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appearance. As Mrs Clennam never removed her eyes from Blandois (on whom

they had some effect, as a steady look has on a lower sort of dog), so

Jeremiah never removed his from Arthur. It was as if they had tacitly

agreed to take their different provinces. Thus, in the ensuing silence,

Jeremiah stood scraping his chin and looking at Arthur as though he were

trying to screw his thoughts out of him with an instrument.

After a little, the visitor, as if he felt the silence irksome, rose,

and impatiently put himself with his back to the sacred fire which had

burned through so many years. Thereupon Mrs Clennam said, moving one of

her hands for the first time, and moving it very slightly with an action

of dismissal:

'Please to leave us to our business, Arthur.' 'Mother, I do so with

reluctance.'

'Never mind with what,' she returned, 'or with what not. Please to leave

us. Come back at any other time when you may consider it a duty to bury

half an hour wearily here. Good night.'

She held up her muffled fingers that he might touch them with his,

according to their usual custom, and he stood over her wheeled chair to

touch her face with his lips. He thought, then, that her cheek was

more strained than usual, and that it was colder. As he followed the

direction of her eyes, in rising again, towards Mr Flintwinch's good

friend, Mr Blandois, Mr Blandois snapped his finger and thumb with one

loud contemptuous snap.

'I leave your--your business acquaintance in my mother's room, Mr

Flintwinch,' said Clennam, 'with a great deal of surprise and a great

deal of unwillingness.'

The person referred to snapped his finger and thumb again.

'Good night, mother.'

'Good night.'

'I had a friend once, my good comrade Flintwinch,' said Blandois,

standing astride before the fire, and so evidently saying it to arrest

Clennam's retreating steps, that he lingered near the door; 'I had a

friend once, who had heard so much of the dark side of this city and

its ways, that he wouldn't have confided himself alone by night with two

people who had an interest in getting him under the ground--my faith!

not even in a respectable house like this--unless he was bodily too

strong for them. Bah! What a poltroon, my Flintwinch! Eh?'

'A cur, sir.'

'Agreed! A cur. But he wouldn't have done it, my Flintwinch, unless he

had known them to have the will to silence him, without the power. He

wouldn't have drunk from a glass of water under such circumstances--not

even in a respectable house like this, my Flintwinch--unless he had seen

one of them drink first, and swallow too!'

Disdaining to speak, and indeed not very well able, for he was

half-choking, Clennam only glanced at the visitor as he passed out.

The visitor saluted him with another parting snap, and his nose came

down over his moustache and his moustache went up under his nose, in an

ominous and ugly smile.

'For Heaven's sake, Affery,' whispered Clennam, as she opened the door

for him in the dark hall, and he groped his way to the sight of the

night-sky, 'what is going on here?'

Her own appearance was sufficiently ghastly, standing in the dark

with her apron thrown over her head, and speaking behind it in a low,

deadened voice.

'Don't ask me anything, Arthur. I've been in a dream for ever so long.

Go away!'

He went out, and she shut the door upon him. He looked up at the windows

of his mother's room, and the dim light, deadened by the yellow blinds,

seemed to say a response after Affery, and to mutter, 'Don't ask me

anything. Go away!'

CHAPTER 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit

Dear Mr Clennam,

As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and

as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other

trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure

for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to

devote an hour to writing to you again. This time, I write from Rome.

We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so long

upon the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, and so

when we arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place called the

Via Gregoriana. I dare say you know it.

Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know that is

what you most want to hear. Theirs is not a very comfortable lodging,

but perhaps I thought it less so when I first saw it than you would have

done, because you have been in many different countries and have

seen many different customs. Of course it is a far, far better

place--millions of times--than any I have ever been used to until

lately; and I fancy I don't look at it with my own eyes, but with hers.

For it would be easy to see that she has always been brought up in a

tender and happy home, even if she had not told me so with great love

for it.

Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common staircase, and

it is nearly all a large dull room, where Mr Gowan paints. The windows

are blocked up where any one could look out, and the walls have been

all drawn over with chalk and charcoal by others who have lived there

before--oh,--I should think, for years!

There is a curtain more dust-coloured than red, which divides it, and

the part behind the curtain makes the private sitting-room.

When I first saw her there she was alone, and her work had fallen out of

her hand, and she was looking up at the sky shining through the tops of

the windows. Pray do not be uneasy when I tell you, but it was not

quite so airy, nor so bright, nor so cheerful, nor so happy and youthful

altogether as I should have liked it to be.

On account of Mr Gowan's painting Papa's picture (which I am not quite

convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him

doing it), I have had more opportunities of being with her since then

than I might have had without this fortunate chance. She is very much

alone. Very much alone indeed.

Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her? I went one day, when

it happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five o'clock

in the afternoon. She was then dining alone, and her solitary dinner had

been brought in from somewhere, over a kind of brazier with a fire in

it, and she had no company or prospect of company, that I could see,

but the old man who had brought it. He was telling her a long story (of

robbers outside the walls being taken up by a stone statue of a Saint),

to entertain her--as he said to me when I came out, 'because he had a

daughter of his own, though she was not so pretty.'

I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I have to

say about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her,

for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not

doubt that he is--but in his way. You know his way, and if it appears

as careless and discontented in your eyes as it does in mine, I am not

wrong in thinking that it might be better suited to her. If it does not

seem so to you, I am quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged

poor child confides in your knowledge and goodness more than she could

ever tell you if she was to try. But don't be frightened, I am not going

to try. Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan's unsettled

and dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little.

He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and

throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring

about them. When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings

for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no

belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself. Is it so?

I wonder what you will say when you come to this! I know how you will

look, and I can almost hear the voice in which you would tell me on the

Iron Bridge.

Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best company

here--though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked it when he is

with it--and she sometimes accompanies him, but lately she has gone out

very little. I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way

of speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested

success in marrying Mr Gowan, though, at the same time, the very same

people, would not have dreamed of taking him for themselves or their

daughters. Then he goes into the country besides, to think about making

sketches; and in all places where there are visitors, he has a large

acquaintance and is very well known. Besides all this, he has a friend

who is much in his society both at home and away from home, though he

treats this friend very coolly and is very uncertain in his behaviour

to him. I am quite sure (because she has told me so), that she does not

like this friend. He is so revolting to me, too, that his being away

from here, at present, is quite a relief to my mind. How much more to

hers!

But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved

to tell you so much while I am afraid it may make you a little

uncomfortable without occasion, is this. She is so true and so devoted,

and knows so completely that all her love and duty are his for ever,

that you may be certain she will love him, admire him, praise him, and

conceal all his faults, until she dies. I believe she conceals them, and

always will conceal them, even from herself.

She has given him a heart that can never be taken back; and however much

he may try it, he will never wear out its affection. You know the truth

of this, as you know everything, far far better than I; but I cannot

help telling you what a nature she shows, and that you can never think

too well of her.

I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are such

friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she speaks to

me by my name--I mean, not my Christian name, but the name you gave me.

When she began to call me Amy, I told her my short story, and that you

had always called me Little Dorrit. I told her that the name was much

dearer to me than any other, and so she calls me Little Dorrit too.

Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may not

know that she has a baby son. He was born only two days ago, and just a

week after they came. It has made them very happy. However, I must tell

you, as I am to tell you all, that I fancy they are under a constraint

with Mr Gowan, and that they feel as if his mocking way with them was

sometimes a slight given to their love for her. It was but yesterday,

when I was there, that I saw Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and

go out, as if he was afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented

himself by that means. Yet I am sure they are both so considerate,

good-humoured, and reasonable, that he might spare them. It is hard in

him not to think of them a little more.

I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over. It looked at

first as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so much,

that I was half inclined not to send it. But when I thought it over a

little, I felt more hopeful for your knowing at once that I had only

been watchful for you, and had only noticed what I think I have noticed,

because I was quickened by your interest in it. Indeed, you may be sure

that is the truth.

And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and have

little left to say.

We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day. You can hardly

think how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with me. She has

a lover, who has followed her, first all the way from Switzerland, and

then all the way from Venice, and who has just confided to me that he

means to follow her everywhere. I was much confused by his speaking to

me about it, but he would. I did not know what to say, but at last I

told him that I thought he had better not. For Fanny (but I did not tell

him this) is much too spirited and clever to suit him. Still, he said he

would, all the same. I have no lover, of course.

If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will

perhaps say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without telling me

something about her travels, and surely it is time she did. I think it

is indeed, but I don't know what to tell you. Since we left Venice we

have been in a great many wonderful places, Genoa and Florence among

them, and have seen so many wonderful sights, that I am almost giddy

when I think what a crowd they make.

But you can tell me so much more about them than I can tell you, that

why should I tire you with my accounts and descriptions?

Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar

difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a coward

now. One of my frequent thoughts is this:--Old as these cities are,

their age itself is hardly so curious, to my reflections, as that they

should have been in their places all through those days when I did not

even know of the existence of more than two or three of them, and when

I scarcely knew of anything outside our old walls. There is something

melancholy in it, and I don't know why. When we went to see the famous

leaning tower at Pisa, it was a bright sunny day, and it and the

buildings near it looked so old, and the earth and the sky looked so

young, and its shadow on the ground was so soft and retired! I could not

at first think how beautiful it was, or how curious, but I thought, 'O

how many times when the shadow of the wall was falling on our room, and

when that weary tread of feet was going up and down the yard--O how many

times this place was just as quiet and lovely as it is to-day!' It quite

overpowered me. My heart was so full that tears burst out of my eyes,

though I did what I could to restrain them. And I have the same feeling

often--often.

Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear to