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principle observed in the varnishing trade, that much depended on the

quarter from which the lady under consideration was accredited to a

family so conspicuously niched in the social temple as the family of

Dorrit.

At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably. He was about

(connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the name

of Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former state of

existence) to black-ball the name of Gowan finally, when Edward Dorrit,

Esquire, came into the conversation, with his glass in his eye, and the

preliminary remark of 'I say--you there! Go out, will you!'--which was

addressed to a couple of men who were handing the dishes round, as a

courteous intimation that their services could be temporarily dispensed

with.

Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire,

proceeded.

'Perhaps it's a matter of policy to let you all know that these

Gowans--in whose favour, or at least the gentleman's, I can't be

supposed to be much prepossessed myself--are known to people of

importance, if that makes any difference.'

'That, I would say,' observed the fair varnisher, 'Makes the greatest

difference. The connection in question, being really people of

importance and consideration--'

'As to that,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'I'll give you the means of

judging for yourself. You are acquainted, perhaps, with the famous name

of Merdle?'

'The great Merdle!' exclaimed Mrs General.

'THE Merdle,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire. 'They are known to him.

Mrs Gowan--I mean the dowager, my polite friend's mother--is intimate

with Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their visiting list.'

'If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given,' said Mrs

General to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if she

were doing homage to some visible graven image.

'I beg to ask my son, from motives of--ah--curiosity,' Mr Dorrit

observed, with a decided change in his manner, 'how he becomes possessed

of this--hum--timely information?'

'It's not a long story, sir,' returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'and you

shall have it out of hand. To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the lady you had

the parley with at what's-his-name place.'

'Martigny,' interposed Miss Fanny with an air of infinite languor.

'Martigny,' assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight wink;

in acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and laughed and

reddened.

'How can that be, Edward?' said Mr Dorrit. 'You informed me that the

name of the gentleman with whom you conferred was--ha--Sparkler. Indeed,

you showed me his card. Hum. Sparkler.'

'No doubt of it, father; but it doesn't follow that his mother's name

must be the same. Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is her son. She

is in Rome now; where probably we shall know more of her, as you decide

to winter there. Sparkler is just come here. I passed last evening in

company with Sparkler. Sparkler is a very good fellow on the

whole, though rather a bore on one subject, in consequence of being

tremendously smitten with a certain young lady.' Here Edward Dorrit,

Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his glass across the table. 'We

happened last night to compare notes about our travels, and I had the

information I have given you from Sparkler himself.' Here he ceased;

continuing to eye Miss Fanny through his glass, with a face much

twisted, and not ornamentally so, in part by the action of keeping his

glass in his eye, and in part by the great subtlety of his smile.

'Under these circumstances,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I believe I express the

sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say

that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to your

gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may--ha--hail--this desire,' said

Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, 'as an auspicious

omen. It is quite right to know these people. It is a very proper

thing. Mr Merdle's is a name of--ha--world-wide repute. Mr Merdle's

undertakings are immense. They bring him in such vast sums of money that

they are regarded as--hum--national benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of

this time. The name of Merdle is the name of the age. Pray do everything

on my behalf that is civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will

certainly notice them.'

This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit's recognition settled the

matter. It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate, and

forgotten his breakfast; but he was not much observed at any time,

except by Little Dorrit. The servants were recalled, and the meal

proceeded to its conclusion. Mrs General rose and left the table.

Little Dorrit rose and left the table. When Edward and Fanny remained

whispering together across it, and when Mr Dorrit remained eating figs

and reading a French newspaper, Uncle suddenly fixed the attention of

all three by rising out of his chair, striking his hand upon the table,

and saying, 'Brother! I protest against it!'

If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up the

ghost immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his audience

more. The paper fell from Mr Dorrit's hand, and he sat petrified, with a

fig half way to his mouth.

'Brother!' said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his

trembling voice, 'I protest against it! I love you; you know I love you

dearly. In these many years I have never been untrue to you in a single

thought. Weak as I am, I would at any time have struck any man who spoke

ill of you. But, brother, brother, brother, I protest against it!'

It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a

decrepit man was capable. His eyes became bright, his grey hair rose on

his head, markings of purpose on his brow and face which had faded from

them for five-and-twenty years, started out again, and there was an

energy in his hand that made its action nervous once more.

'My dear Frederick!' exclaimed Mr Dorrit faintly. 'What is wrong? What

is the matter?'

'How dare you,' said the old man, turning round on Fanny, 'how dare you

do it? Have you no memory? Have you no heart?'

'Uncle?' cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, 'why do you

attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?'

'Done?' returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place, 'where's

your affectionate invaluable friend? Where's your devoted guardian?

Where's your more than mother? How dare you set up superiorities against

all these characters combined in your sister?

For shame, you false girl, for shame!' 'I love Amy,' cried Miss Fanny,

sobbing and weeping, 'as well as I love my life--better than I love my

life. I don't deserve to be so treated. I am as grateful to Amy, and as

fond of Amy, as it's possible for any human being to be. I wish I was

dead. I never was so wickedly wronged. And only because I am anxious for

the family credit.'

'To the winds with the family credit!' cried the old man, with great

scorn and indignation. 'Brother, I protest against pride. I protest

against ingratitude. I protest against any one of us here who have known

what we have known, and have seen what we have seen, setting up any

pretension that puts Amy at a moment's disadvantage, or to the cost of

a moment's pain. We may know that it's a base pretension by its having

that effect. It ought to bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest

against it in the sight of God!'

As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might

have been a blacksmith's. After a few moments' silence, it had relaxed

into its usual weak condition. He went round to his brother with his

ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his shoulder, and said, in a

softened voice, 'William, my dear, I felt obliged to say it; forgive me,

for I felt obliged to say it!' and then went, in his bowed way, out of

the palace hall, just as he might have gone out of the Marshalsea room.

All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still continued to

do so. Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement, had not opened his

lips, and had done nothing but stare. Mr Dorrit also had been utterly

discomfited, and quite unable to assert himself in any way. Fanny was

now the first to speak.

'I never, never, never was so used!' she sobbed. 'There never was

anything so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and cruel!

Dear, kind, quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if she could know

that she had been innocently the means of exposing me to such treatment!

But I'll never tell her! No, good darling, I'll never tell her!'

This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence.

'My dear,' said he, 'I--ha--approve of your resolution. It will be--ha

hum--much better not to speak of this to Amy. It might--hum--it

might distress her. Ha. No doubt it would distress her greatly. It

is considerate and right to avoid doing so. We will--ha--keep this to

ourselves.'

'But the cruelty of Uncle!' cried Miss Fanny. 'O, I never can forgive

the wanton cruelty of Uncle!'

'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained

unusually pale, 'I must request you not to say so. You must remember

that your uncle is--ha--not what he formerly was. You must remember

that your uncle's state requires--hum--great forbearance from us, great

forbearance.'

'I am sure,' cried Fanny, piteously, 'it is only charitable to suppose

that there Must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he never could

have so attacked Me, of all the people in the world.'

'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit in a deeply fraternal tone, 'you know, with

his innumerable good points, what a--hum--wreck your uncle is; and, I

entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the fidelity

that you know I have always shown him, to--ha--to draw your own

conclusions, and to spare my brotherly feelings.'

This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing throughout,

but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful. Miss Fanny awakened

much affectionate uneasiness in her sister's mind that day by passing

the greater part of it in violent fits of embracing her, and in

alternately giving her brooches, and wishing herself dead.

CHAPTER 6. Something Right Somewhere

To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two

powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding

promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral

ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind,

which time is not likely to improve. The worst class of sum worked in

the every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are

always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of

others, and never in Addition as to their own.

The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented

boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy. A

certain idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of

it. To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is

one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose

with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it.

In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of painting

that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the most liberal

fellow on earth. He would declare such a man to have more power in his

little finger (provided he had none), than such another had (provided he

had much) in his whole mind and body. If the objection were taken that

the thing commended was trash, he would reply, on behalf of his art, 'My

good fellow, what do we all turn out but trash? I turn out nothing else,

and I make you a present of the confession.'

To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his

splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of showing

that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud and decry the

Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he belonged to the family.

Howbeit, these two subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed

them so well that he might have praised himself by the month together,

and not have made himself out half so important a man as he did by his

light disparagement of his claims on anybody's consideration.

Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be understood,

wherever he and his wife went, that he had married against the wishes

of his exalted relations, and had had much ado to prevail on them to

countenance her. He never made the representation, on the contrary

seemed to laugh the idea to scorn; but it did happen that, with all his

pains to depreciate himself, he was always in the superior position.

From the days of their honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being

usually regarded as the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying

her, but whose chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality.

To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, and

at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the society of

Gowan. When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva,

Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had

remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle

the point to his satisfaction, that he had thought of tossing up a

five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails, kick; heads, encourage,' and

abiding by the voice of the oracle. It chanced, however, that his wife

expressed a dislike to the engaging Blandois, and that the balance