression on Mr Dorrit's mind that he was a well-conducted young

fellow, who had been brought up in the study of his Catechism by a

widowed mother.

'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have just now been the subject of some

conversation between myself and Mrs General. We agree that you scarcely

seem at home here. Ha--how is this?'

A pause.

'I think, father, I require a little time.'

'Papa is a preferable mode of address,' observed Mrs General. 'Father is

rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to

the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very

good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism. You will find it

serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to

yourself in company--on entering a room, for instance--Papa, potatoes,

poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.'

'Pray, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, 'attend to the--hum--precepts of Mrs

General.'

Poor Little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent

varnisher, promised to try.

'You say, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'that you think you require time.

Time for what?'

Another pause.

'To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant,' said

Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she had very

nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, in her desire

to submit herself to Mrs General and please him.

Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased. 'Amy,' he returned,

'it appears to me, I must say, that you have had abundance of time for

that. Ha--you surprise me. You disappoint me. Fanny has conquered any

such little difficulties, and--hum--why not you?'

'I hope I shall do better soon,' said Little Dorrit.

'I hope so,' returned her father. 'I--ha--I most devoutly hope so, Amy.

I sent for you, in order that I might say--hum--impressively say, in

the presence of Mrs General, to whom we are all so much indebted

for obligingly being present among us, on--ha--on this or any other

occasion,' Mrs General shut her eyes, 'that I--ha hum--am not pleased

with you. You make Mrs General's a thankless task. You--ha--embarrass

me very much. You have always (as I have informed Mrs General) been my