prompt:
Chapter: If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a
satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging
illustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it
amply in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean
experiences, and so loftily conscious of the family name; so ready
to beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat of anybody's bread, spend
anybody's money, drink from anybody's cup and break it afterwards.
To have painted the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout
invoking the death's head apparition of the family gentility to come and
scare their benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the
first water.

Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a
billiard-marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means of
his release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the pains of
impressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject. Whoever had paid
him the compliment, he very readily accepted the compliment with _his_
compliments, and there was an end of it. Issuing forth from the gate
on these easy terms, he became a billiard-marker; and now occasionally
looked in at the little skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat
(second-hand), with a shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank
the beer of the Collegians.

One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman's
character was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The feeling
had never induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness, or to put
himself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that
Marshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The same rank Marshalsea
flavour was to be recognised in his distinctly perceiving that she
sacrificed her life to her father, and in his having no idea that she
had done anything for himself.

When this spirited young man and his sister had begun systematically
to produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this
narrative cannot precisely state. Probably at about the period when
they began to dine on the College charity. It is certain that the more
reduced and necessitous they were, the more pompously the skeleton
emerged from its tomb; and that when there was anything particularly
shabby in the wind, the skeleton always came out with the ghastliest
flourish.

Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept
late, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his room to
arrange. She had no engagement to go out to work, however, and therefore
stayed with him until, with Maggy's help, she had put everything right
about him, and had seen him off upon his morning walk (of twenty yards
        or so) to the coffee-house to read the paper. She then got on her bonnet
and went out, having been anxious to get out much sooner. There was, as
usual, a cessation of the small-talk in the Lodge as she passed through
it; and a Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the
intimation from the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, 'Look out. Here
she is!'

She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples's,
    she found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre
    where they were engaged. Having taken thought of this probability by
    the way, and having settled that in such case she would follow them, she
    set off afresh for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and
    not very far away.

    Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the
    ways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door,
    with a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of
    itself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being
    further deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen
    with their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door,
    looking not at all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured
    by this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for
    her to enter a dark hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out
    than anything else--where she could hear the distant playing of music
    and the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he
    had a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in
    a corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message
    up to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through. The
    first lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and
    half out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it
    seemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her. But as she was
    very good-natured, and said, 'Come with me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit
    for you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer
    at every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the
    sound of dancing feet.

    At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were
    tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of
    unaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, ropes, and
    rollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed
    to have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little
    Dorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment,
    was quite bewildered, when she heard her sister's voice.

    'Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?'

    'I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day
    to-morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--'

    'But the idea, Amy, of _you_ coming behind! I never did!' As her sister
    said this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted her to a
    more open part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were
    heaped together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on
    anything they could find, chattering. All these young ladies wanted
    ironing, and all had a curious way of looking everywhere while they
    chattered.

    Just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put
    his head round a beam on the left, and said, 'Less noise there, ladies!'
    and disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a
    quantity of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said,
    'Less noise there, darlings!' and also disappeared.

    'The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing
    I could have conceived!' said her sister. 'Why, how did you ever get
    here?'

    'I don't know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring
    me in.'

    'Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I
    believe. _I_ couldn't have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of
    the world.'

    It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a
    plain domestic little creature, without the great and sage experience of
    the rest. This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against
    her services. Not to make too much of them.

    'Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you have
    got something on your mind about me?' said Fanny. She spoke as if her
    sister, between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced
    grandmother.

    'It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the
    bracelet, Fanny--'

    The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and said,
    'Look out there, ladies!' and disappeared. The sprightly gentleman with
    the black hair as suddenly put his head round the beam on the right, and
    said, 'Look out there, darlings!' and also disappeared. Thereupon all
    the young ladies rose and began shaking their skirts out behind.

    'Well, Amy?' said Fanny, doing as the rest did; 'what were you going to
    say?'

    'Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me,
    Fanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to
    know a little more if you will confide more to me.'

    'Now, ladies!' said the boy in the Scotch cap. 'Now, darlings!' said the
    gentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone in a moment, and
    the music and the dancing feet were heard again.

    Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these
    rapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and
    during their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman
            with the black hair) was continually calling out through the music,
    'One, two, three, four, five, six--go! One, two, three, four, five,
    six--go! Steady, darlings! One, two, three, four, five, six--go!'
    Ultimately the voice stopped, and they all came back again, more or less
    out of breath, folding themselves in their shawls, and making ready
    for the streets. 'Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before
    us,' whispered Fanny. They were soon left alone; nothing more important
    happening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old beam, and
    saying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!' and the gentleman with
    the black hair looking round his old beam, and saying, 'Everybody at
    eleven to-morrow, darlings!' each in his own accustomed manner.

    When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got out
    of the way, and there was a great empty well before them, looking down
    into the depths of which Fanny said, 'Now, uncle!' Little Dorrit, as her
    eyes became used to the darkness, faintly made him out at the bottom of
    the well, in an obscure corner by himself, with his instrument in its
    ragged case under his arm.

    The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with their
    little strip of sky, might have been the point of his better fortunes,
    from which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk down below
    there to the bottom. He had been in that place six nights a week for
    many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his
    music-book, and was confidently believed to have never seen a play.
    There were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the
    popular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had
    'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he
    had shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke to the
    effect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters
    of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and
    Sunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him a few times with
    pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he had always responded to
    this attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale
    phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any occasion, had
    any other part in what was going on than the part written out for the
    clarionet; in private life, where there was no part for the clarionet,
    he had no part at all. Some said he was poor, some said he was a wealthy
    miser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never varied
    his shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground.
    Though expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her
    until she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all
    surprised by the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said
    in his tremulous voice, 'I am coming, I am coming!' and crept forth by
    some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell.

    'And so, Amy,' said her sister, when the three together passed out at
    the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being different
    from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's arm as the arm to
    be relied on: 'so, Amy, you are curious about me?'

    She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the
    condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her charms,
    and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal
    terms, had a vast deal of the family in it.

    'I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you.'

    'So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am ever a
    little provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it is to
    occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it. I
    shouldn't care,' said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, 'if
    the others were not so common. None of them have come down in the world
    as we have. They are all on their own level. Common.'

    Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her.
    Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes. 'I
    was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a
    difference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, you shall know all
    about it. We'll drop him at the cook's shop where he is going to dine.'

    They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in a
    dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats,
    vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg
    of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full
    of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire
    pudding, bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of
    veal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going
    at, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own
    richness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial
    delicacies. Within, were a few wooden partitions, behind which such
    customers as found it more convenient to take away their dinners in
    stomachs than in their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude. Fanny
    opening her reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that
    repository a shilling and handed it to Uncle. Uncle, after not looking
    at it a little while, divined its object, and muttering 'Dinner? Ha!
    Yes, yes, yes!' slowly vanished from them into the mist.

    'Now, Amy,' said her sister, 'come with me, if you are not too tired to
    walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.'

    The air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the toss
    she gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than serviceable), made
    her sister wonder; however, she expressed her readiness to go to Harley
    Street, and thither they directed their steps. Arrived at that grand
    destination, Fanny singled out the handsomest house, and knocking at the
    door, inquired for Mrs Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although
    he had powder on his head and was backed up by two other footmen
    likewise powdered, not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked
    Fanny to walk in. Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they
    went up-stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind,
    and were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several
    drawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the outside of a golden cage
    holding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and putting
    itself into many strange upside-down postures. This peculiarity has been
    observed in birds of quite another feather, climbing upon golden wires.

    The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever
    imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She
    looked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question,
    but that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway of
    communication with another room. The curtain shook next moment, and a
    lady, raising it with a heavily ringed hand, dropped it behind her again
    as she entered.

    The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was young
    and fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling handsome
    eyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad unfeeling handsome
    bosom, and was made the most of in every particular. Either because she
    had a cold, or because it suited her face, she wore a rich white
    fillet tied over her head and under her chin. And if ever there were
    an unfeeling handsome chin that looked as if, for certain, it had never
    been, in familiar parlance, 'chucked' by the hand of man, it was the
    chin curbed up so tight and close by that laced bridle.

    'Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny. 'My sister, ma'am.'

    'I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember that you
    had a sister.'

    'I did not mention that I had,' said Fanny.

    'Ah!' Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who should
    say, 'I have caught you. I know you didn't!' All her action was usually
    with her left hand because her hands were not a pair; and left being
    much the whiter and plumper of the two. Then she added: 'Sit down,' and
    composed herself voluptuously, in a nest of crimson and gold cushions,
    on an ottoman near the parrot.

    'Also professional?' said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit through
    an eye-glass.

    Fanny answered No. 'No,' said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass. 'Has not a
    professional air. Very pleasant; but not professional.'

    'My sister, ma'am,' said Fanny, in whom there was a singular mixture
    of deference and hardihood, 'has been asking me to tell her, as between
    sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing you. And as I had
    engaged to call upon you once more, I thought I might take the liberty
    of bringing her with me, when perhaps you would tell her. I wish her to
    know, and perhaps you will tell her?'

    'Do you think, at your sister's age--' hinted Mrs Merdle.

    'She is much older than she looks,' said Fanny; 'almost as old as I am.'

    'Society,' said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, 'is
    so difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to
            explain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that. I wish Society
    was not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting--Bird, be quiet!'

    The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society
    and it asserted its right to its exactions.

    'But,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'we must take it as we find it. We know it is
    hollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but unless we
    are Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been charmed to be one
            myself--most delightful life and perfect climate, I am told), we
    must consult it. It is the common lot. Mr Merdle is a most extensive
    merchant, his transactions are on the vastest scale, his wealth and
    influence are very great, but even he--Bird, be quiet!'

    The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the sentence so
    expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to end it.

    'Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal
    acquaintance,' she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, 'by relating
    the circumstances that are much to her credit, I cannot object to comply
    with her request, I am sure. I have a son (I was first married extremely
            young) of two or three-and-twenty.'

    Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her sister.

    'A son of two or three-and-twenty. He is a little gay, a thing Society
    is accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible. Perhaps he
    inherits that misfortune. I am very impressible myself, by nature. The
    weakest of creatures--my feelings are touched in a moment.'

    She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of snow;
    quite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and apparently
    addressing some abstraction of Society; for whose behoof, too, she
    occasionally arranged her dress, or the composition of her figure upon
    the ottoman.

    'So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state I dare
    say, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be lamented, no doubt,
    particularly by myself, who am a child of nature if I could but show it;
but so it is. Society suppresses us and dominates us--Bird, be quiet!'

The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after twisting
divers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking them with his
black tongue.

'It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, wide
range of experience, and cultivated feeling,' said Mrs Merdle from her
nest of crimson and gold--and there put up her glass to refresh her
memory as to whom she was addressing,--'that the stage sometimes has
a fascination for young men of that class of character. In saying the
stage, I mean the people on it of the female sex. Therefore, when I
heard that my son was supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what
that usually meant in Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the
Opera, where young men moving in Society are usually fascinated.'

She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters
now; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other with a
hard sound.

'As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I was
much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your sister,
     by rejecting my son's advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner),
     had brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were
     of the profoundest anguish--acute.'

     She traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right.

     'In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in Society--can
     be susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and
     represent my state of mind to the dancer. I made myself known to your
     sister. I found her, to my surprise, in many respects different from
     my expectations; and certainly in none more so, than in meeting me
     with--what shall I say--a sort of family assertion on her own part?' Mrs
     Merdle smiled.

     'I told you, ma'am,' said Fanny, with a heightening colour, 'that
     although you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest,
     that I considered my family as good as your son's; and that I had a
     brother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion,
     and would not consider such a connection any honour.'

     'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her through
     her glass, 'precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister,
     in pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for recalling it
     so accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,' addressing Little
     Dorrit, '(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my
     arm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of
     the delight I had in our being able to approach the subject so far on
     a common footing.' (This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a
             cheap and showy article on her way to the interview, with a general eye
             to bribery.)

     'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that we might be unfortunate,
     but we are not common.'

     'I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle.

     'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that if you spoke to me
     of the superiority of your son's standing in Society, it was barely
     possible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions about my
     origin; and that my father's standing, even in the Society in which
     he now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), was eminently
     superior, and was acknowledged by every one.'

     'Quite accurate,' rejoined Mrs Merdle. 'A most admirable memory.'

     'Thank you, ma'am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the
     rest.'

     'There is very little to tell,' said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the breadth
     of bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be
     unfeeling in, 'but it is to your sister's credit. I pointed out to your
     sister the plain state of the case; the impossibility of the Society
     in which we moved recognising the Society in which she moved--though
     charming, I have no doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would
     consequently place the family she had so high an opinion of, upon which
     we should find ourselves compelled to look down with contempt, and
     from which (socially speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with
     abhorrence. In short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your
     sister.'

     'Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,' Fanny pouted, with a
     toss of her gauzy bonnet, 'that I had already had the honour of telling
     your son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him.'

     'Well, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle, 'perhaps I might have
     mentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because
     my mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time that he might
     persevere and you might have something to say to him. I also mentioned
     to your sister--I again address the non-professional Miss Dorrit--that
     my son would have nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be
     an absolute beggar. (I mention that merely as a fact which is part of
             the narrative, and not as supposing it to have influenced your sister,
             except in the prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our
             artificial system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.)
     Finally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your
     sister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no danger;
     and your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present her with a
     mark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker's.'

     Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face.

     'Also,' said Mrs Merdle, 'as to promise to give me the present pleasure
     of a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms.
     On which occasion,' added Mrs Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting
     something in Fanny's hand, 'Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell
     with best wishes in my own dull manner.'

     The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of
     the parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed
     to mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet,
     and suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over
     the outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak and black
     tongue.

     'Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,' said Mrs Merdle. 'If we could
     only come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for one might
     have the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and talented persons
     from whom I am at present excluded. A more primitive state of society
     would be delicious to me. There used to be a poem when I learnt lessons,
     something about Lo the poor Indians whose something mind! If a few
     thousand persons moving in Society, could only go and be Indians, I
     would put my name down directly; but as, moving in Society, we can't be
     Indians, unfortunately--Good morning!'

     They came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind, the
     elder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were shut out
     into unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square.

     'Well?' said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without speaking.
     'Have you nothing to say, Amy?'

     'Oh, I don't know what to say!' she answered, distressed. 'You didn't
     like this young man, Fanny?'

     'Like him? He is almost an idiot.'

     'I am so sorry--don't be hurt--but, since you ask me what I have to
     say, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give you
     anything.'

     'You little Fool!' returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp pull
     she gave her arm. 'Have you no spirit at all? But that's just the way!
     You have no self-respect, you have no becoming pride, just as you allow
     yourself to be followed about by a contemptible little Chivery of a
     thing,' with the scornfullest emphasis, 'you would let your family be
     trodden on, and never turn.'

     'Don't say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them.'

     'You do what you can for them!' repeated Fanny, walking her on very
     fast. 'Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you had
     any experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a woman can
     be--would you let her put her foot upon your family, and thank her for
     it?'

     'No, Fanny, I am sure.'

     'Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can you make
     her do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do your family some
     credit with the money!'

     They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and her
     uncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man practising
     his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room.
     Fanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and porter, and tea; and
     indignantly pretended to prepare it for herself, though her sister did
     all that in quiet reality. When at last Fanny sat down to eat and drink,
     she threw the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much
     as her father had been last night.

     'If you despise me,' she said, bursting into vehement tears, 'because I
     am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one? It was your
     doing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground before this Mrs
     Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what she liked, and hold
     us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face. Because I am a dancer!'

     'O Fanny!'

     'And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much as she
     likes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in the law, and
     the docks, and different things. Why, it was your doing, Amy. You might
     at least approve of his being defended.'

     All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the
     corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment
     while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody
     had said something.

     'And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to show
     himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him
     with impunity. If you don't feel for yourself because you go out to
     work, you might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he
     has undergone so long.'

     Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply.
     The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said
     nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire.
     Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on
     again.

     Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her
     passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in
     the world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her crying became
     remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her sister. Little
     Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but she answered that
     she would, she must! Thereupon she said again, and again, 'I beg your
     pardon, Amy,' and 'Forgive me, Amy,' almost as passionately as she had
     said what she regretted.

     'But indeed, indeed, Amy,' she resumed when they were seated in sisterly
     accord side by side, 'I hope and I think you would have seen this
     differently, if you had known a little more of Society.'

     'Perhaps I might, Fanny,' said the mild Little Dorrit.

     'You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there,
     Amy,' pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, 'I have
     been out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting proud and
     spirited--more than I ought to be, perhaps?'

     Little Dorrit answered 'Yes. O yes!'

     'And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I may
     have been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not be so,
     Amy?'

     Little Dorrit again nodded 'Yes,' with a more cheerful face than heart.

     'Especially as we know,' said Fanny, 'that there certainly is a tone in
     the place to which you have been so true, which does belong to it, and
     which does make it different from other aspects of Society. So kiss me
     once again, Amy dear, and we will agree that we may both be right, and
     that you are a tranquil, domestic, home-loving, good girl.'

     The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue,
     but was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was time to go;
which she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his scrap of music, and
taking the clarionet out of his mouth.

Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to the
Marshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and going into it
that evening was like going into a deep trench. The shadow of the wall
was on every object. Not least upon the figure in the old grey gown and
the black velvet cap, as it turned towards her when she opened the door
of the dim room.

'Why not upon me too!' thought Little Dorrit, with the door yet in her
hand. 'It was not unreasonable in Fanny.'

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Little Dorrit goes to check out Fanny dancing in the theater. It's a gross hole in the wall and seems like a totally crazy and chaotic place to Little Dorrit. Still, she goes backstage to talk to her sister. Fanny is floored that Little Dorrit was able to find the place, let alone get backstage. Which is funny, since Little Dorrit is the one who sets everything up for the family and clearly knows her way around life, but whatever. Finally, the show is over and Fanny collects her uncle Frederick, a walking coma. They drop him off to have dinner at a cook's shop - basically a diner. Little Dorrit tells Fanny that she's worried about a bracelet that a fancy lady gave to Fanny. Fanny's response at first is, stay out of my business. Then she invites Little Dorrit into her business and asks her to come along to meet the fancy lady - Fanny was just about to go talk to her anyway. For the last time. They get to Cavendish Square - a very posh address - and are let into a huge mansion by a servant. They walk into a room and meet Mrs. Merdle. She is as beautiful as genes and makeup can make her. Also, she is totally stacked. No, seriously, her boobs are constantly talked about as being ginormous - and a very handy place to display large, expensive necklaces. Mrs. Merdle is very cold, but extremely polite. She talks constantly about how she'd like to have been born a "Savage in the Tropical seas" and not have to deal with all the strict rules of society. But obviously that's not the way her life panned out. This is a verbal tic with her and is clearly baloney. Fanny introduces her sister and asks Mrs. Merdle to tell the story of how they know each other. It turns out that Mrs. Merdle has a son who is kind of an idiot but obviously heir to big money. He is way into Fanny - to the point of almost proposing marriage. But marriage between someone as high up as him and as low as her would obviously not be approved of by society, so Mrs. Merdle decided to intervene and buy Fanny off with a bracelet. But to give Fanny credit, she herself told Mrs. Merdle that there was no way she would have married her idiotic son, and that she considers the Dorrits to be far too superior to the Merdles to even think about such a thing. But still, Fanny took the bracelet. Fanny and Little Dorrit leave, and Little Dorrit tells her sister that taking the bracelet was a bad call. Fanny flips out and yells at Little Dorrit that the only way to get over the insults of women like Mrs. Merdle is to make them pay - literally. Then Fanny accuses Little Dorrit of bringing the Dorrit family down into the gutter when clearly they belong at the height of the elite. Um, OK. Little Dorrit gets sad, and Fanny feels bad and apologizes. Little Dorrit thinks there might be a grain of truth there - maybe the prison has had a worse effect on her than on her sister.


prompt:
Chapter: Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley
Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall
than the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of
the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in
Harley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and
their inhabitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people
were often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in
the shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way
with the dullness of the houses.

Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people who
take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uniform
twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all
approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern
of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same
inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything without exception
to be taken at a high valuation--who has not dined with these? The
house so drearily out of repair, the occasional bow-window, the stuccoed
house, the newly-fronted house, the corner house with nothing but
angular rooms, the house with the blinds always down, the house with the
hatchment always up, the house where the collector has called for one
quarter of an Idea, and found nobody at home--who has not dined with
these? The house that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain--who
does not know her? The showy house that was taken for life by the
disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all--who is
unacquainted with that haunted habitation?

Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs
Merdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware;
but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of
Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said 'Let us license them; let us know
them.'

Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a
Midas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in
everything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of
course. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this,
    Trustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said
    to projectors, 'Now, what name have you got? Have you got Merdle?' And,
    the reply being in the negative, had said, 'Then I won't look at you.'

    This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom which
    required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson
    and gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom to repose
    upon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr Merdle wanted
    something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose. Storr
    and Mortimer might have married on the same speculation.

    Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The jewels
    showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in Society with
    the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration. Society
    approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was the most disinterested of
    men,--did everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of
    all his gain and care, as a man might.

    That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, otherwise
    with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his desire was to the
    utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), and take up all its
    drafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine in company; he had not
    very much to say for himself; he was a reserved man, with a broad,
    overhanging, watchful head, that particular kind of dull red colour
    in his cheeks which is rather stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy
    expression about his coat-cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and
    had reasons for being anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said,
    he was a pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private
    confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by every
    one, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if that were it
            which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's receptions and concerts),
    he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, and was mostly to be found
    against walls and behind doors. Also when he went out to it, instead of
    its coming home to him, he seemed a little fatigued, and upon the
    whole rather more disposed for bed; but he was always cultivating it
    nevertheless, and always moving in it--and always laying out money on it
    with the greatest liberality.

    Mrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices the
    bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North America, and
    had come off at little disadvantage in point of whiteness, and at none
    in point of coldness. The colonel's son was Mrs Merdle's only child. He
    was of a chuckle-headed, high-shouldered make, with a general appearance
    of being, not so much a young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few
    signs of reason, that a by-word went among his companions that his brain
    had been frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St John's, New
    Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed from
    that hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his infancy,
    through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high window on his
    head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses to crack. It is
    probable that both these representations were of ex post facto
    origin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name was Sparkler) being
    monomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner of undesirable young
    ladies, and in remarking of every successive young lady to whom he
    tendered a matrimonial proposal that she was 'a doosed fine gal--well
    educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her.'

    A son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog upon
    another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for himself; he
    wanted a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having been in the Guards,
    and being in the habit of frequenting all the races, and all the
    lounges, and all the parties, and being well known, Society was
    satisfied with its son-in-law. This happy result Mr Merdle would have
    considered well attained, though Mr Sparkler had been a more expensive
    article. And he did not get Mr Sparkler by any means cheap for
    Society, even as it was.

    There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while
    Little Dorrit was stitching at her father's new shirts by his side that
    night; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates from the
    City, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the Lords, magnates
    from the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop magnates, Treasury
    magnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty magnates,--all the magnates
    that keep us going, and sometimes trip us up.

    'I am told,' said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, 'that Mr Merdle has
    made another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand pounds.'

    Horse Guards had heard two.

    Treasury had heard three.

    Bar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means clear but
    that it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes of calculation
    and combination, the result of which it was difficult to estimate. It
    was one of those instances of a comprehensive grasp, associated with
    habitual luck and characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us
    but few. But here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank
    case, and who could probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put
    this new success at?

    Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and could
    only tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with great
    appearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last, half-a-million
    of money.

    Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was a
    new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of
    Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into
    the coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best
    interests of Society.

    Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man still
    detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken
    off their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was the last arrival.
    Treasury said Merdle's work punished him a little. Bishop said he was
    glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman
    who accepted it with meekness.

    Powder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the
    dinner. Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society's meats had
    a seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down a countess who
    was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she
    was in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a
    simile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly
    brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person
    carried it.

    Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner.
    It had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and everything to
    drink. It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr Merdle's own share of
    the repast might have been paid for with eighteenpence. Mrs Merdle was
    magnificent. The chief butler was the next magnificent institution of
    the day. He was the stateliest man in the company. He did nothing, but
    he looked on as few other men could have done. He was Mr Merdle's
    last gift to Society. Mr Merdle didn't want him, and was put out of
    countenance when the great creature looked at him; but inappeasable
    Society would have him--and had got him.

    The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of
    the entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the bosom.
    Treasury said, Juno. Bishop said, Judith.

    Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-martial.
    Brothers Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates paired off. Mr
    Merdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth. Sometimes a magnate
    addressed him, to turn the stream of his own particular discussion
    towards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much attention to it, or did more
    than rouse himself from his calculations and pass the wine.

    When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr
    Merdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard, and
    checked them off as they went out at the door.

    Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England's
    world-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that
            original sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to him) on
    a new achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men was to extend
    the triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury felt--he gave Mr
    Merdle to understand--patriotic on the subject.

    'Thank you, my lord,' said Mr Merdle; 'thank you. I accept your
    congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.'

    'Why, I don't unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Because,'
    smiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and spoke
    banteringly, 'it never can be worth your while to come among us and help
    us.'

    Mr Merdle felt honoured by the--

    'No, no,' said Treasury, 'that is not the light in which one so
    distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be
    expected to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by
    accidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose
    to one so eminent to--to come among us, and give us the weight of his
    influence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it to him as
    a duty. In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.'

    Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that its
    claims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury moved
    on, and Bar came up.

    Bar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his
    persuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he mentioned
    to one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil into the root
    of all good, who had for a long time reflected a shining lustre on the
    annals even of our commercial country--if he mentioned, disinterestedly,
    and as, what we lawyers called in our pedantic way, amicus curiae, a
    fact that had come by accident within his knowledge. He had been
    required to look over the title of a very considerable estate in one of
    the eastern counties--lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers
    loved to be particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties.
    Now, the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased
    by one who had the command of--Money (jury droop and persuasive
            eye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had come to Bar's
    knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, 'I shall have the
    honour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this evening, and,
    strictly between ourselves, I will mention the opportunity.' Such a
    purchase would involve not only a great legitimate political influence,
    but some half-dozen church presentations of considerable annual value.
    Now, that Mr Merdle was already at no loss to discover means of
    occupying even his capital, and of fully employing even his active and
    vigorous intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that
    the question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained so
    high a position and so European a reputation did not owe it--we would
    not say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess himself of
    such influences as these; and to exercise them--we would not say for his
    own, or for his party's, but we would say for Society's--benefit.

    Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object of
    his constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye-glass up the
    grand staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly sidling in the direction
    of the sideboard.

    Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to
    Bishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than
    when they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious,
    who, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to
            look as if he were rather poor himself), were aware of their importance,
    judiciously governed and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our
    brethren at large.

    Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn't
    mean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in
    Bishop's good opinion.

    Bishop then--jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped right
    leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle 'don't mind the apron; a mere form!'
    put this case to his good friend:

    Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not
    unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose
    example on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a little
    money in the direction of a mission or so to Africa?

    Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention,
    Bishop put another case:

    Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the proceedings
    of our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries Committee, and whether it
    had occurred to him that to shed a little money in _that_ direction might
    be a great conception finely executed?

    Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for
    inquiring.

    Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things. It was
    not that _he_ looked to them, but that Society looked to them.
    Just as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed
    Dignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most
    agonising uneasiness of mind until it got them. He begged to assure his
    good friend that he was extremely sensible of his good friend's regard
    on all occasions for the best interests of Society; and he considered
    that he was at once consulting those interests and expressing the
    feeling of Society, when he wished him continued prosperity, continued
    increase of riches, and continued things in general.

    Bishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates gradually
    floated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr Merdle.
    That gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth until the soul of the
    chief butler glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the
    rest, and became of no account in the stream of people on the grand
    staircase. Mrs Merdle was at home, the best of the jewels were hung out
    to be seen, Society got what it came for, Mr Merdle drank twopennyworth
    of tea in a corner and got more than he wanted.

    Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody,
    and whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he came upon Mr Merdle
    drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm.

    Mr Merdle started. 'Oh! It's you!'

    'Any better to-day?'

    'No,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am no better.'

    'A pity I didn't see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow, or let
    me come to you.'

    'Well!' he replied. 'I will come to-morrow as I drive by.'

    Bar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and
    as Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon
    it to the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain point of mental
    strain beyond which no man could go; that the point varied with various
    textures of brain and peculiarities of constitution, as he had had
    occasion to notice in several of his learned brothers; but the point of
    endurance passed by a line's breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued.
    Not to intrude on the sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now
    (with the jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle's
    case? Bishop said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a
    brief space into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit
    which all young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had
    frequently been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an
    over-taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up
    by the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a glass
    of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a charm. Without
    presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the consideration of so
    profound a professor of the great healing art, he would venture to
    inquire whether the strain, being by way of intricate calculations,
    the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be restored to their tone by a
    gentle and yet generous stimulant?

    'Yes,' said the physician, 'yes, you are both right. But I may as well
    tell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. He has
    the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and
    the concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool
    temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should
    say, as Achilles. How such a man should suppose himself unwell without
    reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with
    him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I
    only say, that at present I have not found it out.'

    There was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the bosom now displaying
    precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb jewel-stands; there
    was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on young Sparkler hovering about
    the rooms, monomaniacally seeking any sufficiently ineligible young lady
    with no nonsense about her; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint
    on the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were
    present; or on any of the company. Even on himself, its shadow was faint
    enough as he moved about among the throng, receiving homage.

    Mr Merdle's complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one another
    in all things else, that it is hard to imagine his complaint, if he
    had one, being solely his own affair. Had he that deep-seated recondite
    complaint, and did any doctor find it out? Patience, in the meantime,
    the shadow of the Marshalsea wall was a real darkening influence, and
    could be seen on the Dorrit Family at any stage of the sun's course.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: The Merdles are the top of the social heap. Mr. Merdle is rolling in dough. He has bought himself everything Society requires: a wife with a huge rack for jewelry display, a stepson who is dumb but popular, a fancy mansion, and the world's most impressive butler. Merdle throws fancy dinner parties, which he barely attends and doesn't seem to enjoy very much. His guests brag and argue over how much money he has made, and when he finally shows up, they hit him up for donations or investments. The last guest at the Merdle shindig is Physician. It seems Mr. Merdle thinks there's something wrong with him and has been going to see the doctor. The doctor can't figure out what, if anything, is the matter. The other guests think maybe it's stress-related. The narrator hints that we'll see what's wrong with Merdle soon enough.


prompt:
Chapter: Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea
in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great
Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the
paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that
sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point
of gentlemanly feeling. An impression of disappointment, occasioned
by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for
which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give
him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that
gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family
circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.
He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and
representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to
pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him personally.
There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) wanting in
him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness,
    but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps
    cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently
    brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial
    unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to
    bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way
    tending.

    In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been
    accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the
    gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father
    of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of
    the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the
    Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised
    by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on
    the lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery's politeness
    and that of the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that
    Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his
    companions in bold relief.

    Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge,
    had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam,
    coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone.

    '(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret manner;
    'but which way might you be going?'

    'I am going over the Bridge.' He saw in Mr Chivery, with some
    astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on
    his lips.

    '(Private) I ask your pardon again,' said Mr Chivery, 'but could you go
    round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in
    at that address?' handing him a little card, printed for circulation
    among the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure
    Havannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in
    Fancy Snuffs, &c. &c.

    '(Private) It an't tobacco business,' said Mr Chivery. 'The truth is,
    it's my wife. She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point
    respecting--yes,' said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look of
    apprehension with a nod, 'respecting _her_.'

    'I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.'

    'Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an't above ten minutes out of your
    way. Please to ask for _Mrs_ Chivery!' These instructions, Mr Chivery, who
    had already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the
    outer door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of
    visitors when it pleased him.

    Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address
    set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small
    establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working
    at her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a
    little assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little
    instrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail
    stock in trade.

    Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the
    solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he
    believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat
    behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head.

    'You may see him now,' said she, 'if you'll condescend to take a peep.'

    With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little
    parlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very
    little dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and table-cloths
    tried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two;
    and among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the
    last mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of
    furling the sails, a little woe-begone young man.

    'Our John,' said Mrs Chivery.

    Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing
    there?

    'It's the only change he takes,' said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head
    afresh. 'He won't go out, even in the back-yard, when there's no linen;
    but when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit
    there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!' Mrs
    Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her
    eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business.

    'Please to take a seat, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Miss Dorrit is the
    matter with Our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her, and I
    would wish to take the liberty to ask how it's to be made good to his
    parents when bust?'

    Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about
    Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this
    speech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to
    shake her head and dry her eyes.

    'Sir,' said she in continuation, 'you are acquainted with the family,
    and have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with
    the family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people
    happy, let me, for Our John's sake, and for both their sakes, implore
    you so to do!'

    'I have been so habituated,' returned Arthur, at a loss, 'during
    the short time I have known her, to consider Little--I have been so
    habituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from
    that in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise.
    Does she know your son?'

    'Brought up together, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Played together.'

    'Does she know your son as her admirer?'

    'Oh! bless you, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant
    shiver, 'she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he
    was that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else
    had. Young men like John don't take to ivory hands a pinting, for
    nothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.'

    'Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.'

    'Then she knows it, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'by word of mouth.'

    'Are you sure?'

    'Sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'sure and certain as in this house I am. I see
    my son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my
    son come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he
    done it!' Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the
    foregoing circumstantiality and repetition.

    'May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which
    causes you so much uneasiness?'

    'That,' said Mrs Chivery, 'took place on that same day when to this
    house I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this
    house since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour
    when to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the
    quarter, came!' An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from
    this speech by Mrs Chivery's peculiar power of construction.

    'May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?'

    'You may,' said Mrs Chivery, 'and I will give it to you in honour and in
    word as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every one's good word
    and every one's good wish. He played with her as a child when in that
    yard a child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon
    the Sunday afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met
    her, with appointment or without appointment; which, I do not pretend to
    say. He made his offer to her. Her brother and sister is high in their
    views, and against Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views
    and against sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she
    has answered Our John, "No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have
    any husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my
    intentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of
    you, and forget me!" This is the way in which she is doomed to be a
    constant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she
    unto them should be. This is the way in which Our John has come to find
    no pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, and in showing in that
    yard, as in that yard I have myself shown you, a broken-down ruin that
    goes home to his mother's heart!' Here the good woman pointed to the
    little window, whence her son might be seen sitting disconsolate in
    the tuneless groves; and again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and
    besought him, for the united sakes of both the young people, to exercise
    his influence towards the bright reversal of these dismal events.

    She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so
    undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative
    positions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam
    could not feel positive on the other side. He had come to attach to
    Little Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that removed her
    from, while it grew out of, the common and coarse things surrounding
    her--that he found it disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to
    suppose her in love with young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such
    person. On the other hand, he reasoned with himself that she was just
    as good and just as true in love with him, as not in love with him;
    and that to make a kind of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty
    of isolation at heart from the only people she knew, would be but a
    weakness of his own fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and
    ethereal appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice
    and eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out
    of her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself and
    those about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in
    unison, with this newly presented idea.

    He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his
    mind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he might be
    relied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of
    Miss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his
    power to do so, and if he could discover what they were. At the same
    time he cautioned her against assumptions and appearances; enjoined
    strict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and
    particularly advised her to endeavour to win her son's confidence and so
    to make quite sure of the state of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the
    latter precaution superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her
    head as if she had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected
    from this interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had
    kindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked away.

    The crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two
    crowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in
    the quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set foot upon
    it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It was a pleasant
    day, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to have that minute
    come there for air. He had left her in her father's room within an hour.

    It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face
    and manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; but before he
    reached her, she turned her head.

    'Have I startled you?' he asked.

    'I thought I knew the step,' she answered, hesitating.

    'And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have expected
    mine.'

    'I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it--sounded
    like yours.'

    'Are you going further?'

    'No, sir, I am only walking here for a little change.'

    They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him,
    and looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around:

    'It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I sometimes
    have a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here.'

    'Unfeeling?'

    'To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change
    and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped
    place.'

    'Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you the
    spirit and influence of such things to cheer him.'

    'Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me
    out too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to
    you?'

    'Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.'

    He gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great
    agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He remained
    silent for a few moments, that she might regain her composure. The
    Little Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with
    Mrs Chivery's theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy
    which sprung up within him, that there might be some one else in the
    hopeless--newer fancy still--in the hopeless unattainable distance.

    They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little Dorrit
    looked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought herself
    at sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting along, so
    preoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them until they turned
    upon her. She was now in a moment so conscience-stricken that her very
    basket partook of the change.

    'Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.'

    'So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me. If he takes and
    sends me out I must go. If he takes and says, "Maggy, you hurry away and
    back with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer's a
    good 'un," I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, what's a poor thing of
    ten year old to do? And if Mr Tip--if he happens to be a coming in as
    I come out, and if he says "Where are you going, Maggy?" and if I says,
    "I'm a going So and So," and if he says, "I'll have a Try too," and if
    he goes into the George and writes a letter and if he gives it me and
    says, "Take that one to the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un
    I'll give you a shilling," it ain't my fault, mother!'

    Arthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that
    the letters were addressed.

    'I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to,' said
    Maggy. 'I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother, that's got
    anything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy, addressing
    Arthur. 'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take and give 'em to
    you.'

    'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,' said
    Clennam in a low voice.

    'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud
    whisper. 'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she would
    never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead
    of bothering and loitering about. It ain't my fault. I must do what I am
    told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.'

    Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters.
    That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in
    the novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from
    the City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being
    restrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during
    three-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as
    he would otherwise certainly have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr
    Clennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his
    I.O.U., which he begged to enclose. That from the son set forth that
    Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at
    length obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature,
    accompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that
    the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary
    to that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that
            generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting
            towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a
    false friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced
    him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that
    evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be
    happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends
    who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the
    exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence;
    the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught
    with the usual beneficent consequences.

    These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and
    pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and
    excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He then
    commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the
    shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have
    disappointed her otherwise.

    When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before,
    she said all at once:

    'I think I had better go. I had better go home.'

    'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters. They
    were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.'

    'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to leave
    any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't mean it--even
    Maggy.'

    'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And
    in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only
    saving you uneasiness.'

    'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the
    other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that
    I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I
    see these things. My place is there. I am better there, it is unfeeling
    in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had
    far better stay at home!'

    The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself
    from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the
    tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.

    'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always painful to
    me to hear you call it home.'

    'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it
    for a single moment?'

    'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'

    'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much
    better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with me, let me
    go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.'

    He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move
    while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered
    out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking.

    She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the
    letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?

    No.

    When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on,
    when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had
    been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and
    additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless
    unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind,
    by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge
    with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the
    ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream,
    here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?

    He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he
    thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought
    of her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit
    thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--in the shadow of
    the Marshalsea wall.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Arthur visits the Marshalsea all the time, although Dorrit is really starting to dislike him. Why? Because he keeps not giving the old man any money. Really. The nerve. One day Clennam is waylaid by Mrs. Chivery, who wants to show him her son John. Ever since Little Dorrit turned him down, John Chivery has been a shell of a man - totally depressed all the time. According to Mrs. Chivery, Little Dorrit actually is totally into John but won't marry him because she feels so much duty and responsibility toward her family. Arthur is taken aback - he's never thought about Little Dorrit as a woman, let alone one who might have romantic or sexual feelings for anyone. Nice little bit of infantilizing right there. But he says he'll try to figure out what the deal is and fix the situation if possible. He goes out and meets Little Dorrit walking around. She says she feels guilty whenever she walks around outside the prison since Dorrit can't. Yeesh. It's a like a cross between survivor guilt and Stockholm syndrome. Maggy runs into them. She's been sent on an errand by Dorrit and Tip to deliver some begging letters to Arthur. Arthur sends Dorrit back money, but none for Tip. Little Dorrit guesses what the letters were and freaks out in embarrassment, but Arthur tells her it's cool. She then says she needs to go home. Arthur asks her to stop calling the prison her home. To which she is all, OK, well, what place should I call home? After she leaves, Arthur wonders why she was so much more concerned this time about the begging. He thinks it might be because she really is into John Chivery. Did we mention that Arthur is a bit slow on the uptake where chicks are concerned?