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favourite child; I have always made you a--hum--a friend and companion;

in return, I beg--I--ha--I do beg, that you accommodate yourself

better to--hum--circumstances, and dutifully do what becomes your--your

station.'

Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual, being excited

on the subject and anxious to make himself particularly emphatic.

'I do beg,' he repeated, 'that this may be attended to, and that you

will seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a manner both

becoming your position as--ha--Miss Amy Dorrit, and satisfactory to

myself and Mrs General.'

That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then, slowly

opening them and rising, added these words: 'If Miss Amy Dorrit will

direct her own attention to, and will accept of my poor assistance in,

the formation of a surface, Mr. Dorrit will have no further cause of

anxiety. May I take this opportunity of remarking, as an instance

in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the

attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young

friend of mine? They should not be looked at. Nothing disagreeable

should ever be looked at. Apart from such a habit standing in the way

of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good

breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A truly

refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that

is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.' Having delivered this

exalted sentiment, Mrs General made a sweeping obeisance, and retired

with an expression of mouth indicative of Prunes and Prism.

Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet

earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except for a

passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone with him

the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and there was

repressed emotion in her face.

Not for herself. She might feel a little wounded, but her care was not

for herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had turned, to

him. A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since their accession

to fortune, that even now she could never see him as he used to be

before the prison days, had gradually begun to assume form in her mind.

She felt that, in what he had just now said to her and in his whole

bearing towards her, there was the well-known shadow of the Marshalsea

wall. It took a new shape, but it was the old sad shadow. She began

with sorrowful unwillingness to acknowledge to herself that she was

not strong enough to keep off the fear that no space in the life of man

could overcome that quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had

no blame to bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with,

no emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded

tenderness.

This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in the

brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city without and

the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at the moment in the

long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, and wished to take her

seat beside him, and comfort him, and be again full of confidence with

him, and of usefulness to him. If he divined what was in her thoughts,

his own were not in tune with it.

After some uneasy moving in his seat, he got up and walked about,

looking very much dissatisfied.

'Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?'

'No, no. Nothing else.'

'I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you will not

think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more than ever, to

adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me--for indeed I have tried

all along, though I have failed, I know.'

'Amy,' he returned, turning short upon her. 'You--ha--habitually hurt

me.'

'Hurt you, father! I!'

'There is a--hum--a topic,' said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the

ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly shocked

face, 'a painful topic, a series of events which I wish--ha--altogether

to obliterate. This is understood by your sister, who has already

remonstrated with you in my presence; it is understood by your brother;

it is understood by--ha hum--by every one of delicacy and sensitiveness

except yourself--ha--I am sorry to say, except yourself. You,

Amy--hum--you alone and only you--constantly revive the topic, though

not in words.'

She laid her hand on his arm. She did nothing more. She gently touched

him. The trembling hand may have said, with some expression, 'Think of

me, think how I have worked, think of my many cares!' But she said not a

syllable herself.

There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had

not foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand. He began to justify

himself in a heated, stumbling, angry manner, which made nothing of it.

'I was there all those years. I was--ha--universally acknowledged as

the head of the place. I--hum--I caused you to be respected there, Amy.

I--ha hum--I gave my family a position there. I deserve a return. I

claim a return. I say, sweep it off the face of the earth and begin

afresh. Is that much? I ask, is that much?' He did not once look at her,

as he rambled on in this way; but gesticulated at, and appealed to, the

empty air.

'I have suffered. Probably I know how much I have suffered better than

any one--ha--I say than any one! If I can put that aside, if I can

eradicate the marks of what I have endured, and can emerge before the

world--a--ha--gentleman unspoiled, unspotted--is it a great deal to

expect--I say again, is it a great deal to expect--that my children

should--hum--do the same and sweep that accursed experience off the face

of the earth?'

In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in a

carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear anything.

'Accordingly, they do it. Your sister does it. Your brother does it. You

alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and companion of my

life when you were a mere--hum--Baby, do not do it.

You alone say you can't do it. I provide you with valuable assistance to

do it. I attach an accomplished and highly bred lady--ha--Mrs General,

to you, for the purpose of doing it. Is it surprising that I should be

displeased? Is it necessary that I should defend myself for expressing

my displeasure? No!'

Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself, without any

abatement of his flushed mood.

'I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I express

any displeasure at all. I--hum--I necessarily make that appeal within

limited bounds, or I--ha--should render legible, by that lady, what I

desire to be blotted out. Am I selfish? Do I complain for my own sake?

No. No. Principally for--ha hum--your sake, Amy.'

This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of pursuing

it, to have just that instant come into his head.

'I said I was hurt. So I am. So I--ha--am determined to be, whatever

is advanced to the contrary. I am hurt that my daughter, seated in

the--hum--lap of fortune, should mope and retire and proclaim herself

unequal to her destiny. I am hurt that she should--ha--systematically

reproduce what the rest of us blot out; and seem--hum--I had almost said

positively anxious--to announce to wealthy and distinguished society

that she was born and bred in--ha hum--a place that I myself decline to

name. But there is no inconsistency--ha--not the least, in my feeling

hurt, and yet complaining principally for your sake, Amy. I do; I say

again, I do. It is for your sake that I wish you, under the auspices of

Mrs General, to form a--hum--a surface. It is for your sake that I wish

you to have a--ha--truly refined mind, and (in the striking words of

Mrs General) to be ignorant of everything that is not perfectly proper,

placid, and pleasant.'

He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a

sort of ill-adjusted alarum. The touch was still upon his arm. He fell

silent; and after looking about the ceiling again for a little while,

looked down at her. Her head drooped, and he could not see her face; but

her touch was tender and quiet, and in the expression of her dejected

figure there was no blame--nothing but love. He began to whimper, just

as he had done that night in the prison when she afterwards sat at

his bedside till morning; exclaimed that he was a poor ruin and a poor

wretch in the midst of his wealth; and clasped her in his arms. 'Hush,

hush, my own dear! Kiss me!' was all she said to him. His tears

were soon dried, much sooner than on the former occasion; and he was

presently afterwards very high with his valet, as a way of righting

himself for having shed any.

With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this was

the only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he spoke to his

daughter Amy of the old days.

But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from her

apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment. Both these young persons of

distinction were something the worse for late hours. As to Miss Fanny,

she had become the victim of an insatiate mania for what she called

'going into society;'and would have gone into it head-foremost fifty

times between sunset and sunrise, if so many opportunities had been at

her disposal. As to Mr Edward, he, too, had a large acquaintance, and

was generally engaged (for the most part, in diceing circles, or others

of a kindred nature), during the greater part of every night. For this

gentleman, when his fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage

of being already prepared for the highest associates, and having little

to learn: so much was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made

him acquainted with horse-dealing and billiard-marking.

At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared. As the old

gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might have

practised pistol-shooting without much chance of discovery by the other

inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose the restoration

to him of his clarionet, which Mr Dorrit had ordered to be confiscated,

but which she had ventured to preserve. Notwithstanding some objections

from Miss Fanny, that it was a low instrument, and that she detested the

sound of it, the concession had been made. But it was then discovered

that he had had enough of it, and never played it, now that it was no

longer his means of getting bread. He had insensibly acquired a new

habit of shuffling into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted

paper of snuff in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who

had proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might

not be discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when it was

bought); and of passing hours and hours before the portraits of renowned

Venetians. It was never made out what his dazed eyes saw in them;

whether he had an interest in them merely as pictures, or whether he

confusedly identified them with a glory that was departed, like the

strength of his own mind. But he paid his court to them with great

exactness, and clearly derived pleasure from the pursuit. After the

first few days, Little Dorrit happened one morning to assist at these

attentions. It so evidently heightened his gratification that she often

accompanied him afterwards, and the greatest delight of which the old

man had shown himself susceptible since his ruin, arose out of these

excursions, when he would carry a chair about for her from picture

to picture, and stand behind it, in spite of all her remonstrances,

silently presenting her to the noble Venetians.

It fell out that, at this family breakfast, he referred to their having

seen in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and gentleman whom they

had encountered on the Great Saint Bernard, 'I forget the name,' said

he. 'I dare say you remember them, William?

I dare say you do, Edward?'

'_I_ remember 'em well enough,' said the latter.

'I should think so,' observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head and

a glance at her sister. 'But they would not have been recalled to our

remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn't tumbled over the subject.'

'My dear, what a curious phrase,' said Mrs General. 'Would not

inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be better?'

'Thank you very much, Mrs General,' returned the young lady, 'no, I

think not. On the whole I prefer my own expression.' This was always

Miss Fanny's way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs General. But she

always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at another time.

'I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny,' said

Little Dorrit, 'even if Uncle had not. I have scarcely seen you since,

you know. I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast; because I should

like to pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become better acquainted with

her, if Papa and Mrs General do not object.'

'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'I am sure I am glad to find you at last

expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in Venice.

Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable acquaintances, remains to

be determined.'

'Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear.'

'No doubt,' said Fanny. 'But you can't separate her from her husband, I

believe, without an Act of Parliament.'

'Do you think, Papa,' inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and

hesitation, 'there is any objection to my making this visit?'

'Really,' he replied, 'I--ha--what is Mrs General's view?'

Mrs General's view was, that not having the honour of any acquaintance

with the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not in a position

to varnish the present article. She could only remark, as a general