prompt:
Chapter: Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what
place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there
was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the
street, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard.

He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied manner,
   which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for
   him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue,
   reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in
   the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that
   phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked
   itself up, at the back of the old man's neck, into a confusion of grey
   hair and rusty stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his
   hat off. A greasy hat it was, and a napless; impending over his eyes,
   cracked and crumpled at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief
   dangling out below it. His trousers were so long and loose, and his
   shoes so clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though how
   much of this was gait, and how much trailing cloth and leather, no one
   could have told. Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out case,
   containing some wind instrument; in the same hand he had a pennyworth
   of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from which he slowly
   comforted his poor blue old nose with a lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur
   Clennam looked at him.

   To this old man crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry,
   touching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked round, with
   the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far
   off, and who was a little dull of hearing also.

   'Pray, sir,' said Arthur, repeating his question, 'what is this place?'

   'Ay! This place?' returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on
   its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. 'This is the
   Marshalsea, sir.'

   'The debtors' prison?'

   'Sir,' said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary
   to insist upon that designation, 'the debtors' prison.'

   He turned himself about, and went on.

   'I beg your pardon,' said Arthur, stopping him once more, 'but will you
   allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?'

   'Any one can _go in_,' replied the old man; plainly adding by the
   significance of his emphasis, 'but it is not every one who can go out.'

   'Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?'

   'Sir,' returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his
   hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him.
   'I am.'

   'I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good
   object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?'

   'My name, sir,' replied the old man most unexpectedly, 'is Dorrit.'

   Arthur pulled off his hat to him. 'Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen
   words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that
   assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of
   addressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long
   absence. I have seen at my mother's--Mrs Clennam in the city--a young
   woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken
   of as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have
   had a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a
   minute before you came up, pass in at that door.'

   The old man looked at him attentively. 'Are you a sailor, sir?' he
   asked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that
   replied to him. 'Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt face that you
   might be. Are you in earnest, sir?'

   'I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in
   plain earnest.'

   'I know very little of the world, sir,' returned the other, who had a
   weak and quavering voice. 'I am merely passing on, like the shadow over
   the sun-dial. It would be worth no man's while to mislead me; it would
   really be too easy--too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The
   young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother's child. My brother
   is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your
   mother's (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest
   in her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see.'

   He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.

   'My brother,' said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing
   round again, 'has been here many years; and much that happens even among
   ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn't
   enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's working at
   her needle. Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said
   among us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now!
   Come and see.'

   Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was
   turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into
   a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door
   and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before,
   turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the
   turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and
   the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.

   The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in
   the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain
   and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered
   about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old
   man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or
   fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs. 'They are rather dark,
   sir, but you will not find anything in the way.'

   He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had
   no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and saw
   the reason of her setting so much store by dining alone.

   She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and
   was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her father, clad
   in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table.
   A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon,
   salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his
   particular little phial of cayenne pepper and his pennyworth of pickles
   in a saucer, were not wanting.

   She started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with
   his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her
   to be reassured and to trust him.

   'I found this gentleman,' said the uncle--'Mr Clennam, William, son of
   Amy's friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying
   his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my
   brother William, sir.'

   'I hope,' said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, 'that my respect for
   your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you,
   sir.'

   'Mr Clennam,' returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the
   flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, 'you do me
   honour. You are welcome, sir;' with a low bow. 'Frederick, a chair. Pray
   sit down, Mr Clennam.'

   He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his
   own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his
   manner. These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians.

   'You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen
   to these walls. Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy may have
   mentioned that I am the Father of this place.'

   'I--so I have understood,' said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.

   'You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl,
   sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear,
   put this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which
   we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me
   the honour, sir, to--'

   'Thank you,' returned Arthur. 'Not a morsel.'

   He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that
   the probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to her family
   history, should be so far out of his mind.

   She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to
   his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently in
   observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself,
   and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled
   and took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud
   of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost
   heart.

   The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an
   amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at
   distinction. 'Frederick,' said he, 'you and Fanny sup at your lodgings
   to-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?'

   'She is walking with Tip.'

   'Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little
   wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was
   rather'--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round
   the room--'a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?'

   'My first.'

   'You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my
   knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any
   pretensions--comes here without being presented to me.'

   'As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,'
   said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.

   'Yes!' the Father of the Marshalsea assented. 'We have even exceeded
   that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee--quite
   a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the
   name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last
   Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six
   months.'

   'I don't remember his name, father.'

   'Frederick, do _you_ remember his name?'

   Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that
   Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with
   any hope of information.

   'I mean,' said his brother, 'the gentleman who did that handsome action
   with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr
   Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you
   may like, perhaps, to know what it was.'

   'Very much,' said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head
   beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over
   it.

   'It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a
   duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it
   on every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness.
   A--well--a--it's of no use to disguise the fact--you must know, Mr
   Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire
   to offer some little--Testimonial--to the Father of the place.'

   To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her
   timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight.

   'Sometimes,' he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing
   his throat every now and then; 'sometimes--hem--it takes one shape and
   sometimes another; but it is generally--ha--Money. And it is, I cannot
   but confess it, it is too often--hem--acceptable. This gentleman that I
   refer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying
   to my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with
   great--ahem--information.' All this time, though he had finished his
   supper, he was nervously going about his plate with his knife and
   fork, as if some of it were still before him. 'It appeared from his
   conversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of mentioning
   it at first, as gardens are--hem--are not accessible to me. But it came
   out, through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium--beautiful
   cluster of geranium to be sure--which he had brought from his
   conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich colour, he showed me a
   piece of paper round it, on which was written, "For the Father of the
   Marshalsea," and presented it to me. But this was--hem--not all. He made
   a particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove the paper in
   half an hour. I--ha--I did so; and I found that it contained--ahem--two
   guineas. I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received--hem--Testimonials
   in many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always
   been--ha--unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than
   with this--ahem--this particular Testimonial.'

   Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme,
   when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A pretty
   girl of a far better figure and much more developed than Little Dorrit,
   though looking much younger in the face when the two were observed
   together, stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man
   who was with her, stopped too.

   'Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. The bell
   is a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good
   night; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr Clennam
   will excuse any household business you may have together. He knows, I
   dare say, that I have but one room here.'

   'I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,' said the second girl.

   'And I my clothes,' said Tip.

   Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of
   drawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles,
   which she handed to her brother and sister. 'Mended and made up?'
   Clennam heard the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy answered 'Yes.'
   He had risen now, and took the opportunity of glancing round the room.
   The bare walls had been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand,
   and were poorly decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained,
   and the floor carpeted; and there were shelves and pegs, and other such
   conveniences, that had accumulated in the course of years. It was a
   close, confined room, poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot,
   or the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but
   constant pains and care had made it neat, and even, after its kind,
   comfortable.

   All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go.
   'Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,' he said, with his ragged clarionet case
   under his arm; 'the lock, child, the lock!'

   Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had
   already clattered down-stairs. 'Now, Mr Clennam,' said the uncle,
   looking back as he shuffled out after them, 'the lock, sir, the lock.'

   Mr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer his
   testimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to his
   child; the other to say something to that child, though it were but a
   word, in explanation of his having come there.

   'Allow me,' said the Father, 'to see you down-stairs.'

   She had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone. 'Not on any
   account,' said the visitor, hurriedly. 'Pray allow me to--' chink,
   chink, chink.

   'Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'I am deeply, deeply--' But his visitor
   had shut up his hand to stop the clinking, and had gone down-stairs with
   great speed.

   He saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard. The last two or
   three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was following,
   when he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first house from the
   entrance. He turned back hastily.

   'Pray forgive me,' he said, 'for speaking to you here; pray forgive me
   for coming here at all! I followed you to-night. I did so, that I might
   endeavour to render you and your family some service. You know the
   terms on which I and my mother are, and may not be surprised that I
   have preserved our distant relations at her house, lest I should
   unintentionally make her jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in
   her estimation. What I have seen here, in this short time, has greatly
   increased my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you. It would recompense
   me for much disappointment if I could hope to gain your confidence.'

   She was scared at first, but seemed to take courage while he spoke to
   her.

   'You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I--but I
   wish you had not watched me.'

   He understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her
   father's behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.

   'Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don't know what we
   should have done without the employment she has given me; I am afraid
   it may not be a good return to become secret with her; I can say no more
   to-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you, thank
   you.'

   'Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my mother
   long?'

   'I think two years, sir,--The bell has stopped.'

   'How did you know her first? Did she send here for you?'

   'No. She does not even know that I live here. We have a friend, father
   and I--a poor labouring man, but the best of friends--and I wrote out
   that I wished to do needlework, and gave his address. And he got what
   I wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, and Mrs
   Clennam found me that way, and sent for me. The gate will be locked,
   sir!'

   She was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for
   her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he
   could scarcely tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the
   quiet in the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried
   words of kindness he left her gliding back to her father.

   But he remained too late. The inner gate was locked, and the lodge
   closed. After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was standing
   there with the disagreeable conviction upon him that he had got to get
   through the night, when a voice accosted him from behind.

   'Caught, eh?' said the voice. 'You won't go home till morning. Oh! It's
   you, is it, Mr Clennam?'

   The voice was Tip's; and they stood looking at one another in the
   prison-yard, as it began to rain.

   'You've done it,' observed Tip; 'you must be sharper than that next
   time.'

   'But you are locked in too,' said Arthur.

   'I believe I am!' said Tip, sarcastically. 'About! But not in your way.
   I belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must
   never know it. I don't see why, myself.'

   'Can I get any shelter?' asked Arthur. 'What had I better do?'

   'We had better get hold of Amy first of all,' said Tip, referring any
   difficulty to her as a matter of course.

   'I would rather walk about all night--it's not much to do--than give
   that trouble.'

   'You needn't do that, if you don't mind paying for a bed. If you don't
   mind paying, they'll make you up one on the Snuggery table, under the
   circumstances. If you'll come along, I'll introduce you there.'

   As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room
   he had lately left, where the light was still burning. 'Yes, sir,' said
   Tip, following his glance. 'That's the governor's. She'll sit with him
   for another hour reading yesterday's paper to him, or something of that
   sort; and then she'll come out like a little ghost, and vanish away
   without a sound.'

   'I don't understand you.'

   'The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the
   turnkey's. First house there,' said Tip, pointing out the doorway into
   which she had retired. 'First house, sky parlour. She pays twice as much
   for it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the
   governor, poor dear girl, day and night.'

   This brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of the
   prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club.
   The apartment on the ground-floor in which it was held, was the Snuggery
   in question; the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter-pots,
   glasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and general flavour of members, were
   still as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment.
   The Snuggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to
   grog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third
   point of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective;
   being but a cooped-up apartment.

   The unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody here
   to be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all. Whether
   they were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy look. The
   keeper of a chandler's shop in a front parlour, who took in gentlemen
   boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. He had been a tailor in
   his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said. He boasted that he stood up
   litigiously for the interests of the college; and he had undefined and
   undefinable ideas that the marshal intercepted a 'Fund,' which ought to
   come to the collegians. He liked to believe this, and always impressed
   the shadowy grievance on new-comers and strangers; though he could not,
   for his life, have explained what Fund he meant, or how the notion had
   got rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced himself, notwithstanding,
   that his own proper share of the Fund was three and ninepence a week;
and that in this amount he, as an individual collegian, was swindled by
the marshal, regularly every Monday. Apparently, he helped to make the
bed, that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case; after
which unloading of his mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he
        always did, without anything coming of it) that he was going to write a
letter to the papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous
conversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone of the
whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state
of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally
broke out.

In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about
him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part
of a dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful
enjoyment of the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen
fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water
supported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the
deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to
the Marshalsea.

The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into
a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs,
  the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights,
  spittoons and repose. But the last item was long, long, long, in linking
  itself to the rest. The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without
  preparation, the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room
  up-stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish
  form, and the face in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if
  not of want, kept him waking and unhappy.

  Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison,
  but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind
  while he lay awake. Whether coffins were kept ready for people who might
  die there, where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who
  died in the prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were
  observed, whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead? As to
  escaping, what chances there were of escape? Whether a prisoner could
  scale the walls with a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon
  the other side? whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a
  staircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? As to
  Fire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay there?

  And these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the setting
  of a picture in which three people kept before him. His father, with the
  steadfast look with which he had died, prophetically darkened forth in
  the portrait; his mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspicion;
  Little Dorrit, with her hand on the degraded arm, and her drooping head
  turned away.

  What if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to
  this poor girl! What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly--Heaven grant
  it!--by the light of the great Day of judgment should trace back his
  fall to her. What if any act of hers and of his father's, should have
  even remotely brought the grey heads of those two brothers so low!

  A swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment here, and
  in her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance
  to be struck? 'I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity. I
  have suffered for it in kind. He has decayed in his prison: I in mine. I
  have paid the penalty.'

  When all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession
  of him. When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled chair,
  warding him off with this justification. When he awoke, and sprang up
  causelessly frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her voice had
  slowly spoken them at his pillow, to break his rest: 'He withers away in
  his prison; I wither away in mine; inexorable justice is done; what do I
  owe on this score!'

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

completion: Arthur's stalking has paid off and he gets to the gates of the Marshalsea. As luck would have it, he runs into Frederick Dorrit, who explains some of the deal about Little Dorrit and how her dad is supposed to be kept in the dark about her working. They go into Dorrit's room, where he is about to eat dinner. Dorrit acts like a king in his kingdom, all patronizing and condescending to Arthur. Then he hits Arthur up for money, telling him a long story about how everyone who meets the Father of the Marshalsea likes to give him a little something. Little Dorrit is totally embarrassed but also seems proud of daddy dearest. Fanny and Tip come by to pick up clean clothes - Little Dorrit apparently does their laundry. The bell starts ringing and everyone hurries Arthur to get away - the bell means the gate is about to close for the night. Arthur slips some coins to Dorrit, then chases after Little Dorrit to tell her that he wants to be her special friend. No, not like that! Get your minds out of the gutter. He just wants to be some kind of protector to her. Then Arthur asks how his mom found her in the first place, and Little Dorrit tells him that she put up some ads and Mrs. Clennam contacted her through one of them. Oops, too long talking with Little Dorrit - the gate has been locked and Arthur is trapped for the night in the prison. Tip takes him to the "Snuggery" - the prison bar and inn - where they make him up a bed. Oh, wait - this might be the moment for Shmoop to tell you that if you're picturing the prison as a modern jail, with cells and bars, you've got it all wrong. It's more like a medieval castle town: there's a tall wall all around, but inside it's a bunch of little houses and shops. It has its own little economy: the bar has a waiter and a bartender, and there are messengers and clerks . On top of that, any prisoner who knows a trade seems to practice it . Anyhoodle. Arthur goes to sleep wondering if his mom knows something about Little Dorrit that's making her act nice to her. Is she doing a kind of voluntary prison sentence in her room to somehow make up for Little Dorrit's imprisonment with her dad?


prompt:
Chapter: The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in
at the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more
welcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with
it. But the equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial
south-west wind, in its flight, would not neglect even the narrow
Marshalsea. While it roared through the steeple of St George's Church,
    and twirled all the cowls in the neighbourhood, it made a swoop to beat
    the Southwark smoke into the jail; and, plunging down the chimneys
    of the few early collegians who were yet lighting their fires, half
    suffocated them.

    Arthur Clennam would have been little disposed to linger in bed, though
    his bed had been in a more private situation, and less affected by the
    raking out of yesterday's fire, the kindling of to-day's under the
    collegiate boiler, the filling of that Spartan vessel at the pump, the
    sweeping and sawdusting of the common room, and other such preparations.
    Heartily glad to see the morning, though little rested by the night, he
    turned out as soon as he could distinguish objects about him, and paced
    the yard for two heavy hours before the gate was opened.

    The walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried
    over them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of
    sea-sickness to look up at the gusty sky. The rain, carried aslant by
    flaws of wind, blackened that side of the central building which he had
    visited last night, but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the
    wall, where he walked up and down among the waits of straw and dust
    and paper, the waste droppings of the pump, and the stray leaves of
    yesterday's greens. It was as haggard a view of life as a man need look
    upon.

    Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had
    brought him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that
    where her father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw
    nothing of her. It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once,
    was to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to
    leave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam
    walked up and down, waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in
    his mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his
    discoveries.

    At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step,
    taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. With a
    joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself
    again in the little outer court-yard where he had spoken to the brother
    last night.

    There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not
    difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and
    errand-bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in the rain
    until the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival
    with greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp
    whitey-brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of
    butter, eggs, milk, and the like. The shabbiness of these attendants
    upon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency,
    was a sight to see. Such threadbare coats and trousers, such fusty gowns
    and shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such
    umbrellas and walking-sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. All of
    them wore the cast-off clothes of other men and women, were made up of
    patches and pieces of other people's individuality, and had no sartorial
    existence of their own proper. Their walk was the walk of a race apart.
    They had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the corner, as if
    they were eternally going to the pawnbroker's. When they coughed, they
    coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in
    draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which
    gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no
    satisfaction. As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with
    borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they
    were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something
    handsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders,
    shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and
    dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their
    figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in
    alcoholic breathings.

    As these people passed him standing still in the court-yard, and one of
    them turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services,
    it came into Arthur Clennam's mind that he would speak to Little Dorrit
    again before he went away. She would have recovered her first surprise,
    and might feel easier with him. He asked this member of the fraternity
    (who had two red herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking brush
     under his arm), where was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee
    at. The nondescript replied in encouraging terms, and brought him to a
    coffee-shop in the street within a stone's throw.

    'Do you know Miss Dorrit?' asked the new client.

    The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside--That was
    the one! That was the one? The nondescript had known her many years.
    In regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript lodged in the same
    house with herself and uncle.

    This changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the
    coffee-shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit
    had issued forth into the street. He entrusted the nondescript with a
    confidential message to her, importing that the visitor who had waited
    on her father last night, begged the favour of a few words with her at
    her uncle's lodging; he obtained from the same source full directions to
    the house, which was very near; dismissed the nondescript gratified with
    half-a-crown; and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee-shop,
    repaired with all speed to the clarionet-player's dwelling.

    There were so many lodgers in this house that the doorpost seemed to be
    as full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. Doubtful
    which might be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the point, when a
    shuttlecock flew out of the parlour window, and alighted on his hat.
    He then observed that in the parlour window was a blind with the
    inscription, MR CRIPPLES's ACADEMY; also in another line, EVENING
    TUITION; and behind the blind was a little white-faced boy, with a slice
    of bread-and-butter and a battledore. The window being accessible from
    the footway, he looked in over the blind, returned the shuttlecock, and
    put his question.

    'Dorrit?' said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in fact).
    '_Mr_ Dorrit? Third bell and one knock.'

    The pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to have been making a copy-book of
    the street-door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil. The
    frequency of the inscriptions, 'Old Dorrit,' and 'Dirty Dick,' in
    combination, suggested intentions of personality on the part Of Mr
    Cripples's pupils.  There was ample time to make these observations
    before the door was opened by the poor old man himself.

    'Ha!' said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, 'you were shut in last
    night?'

    'Yes, Mr Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece here presently.'

    'Oh!' said he, pondering. 'Out of my brother's way? True. Would you come
    up-stairs and wait for her?'

    'Thank you.'

    Turning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or
    said, he led the way up the narrow stairs. The house was very close, and
    had an unwholesome smell. The little staircase windows looked in at the
    back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and
    lines thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung; as if the
    inhabitants were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites
    not worth attending to. In the back garret--a sickly room, with a
    turn-up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the
    blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a
    half-finished breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled
    down anyhow on a rickety table.

    There was no one there. The old man mumbling to himself, after some
    consideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room to fetch
    her back. The visitor, observing that she held the door on the inside,
    and that, when the uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjuration
    of 'Don't, stupid!' and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel,
    concluded that the young lady was in an undress. The uncle, without
    appearing to come to any conclusion, shuffled in again, sat down in his
    chair, and began warming his hands at the fire; not that it was cold, or
    that he had any waking idea whether it was or not.

    'What did you think of my brother, sir?' he asked, when he by-and-by
    discovered what he was doing, left off, reached over to the
    chimney-piece, and took his clarionet case down.

    'I was glad,' said Arthur, very much at a loss, for his thoughts were
    on the brother before him; 'to find him so well and cheerful.'

    'Ha!' muttered the old man, 'yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!'

    Arthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarionet case. He
    did not want it at all. He discovered, in due time, that it was not the
    little paper of snuff (which was also on the chimney-piece), put it back
    again, took down the snuff instead, and solaced himself with a pinch. He
    was as feeble, spare, and slow in his pinches as in everything else, but
    a certain little trickling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn
    nerves about the corners of his eyes and mouth.

    'Amy, Mr Clennam. What do you think of her?'

    'I am much impressed, Mr Dorrit, by all that I have seen of her and
    thought of her.'

    'My brother would have been quite lost without Amy,' he returned. 'We
    should all have been lost without Amy. She is a very good girl, Amy. She
    does her duty.'

    Arthur fancied that he heard in these praises a certain tone of custom,
    which he had heard from the father last night with an inward protest and
    feeling of antagonism. It was not that they stinted her praises, or
    were insensible to what she did for them; but that they were lazily
    habituated to her, as they were to all the rest of their condition.
    He fancied that although they had before them, every day, the means of
    comparison between her and one another and themselves, they regarded her
    as being in her necessary place; as holding a position towards them all
    which belonged to her, like her name or her age. He fancied that they
    viewed her, not as having risen away from the prison atmosphere, but as
    appertaining to it; as being vaguely what they had a right to expect,
    and nothing more.

    Her uncle resumed his breakfast, and was munching toast sopped in
    coffee, oblivious of his guest, when the third bell rang. That was Amy,
    he said, and went down to let her in; leaving the visitor with as vivid
    a picture on his mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn face, and decayed
    figure, as if he were still drooping in his chair.

    She came up after him, in the usual plain dress, and with the usual
    timid manner. Her lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat faster
    than usual.

    'Mr Clennam, Amy,' said her uncle, 'has been expecting you some time.'

    'I took the liberty of sending you a message.'

    'I received the message, sir.'

    'Are you going to my mother's this morning? I think not, for it is past
    your usual hour.'

    'Not to-day, sir. I am not wanted to-day.'

    'Will you allow Me to walk a little way in whatever direction you may
    be going? I can then speak to you as we walk, both without detaining you
    here, and without intruding longer here myself.'

    She looked embarrassed, but said, if he pleased. He made a pretence of
    having mislaid his walking-stick, to give her time to set the bedstead
    right, to answer her sister's impatient knock at the wall, and to say a
    word softly to her uncle. Then he found it, and they went down-stairs;
    she first, he following; the uncle standing at the stair-head, and
    probably forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor.

    Mr Cripples's pupils, who were by this time coming to school, desisted
    from their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and
    books, to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been
    to see Dirty Dick. They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until the
    mysterious visitor was at a safe distance; when they burst into pebbles
    and yells, and likewise into reviling dances, and in all respects buried
    the pipe of peace with so many savage ceremonies, that, if Mr Cripples
    had been the chief of the Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on,
    they could scarcely have done greater justice to their education.

    In the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to Little
    Dorrit, and Little Dorrit took it. 'Will you go by the Iron Bridge,'
    said he, 'where there is an escape from the noise of the street?' Little
    Dorrit answered, if he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that he
    would 'not mind' Mr Cripples's boys, for she had herself received
    her education, such as it was, in Mr Cripples's evening academy. He
    returned, with the best will in the world, that Mr Cripples's boys were
    forgiven out of the bottom of his soul. Thus did Cripples unconsciously
    become a master of the ceremonies between them, and bring them more
    naturally together than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived
    in his golden days, and he had alighted from his coach and six for the
    purpose.

    The morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, but
    no rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge. The little creature
    seemed so young in his eyes, that there were moments when he found
    himself thinking of her, if not speaking to her, as if she were a child.
    Perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his.

    'I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as to be
    locked in. It was very unfortunate.'

    It was nothing, he returned. He had had a very good bed.

    'Oh yes!' she said quickly; 'she believed there were excellent beds at
    the coffee-house.' He noticed that the coffee-house was quite a majestic
    hotel to her, and that she treasured its reputation.

    'I believe it is very expensive,' said Little Dorrit, 'but my father has
    told me that quite beautiful dinners may be got there. And wine,' she
    added timidly.

    'Were you ever there?'

    'Oh no! Only into the kitchen to fetch hot water.'

    To think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of
    that superb establishment, the Marshalsea Hotel!

    'I asked you last night,' said Clennam, 'how you had become acquainted
    with my mother. Did you ever hear her name before she sent for you?'

    'No, sir.'

    'Do you think your father ever did?'

    'No, sir.'

    He met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was
            scared when the encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that he
    felt it necessary to say:

    'I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but you
    must, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least
    alarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And you think that at no time of
    your father's life was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him?'

    'No, sir.'

    He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at
    him with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than
    make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh.

    Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after the
    roaring streets as though it had been open country. The wind blew
    roughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on
    the road and pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds
    raced on furiously in the lead-coloured sky, the smoke and mist raced
    after them, the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction.
    Little Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven's
    creatures.

    'Let me put you in a coach,' said Clennam, very nearly adding 'my poor
    child.'

    She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little difference to
    her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He knew it to be so, and
    was touched with more pity; thinking of the slight figure at his side,
    making its nightly way through the damp dark boisterous streets to such
    a place of rest.

    'You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and I found afterwards
    that you had been so generous to my father, that I could not resist your
    message, if it was only to thank you; especially as I wished very much
    to say to you--' she hesitated and trembled, and tears rose in her eyes,
    but did not fall.

    'To say to me--?'

    'That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don't judge him, sir,
    as you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so long!
    I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown
    different in some things since.'

    'My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me.'

    'Not,' she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept
    upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, 'not that he has
    anything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be
    ashamed of for him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for
    him that his life may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite
    true. It all happened just as he related it. He is very much respected.
    Everybody who comes in, is glad to know him. He is more courted than
    anyone else. He is far more thought of than the Marshal is.'

    If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she
    grew boastful of her father.

    'It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and quite
    a study. I see none like them in that place, but he is admitted to
    be superior to all the rest. This is quite as much why they make him
    presents, as because they know him to be needy. He is not to be blamed
    for being in need, poor love. Who could be in prison a quarter of a
    century, and be prosperous!'

    What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears,
    what a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed
    false brightness round him!

    'If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because
    I am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place
    itself as might be supposed. People are not bad because they come there.
    I have known numbers of good, persevering, honest people come there
    through misfortune. They are almost all kind-hearted to one another.
    And it would be ungrateful indeed in me, to forget that I have had many
    quiet, comfortable hours there; that I had an excellent friend there
    when I was quite a baby, who was very very fond of me; that I have been
    taught there, and have worked there, and have slept soundly there. I
    think it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little
    attachment for it, after all this.'

    She had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said,
    raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, 'I did not mean to say
    so much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it seems
    to set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you had
    not followed me, sir. I don't wish it so much now, unless you should
    think--indeed I don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so
    confusedly, that--that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid
    may be the case.'

    He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting
    himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well
    as he could.

    'I feel permitted now,' he said, 'to ask you a little more concerning
    your father. Has he many creditors?'

    'Oh! a great number.'

    'I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is?'

    'Oh yes! a great number.'

    'Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you
    cannot--who is the most influential of them?'

    Little Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to
    hear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power. He was a
    commissioner, or a board, or a trustee, 'or something.' He lived
    in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it. He was under
    Government--high in the Circumlocution Office. She appeared to have
    acquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might of this
    formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and
    the Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned
    him.

    'It can do no harm,' thought Arthur, 'if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle.'

    The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness
    intercepted it. 'Ah!' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild
    despair of a lifetime. 'Many people used to think once of getting my
    poor father out, but you don't know how hopeless it is.'

    She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from
    the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with
    eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile
    figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from
    his purpose of helping her.

    'Even if it could be done,' said she--'and it never can be done
    now--where could father live, or how could he live? I have often thought
    that if such a change could come, it might be anything but a service to
    him now. People might not think so well of him outside as they do there.
    He might not be so gently dealt with outside as he is there. He might
    not be so fit himself for the life outside as he is for that.'

    Here for the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling;
    and the little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy,
    trembled as they clasped each other.

    'It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little
    money, and that Fanny earns a little money. He is so anxious about us,
    you see, feeling helplessly shut up there. Such a good, good father!'

    He let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke. It was soon
    gone. She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to trouble any one
    with her emotions. He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs
    and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the
    wilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on
    the shore, indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze, when she
    was again as quiet as if she had been plying her needle in his mother's
    room.

    'You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?'

    'Oh very, very glad, sir!'

    'Well, we will hope for him at least. You told me last night of a friend
    you had?'

    His name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said.

    And where did Plornish live? Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart Yard. He
    was 'only a plasterer,' Little Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to
    form high social expectations of Plornish. He lived at the last house in
    Bleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a little gateway.

    Arthur took down the address and gave her his. He had now done all he
    sought to do for the present, except that he wished to leave her with a
    reliance upon him, and to have something like a promise from her that
    she would cherish it.

    'There is one friend!' he said, putting up his pocketbook. 'As I take
    you back--you are going back?'

    'Oh yes! going straight home.'

    '--As I take you back,' the word home jarred upon him, 'let me ask you to
    persuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no professions,
    and say no more.'

    'You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more.'

    They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the
    poor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters
    usual to a poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short way, that
    was pleasant to any of the five senses. Yet it was not a common passage
    through common rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this
    little, slender, careful creature on his arm. How young she seemed to
    him, or how old he to her; or what a secret either to the other, in that
    beginning of the destined interweaving of their stories, matters not
    here. He thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes,
    and shrinking through them now, familiar yet misplaced; he thought
    of her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life, and of her
    innocence; of her solicitude for others, and her few years, and her
    childish aspect.

    They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a
    voice cried, 'Little mother, little mother!' Little Dorrit stopping and
    looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them
    (still crying 'little mother'), fell down, and scattered the contents of
    a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.

    'Oh, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit, 'what a clumsy child you are!'

    Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began
    to pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam
    helped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud;
    but they were all recovered, and deposited in the basket. Maggy then
    smeared her muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam
    as a type of purity, enabled him to see what she was like.

    She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large
    feet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and
    almost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light,
    and to stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive listening
    expression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she
    was not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not
    exceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile;
    a good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable
    by being constantly there. A great white cap, with a quantity of
    opaque frilling that was always flapping about, apologised for Maggy's
    baldness, and made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to
    retain its place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a
    gipsy's baby. A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported
    what the rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong general
    resemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her
    shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion.

    Arthur Clennam looked at Little Dorrit with the expression of one
    saying, 'May I ask who this is?' Little Dorrit, whose hand this Maggy,
    still calling her little mother, had begun to fondle, answered in words
    (they were under a gateway into which the majority of the potatoes had
     rolled).

    'This is Maggy, sir.'

    'Maggy, sir,' echoed the personage presented. 'Little mother!'

    'She is the grand-daughter--' said Little Dorrit.

    'Grand-daughter,' echoed Maggy.

    'Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggy, how old are
    you?'

    'Ten, mother,' said Maggy.

    'You can't think how good she is, sir,' said Little Dorrit, with
    infinite tenderness.

    'Good _she_ is,' echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most
    expressive way from herself to her little mother.

    'Or how clever,' said Little Dorrit. 'She goes on errands as well as
    any one.' Maggy laughed. 'And is as trustworthy as the Bank of England.'
    Maggy laughed. 'She earns her own living entirely. Entirely, sir!' said
    Little Dorrit, in a lower and triumphant tone. 'Really does!'

    'What is her history?' asked Clennam.

    'Think of that, Maggy?' said Little Dorrit, taking her two large hands
    and clapping them together. 'A gentleman from thousands of miles away,
    wanting to know your history!'

    '_My_ history?' cried Maggy. 'Little mother.'

    'She means me,' said Little Dorrit, rather confused; 'she is very much
    attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should
    have been; was she, Maggy?'

    Maggy shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand,
    drank out of it, and said, 'Gin.' Then beat an imaginary child, and said,
    'Broom-handles and pokers.'

    'When Maggy was ten years old,' said Little Dorrit, watching her face
    while she spoke, 'she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any
    older ever since.'

    'Ten years old,' said Maggy, nodding her head. 'But what a nice
    hospital! So comfortable, wasn't it? Oh so nice it was. Such a Ev'nly
    place!'

    'She had never been at peace before, sir,' said Little Dorrit, turning
    towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, 'and she always runs off
    upon that.'

    'Such beds there is there!' cried Maggy. 'Such lemonades! Such oranges!
    Such d'licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, AIN'T it a delightful
    place to go and stop at!'

    'So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,' said Little Dorrit,
    in her former tone of telling a child's story; the tone designed for
    Maggy's ear, 'and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came
    out. Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however
    long she lived--'

    'However long she lived,' echoed Maggy.

    '--And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she began
    to laugh she couldn't stop herself--which was a great pity--'

(Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.)

    '--Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years
    was very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggy began
    to take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very
    industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as
    she liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support
    herself. And that,' said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands
    together again, 'is Maggy's history, as Maggy knows!'

    Ah! But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness,
    though he had never heard of the words Little mother; though he had
    never seen the fondling of the small spare hand; though he had had no
    sight for the tears now standing in the colourless eyes; though he had
    had no hearing for the sob that checked the clumsy laugh. The dirty
    gateway with the wind and rain whistling through it, and the basket of
    muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken up, never seemed the
    common hole it really was, when he looked back to it by these lights.
    Never, never!

    They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the
    gateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they must stop
    at a grocer's window, short of their destination, for her to show her
    learning. She could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in
    the tickets of prices, for the most part correctly. She also stumbled,
    with a large balance of success against her failures, through various
    philanthropic recommendations to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black,
    Try our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, challenging competition at the head
    of Flowery Teas; and various cautions to the public against spurious
    establishments and adulterated articles. When he saw how pleasure
    brought a rosy tint into Little Dorrit's face when Maggy made a hit,
    he felt that he could have stood there making a library of the grocer's
    window until the rain and wind were tired.

    The court-yard received them at last, and there he said goodbye to
    Little Dorrit. Little as she had always looked, she looked less than
    ever when he saw her going into the Marshalsea lodge passage, the little
    mother attended by her big child.

    The cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, had
    tamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came away.

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

completion: Arthur sleeps badly, wakes up early, and gets the heck out of Dodge - um, Marshalsea - as soon as possible. Then he decides to speak to Little Dorrit again and leaves her a message saying to meet him at her uncle Frederick's house. He waits in Frederick Dorrit's disgusting little room just outside the prison and realizes that the family takes Little Dorrit and all her various services totally for granted. Finally she arrives, and they go out for a walk. First Arthur tries to get some more info about his mom, but Little Dorrit had never heard of her before going to work at the Clennam house. Little Dorrit also tells him about Plornish, a plasterer she met while he was in Marshalsea and who is now her friend. Then Arthur starts to get fatherly type feelings about her, trying to protect her. Little Dorrit is onto him, though, and busts out with a speech about not feeling sorry for her and not judging her dad too harshly for how he has turned out because "He has been there so long! I never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown different in some things since" . So basically there's a whole lot of denial, enabling, and general awfulness going on. Get these people into family therapy, pronto! Arthur wonders if there's a way to get Dorrit out of prison, and Little Dorrit says she remembers some high-up government official named Tite Barnacle. But then she immediately freaks out at the idea that Arthur is going to try to fix things and tells him not to even bother trying. Odd, no? Almost like she likes the situation the way it is. In any case, they run into Maggie. Maggie is a 28-year-old mentally disabled lady who calls Little Dorrit her "little mother." Little Dorrit has taken her under her wing and taught her to read and write a bit, and Maggie is now able to earn her own living as an errand-runner. Arthur loves how proud Little Dorrit is of Maggie's accomplishments. Eventually he walks them back to the prison.