prompt:
Chapter: The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists
had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the
new sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new
existence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone,
    and the mountain, a shining waste of immense white heaps and masses, to
    be a region of cloud floating between the blue sky above and the earth
    far below.

    Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning
    at the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths
    which were not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at
    work in several places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to
    be foot-thawed again about the door. Mules were busily brought out, tied
    to the rings in the wall, and laden; strings of bells were buckled
    on, burdens were adjusted, the voices of drivers and riders sounded
    musically. Some of the earliest had even already resumed their journey;
    and, both on the level summit by the dark water near the convent, and on
    the downward way of yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of men and
    mules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with a clear
    tinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues.

    In the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the feathery
    ashes of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of loaves, butter,
    and milk. It also shone on the courier of the Dorrit family, making tea
    for his party from a supply he had brought up with him, together with
    several other small stores which were chiefly laid in for the use of the
    strong body of inconvenience. Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already
    breakfasted, and were walking up and down by the lake, smoking their
    cigars.

    'Gowan, eh?' muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire, turning
    over the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them to
    breakfast. 'Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I have got to
    say! If it was worth my while, I'd pull his nose. But it isn't worth my
    while--fortunately for him. How's his wife, Amy? I suppose you know.
    You generally know things of that sort.'

    'She is better, Edward. But they are not going to-day.'

    'Oh! They are not going to-day! Fortunately for that fellow too,' said
    Tip, 'or he and I might have come into collision.'

    'It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and not be
    fatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.'

    'With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her. You
    haven't been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old habits,
    have you, Amy?'

    He asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss
    Fanny, and at his father too.

    'I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, Tip,'
    said Little Dorrit.

    'You needn't call me Tip, Amy child,' returned that young gentleman
    with a frown; 'because that's an old habit, and one you may as well lay
    aside.'

    'I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so natural once,
    that it seemed at the moment the right word.'

    'Oh yes!' Miss Fanny struck in. 'Natural, and right word, and once, and
    all the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well
    why you have been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan. You can't
    blind _me_.'

    'I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry.'

    'Oh! angry!' returned that young lady with a flounce. 'I have no
    patience' (which indeed was the truth).

    'Pray, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, 'what do you mean?
    Explain yourself.'

    'Oh! Never mind, Pa,' replied Miss Fanny, 'it's no great matter.
    Amy will understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before
    yesterday, and she may as well admit that she did.'

    'My child,' said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, 'has your
    sister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?'

    'However meek we are,' Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, 'we
    don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains,
    and sitting perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something
    about them beforehand. It's not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs
    Gowan is.'

    'Whose friend?' inquired her father.

    'Pa, I am sorry to say,' returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time
    succeeded in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and
    grievance, which she was often at great pains to do: 'that I believe her
    to be a friend of that very objectionable and unpleasant person, who,
    with a total absence of all delicacy, which our experience might have
    led us to expect from him, insulted us and outraged our feelings in
    so public and wilful a manner on an occasion to which it is understood
    among us that we will not more pointedly allude.'

    'Amy, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a
    dignified affection, 'is this the case?'

    Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was.

    'Yes it is!' cried Miss Fanny. 'Of course! I said so! And now, Pa, I do
    declare once for all'--this young lady was in the habit of declaring the
    same thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times in
    a day--'that this is shameful! I do declare once for all that it ought
    to be put a stop to. Is it not enough that we have gone through what
    is only known to ourselves, but are we to have it thrown in our faces,
    perseveringly and systematically, by the very person who should spare
    our feelings most? Are we to be exposed to this unnatural conduct every
    moment of our lives? Are we never to be permitted to forget? I say
    again, it is absolutely infamous!'

    'Well, Amy,' observed her brother, shaking his head, 'you know I stand
    by you whenever I can, and on most occasions. But I must say, that, upon
    my soul, I do consider it rather an unaccountable mode of showing your
    sisterly affection, that you should back up a man who treated me in the
    most ungentlemanly way in which one man can treat another. And who,' he
    added convincingly, 'must be a low-minded thief, you know, or he never
    could have conducted himself as he did.'

    'And see,' said Miss Fanny, 'see what is involved in this! Can we ever
    hope to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our two women, and
    Pa's valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependents,
    and yet in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing
    about with tumblers of cold water, like a menial! Why, a policeman,'
    said Miss Fanny, 'if a beggar had a fit in the street, could but go
    plunging about with tumblers, as this very Amy did in this very room
    before our very eyes last night!'

    'I don't so much mind that, once in a way,' remarked Mr Edward; 'but
    your Clennam, as he thinks proper to call himself, is another thing.'

    'He is part of the same thing,' returned Miss Fanny, 'and of a piece
    with all the rest. He obtruded himself upon us in the first instance.
    We never wanted him. I always showed him, for one, that I could
    have dispensed with his company with the greatest pleasure.
    He then commits that gross outrage upon our feelings, which he never
    could or would have committed but for the delight he took in exposing
    us; and then we are to be demeaned for the service of his friends! Why,
    I don't wonder at this Mr Gowan's conduct towards you. What else was
    to be expected when he was enjoying our past misfortunes--gloating over
    them at the moment!'

    'Father--Edward--no indeed!' pleaded Little Dorrit. 'Neither Mr nor Mrs
    Gowan had ever heard our name. They were, and they are, quite ignorant
    of our history.'

    'So much the worse,' retorted Fanny, determined not to admit anything in
    extenuation, 'for then you have no excuse. If they had known about us,
    you might have felt yourself called upon to conciliate them. That would
    have been a weak and ridiculous mistake, but I can respect a mistake,
    whereas I can't respect a wilful and deliberate abasing of those who
    should be nearest and dearest to us. No. I can't respect that. I can do
    nothing but denounce that.'

    'I never offend you wilfully, Fanny,' said Little Dorrit, 'though you
    are so hard with me.'

    'Then you should be more careful, Amy,' returned her sister. 'If you do
    such things by accident, you should be more careful. If I happened to
    have been born in a peculiar place, and under peculiar circumstances
    that blunted my knowledge of propriety, I fancy I should think myself
    bound to consider at every step, "Am I going, ignorantly, to compromise
    any near and dear relations?" That is what I fancy _I_ should do, if it
    was _my_ case.'

    Mr Dorrit now interposed, at once to stop these painful subjects by his
    authority, and to point their moral by his wisdom.

    'My dear,' said he to his younger daughter, 'I beg you to--ha--to say
    no more. Your sister Fanny expresses herself strongly, but not without
    considerable reason. You have now a--hum--a great position to support.
    That great position is not occupied by yourself alone, but by--ha--by
    me, and--ha hum--by us. Us. Now, it is incumbent upon all people in an
    exalted position, but it is particularly so on this family, for reasons
    which I--ha--will not dwell upon, to make themselves respected. To be
    vigilant in making themselves respected. Dependants, to respect us, must
    be--ha--kept at a distance and--hum--kept down. Down. Therefore, your
    not exposing yourself to the remarks of our attendants by appearing to
    have at any time dispensed with their services and performed them for
    yourself, is--ha--highly important.'

    'Why, who can doubt it?' cried Miss Fanny. 'It's the essence of
    everything.'

    'Fanny,' returned her father, grandiloquently, 'give me leave, my dear.
    We then come to--ha--to Mr Clennam. I am free to say that I do not, Amy,
    share your sister's sentiments--that is to say altogether--hum--
    altogether--in reference to Mr Clennam. I am content to regard that
    individual in the light of--ha--generally--a well-behaved person. Hum.
    A well-behaved person. Nor will I inquire whether Mr Clennam did, at any
    time, obtrude himself on--ha--my society. He knew my society to
    be--hum--sought, and his plea might be that he regarded me in the light
    of a public character. But there were circumstances attending
    my--ha--slight knowledge of Mr Clennam (it was very slight), which,'
    here Mr Dorrit became extremely grave and impressive, 'would render it
    highly indelicate in Mr Clennam to--ha--to seek to renew communication
    with me or with any member of my family under existing circumstances.
    If Mr Clennam has sufficient delicacy to perceive the impropriety of
    any such attempt, I am bound as a responsible gentleman to--ha--defer
    to that delicacy on his part. If, on the other hand, Mr Clennam has not
    that delicacy, I cannot for a moment--ha--hold any correspondence with
    so--hum--coarse a mind. In either case, it would appear that Mr Clennam
    is put altogether out of the question, and that we have nothing to do
    with him or he with us. Ha--Mrs General!'

    The entrance of the lady whom he announced, to take her place at the
    breakfast-table, terminated the discussion. Shortly afterwards, the
    courier announced that the valet, and the footman, and the two maids,
    and the four guides, and the fourteen mules, were in readiness; so the
    breakfast party went out to the convent door to join the cavalcade.

    Mr Gowan stood aloof with his cigar and pencil, but Mr Blandois was on
    the spot to pay his respects to the ladies. When he gallantly pulled
    off his slouched hat to Little Dorrit, she thought he had even a more
    sinister look, standing swart and cloaked in the snow, than he had
    in the fire-light over-night. But, as both her father and her sister
    received his homage with some favour, she refrained from expressing any
    distrust of him, lest it should prove to be a new blemish derived from
    her prison birth.

    Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was
    yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois,
    backed by the convent smoke which rose straight and high from the
    chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking
    down after them. Long after he was a mere black stick in the snow, she
    felt as though she could yet see that smile of his, that high nose, and
    those eyes that were too near it. And even after that, when the convent
    was gone and some light morning clouds veiled the pass below it, the
    ghastly skeleton arms by the wayside seemed to be all pointing up at
    him.

    More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to
    melt, Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they came
    down into the softer regions. Again the sun was warm, again the streams
    descending from glaciers and snowy caverns were refreshing to drink at,
    again they came among the pine-trees, the rocky rivulets, the verdant
    heights and dales, the wooden chalets and rough zigzag fences of Swiss
    country. Sometimes the way so widened that she and her father could
    ride abreast. And then to look at him, handsomely clothed in his fur and
    broadcloths, rich, free, numerously served and attended, his eyes roving
    far away among the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen before
    them to darken his sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough.

    Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore the
    clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a sacrifice to
    the family credit, and went where he was taken, with a certain patient
    animal enjoyment, which seemed to express that the air and change did
    him good. In all other respects, save one, he shone with no light but
    such as was reflected from his brother. His brother's greatness, wealth,
    freedom, and grandeur, pleased him without any reference to himself.
    Silent and retiring, he had no use for speech when he could hear his
    brother speak; no desire to be waited on, so that the servants devoted
    themselves to his brother. The only noticeable change he originated in
    himself, was an alteration in his manner to his younger niece. Every day
    it refined more and more into a marked respect, very rarely shown by age
    to youth, and still more rarely susceptible, one would have said, of the
    fitness with which he invested it. On those occasions when Miss Fanny
    did declare once for all, he would take the next opportunity of baring
    his grey head before his younger niece, and of helping her to alight,
    or handing her to the carriage, or showing her any other attention, with
    the profoundest deference. Yet it never appeared misplaced or forced,
    being always heartily simple, spontaneous, and genuine. Neither would he
    ever consent, even at his brother's request, to be helped to any place
    before her, or to take precedence of her in anything. So jealous was he
    of her being respected, that, on this very journey down from the Great
    Saint Bernard, he took sudden and violent umbrage at the footman's being
    remiss to hold her stirrup, though standing near when she dismounted;
    and unspeakably astonished the whole retinue by charging at him on a
    hard-headed mule, riding him into a corner, and threatening to trample
    him to death.

    They were a goodly company, and the Innkeepers all but worshipped them.
    Wherever they went, their importance preceded them in the person of the
    courier riding before, to see that the rooms of state were ready. He was
    the herald of the family procession. The great travelling-carriage came
    next: containing, inside, Mr Dorrit, Miss Dorrit, Miss Amy Dorrit,
    and Mrs General; outside, some of the retainers, and (in fine weather)
    Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for whom the box was reserved. Then came
    the chariot containing Frederick Dorrit, Esquire, and an empty place
    occupied by Edward Dorrit, Esquire, in wet weather. Then came the
    fourgon with the rest of the retainers, the heavy baggage, and as much
    as it could carry of the mud and dust which the other vehicles left
    behind.

    These equipages adorned the yard of the hotel at Martigny, on the return
    of the family from their mountain excursion. Other vehicles were there,
    much company being on the road, from the patched Italian Vettura--like
    the body of a swing from an English fair put upon a wooden tray on
    wheels, and having another wooden tray without wheels put atop of it--to
    the trim English carriage. But there was another adornment of the
    hotel which Mr Dorrit had not bargained for. Two strange travellers
    embellished one of his rooms.

    The Innkeeper, hat in hand in the yard, swore to the courier that he was
    blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly afflicted, that
    he was the most miserable and unfortunate of beasts, that he had the
    head of a wooden pig. He ought never to have made the concession, he
    said, but the very genteel lady had so passionately prayed him for the
    accommodation of that room to dine in, only for a little half-hour, that
    he had been vanquished. The little half-hour was expired, the lady and
    gentleman were taking their little dessert and half-cup of coffee, the
    note was paid, the horses were ordered, they would depart immediately;
    but, owing to an unhappy destiny and the curse of Heaven, they were not
    yet gone.

    Nothing could exceed Mr Dorrit's indignation, as he turned at the foot
    of the staircase on hearing these apologies. He felt that the family
    dignity was struck at by an assassin's hand. He had a sense of his
    dignity, which was of the most exquisite nature. He could detect a
    design upon it when nobody else had any perception of the fact. His
    life was made an agony by the number of fine scalpels that he felt to be
    incessantly engaged in dissecting his dignity.

    'Is it possible, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, reddening excessively, 'that you
    have--ha--had the audacity to place one of my rooms at the disposition
    of any other person?'

    Thousands of pardons! It was the host's profound misfortune to have been
    overcome by that too genteel lady. He besought Monseigneur not to enrage
    himself. He threw himself on Monseigneur for clemency. If Monseigneur
    would have the distinguished goodness to occupy the other salon
    especially reserved for him, for but five minutes, all would go well.

    'No, sir,' said Mr Dorrit. 'I will not occupy any salon. I will leave
    your house without eating or drinking, or setting foot in it. How do
    you dare to act like this? Who am I that you--ha--separate me from other
    gentlemen?'

    Alas! The host called all the universe to witness that Monseigneur was
    the most amiable of the whole body of nobility, the most important,
    the most estimable, the most honoured. If he separated Monseigneur from
    others, it was only because he was more distinguished, more cherished,
    more generous, more renowned.

    'Don't tell me so, sir,' returned Mr Dorrit, in a mighty heat. 'You have
    affronted me. You have heaped insults upon me. How dare you? Explain
    yourself.'

    Ah, just Heaven, then, how could the host explain himself when he had
    nothing more to explain; when he had only to apologise, and confide
    himself to the so well-known magnanimity of Monseigneur!

    'I tell you, sir,' said Mr Dorrit, panting with anger, 'that you
    separate me--ha--from other gentlemen; that you make distinctions
    between me and other gentlemen of fortune and station. I demand of you,
    why? I wish to know on--ha--what authority, on whose authority. Reply
    sir. Explain. Answer why.'

    Permit the landlord humbly to submit to Monsieur the Courier then, that
    Monseigneur, ordinarily so gracious, enraged himself without cause.
    There was no why. Monsieur the Courier would represent to Monseigneur,
    that he deceived himself in suspecting that there was any why, but the
    why his devoted servant had already had the honour to present to him.
    The very genteel lady--

    'Silence!' cried Mr Dorrit. 'Hold your tongue! I will hear no more
    of the very genteel lady; I will hear no more of you. Look at this
    family--my family--a family more genteel than any lady. You have treated
    this family with disrespect; you have been insolent to this family. I'll
    ruin you. Ha--send for the horses, pack the carriages, I'll not set foot
    in this man's house again!'

    No one had interfered in the dispute, which was beyond the French
    colloquial powers of Edward Dorrit, Esquire, and scarcely within the
    province of the ladies. Miss Fanny, however, now supported her father
    with great bitterness; declaring, in her native tongue, that it was
    quite clear there was something special in this man's impertinence;
    and that she considered it important that he should be, by some means,
    forced to give up his authority for making distinctions between that
    family and other wealthy families. What the reasons of his presumption
    could be, she was at a loss to imagine; but reasons he must have, and
    they ought to be torn from him.

    All the guides, mule-drivers, and idlers in the yard, had made
    themselves parties to the angry conference, and were much impressed by
    the courier's now bestirring himself to get the carriages out. With the
    aid of some dozen people to each wheel, this was done at a great cost of
    noise; and then the loading was proceeded with, pending the arrival of
    the horses from the post-house.

    But the very genteel lady's English chariot being already horsed and at
    the inn-door, the landlord had slipped up-stairs to represent his hard
    case. This was notified to the yard by his now coming down the staircase
    in attendance on the gentleman and the lady, and by his pointing out the
    offended majesty of Mr Dorrit to them with a significant motion of his
    hand.

    'Beg your pardon,' said the gentleman, detaching himself from the
    lady, and coming forward. 'I am a man of few words and a bad hand at an
    explanation--but lady here is extremely anxious that there should be no
    Row. Lady--a mother of mine, in point of fact--wishes me to say that she
    hopes no Row.'

    Mr Dorrit, still panting under his injury, saluted the gentleman, and
    saluted the lady, in a distant, final, and invincible manner.

    'No, but really--here, old feller; you!' This was the gentleman's way of
    appealing to Edward Dorrit, Esquire, on whom he pounced as a great and
    providential relief. 'Let you and I try to make this all right. Lady so
    very much wishes no Row.'

    Edward Dorrit, Esquire, led a little apart by the button, assumed a
    diplomatic expression of countenance in replying, 'Why you must confess,
    that when you bespeak a lot of rooms beforehand, and they belong to you,
    it's not pleasant to find other people in 'em.'

    'No,' said the other, 'I know it isn't. I admit it. Still, let you and I
    try to make it all right, and avoid Row. The fault is not this chap's
    at all, but my mother's. Being a remarkably fine woman with no bigodd
    nonsense about her--well educated, too--she was too many for this chap.
    Regularly pocketed him.'

    'If that's the case--' Edward Dorrit, Esquire, began.

    'Assure you 'pon my soul 'tis the case. Consequently,' said the other
    gentleman, retiring on his main position, 'why Row?'

    'Edmund,' said the lady from the doorway, 'I hope you have explained,
    or are explaining, to the satisfaction of this gentleman and his family
    that the civil landlord is not to blame?'

    'Assure you, ma'am,' returned Edmund, 'perfectly paralysing myself with
    trying it on.' He then looked steadfastly at Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for
    some seconds, and suddenly added, in a burst of confidence, 'Old feller!
    _Is_ it all right?'

    'I don't know, after all,' said the lady, gracefully advancing a step or
    two towards Mr Dorrit, 'but that I had better say myself, at once,
    that I assured this good man I took all the consequences on myself of
    occupying one of a stranger's suite of rooms during his absence, for
    just as much (or as little) time as I could dine in. I had no idea the
    rightful owner would come back so soon, nor had I any idea that he
    had come back, or I should have hastened to make restoration of my
    ill-gotten chamber, and to have offered my explanation and apology. I
    trust in saying this--'

    For a moment the lady, with a glass at her eye, stood transfixed and
    speechless before the two Miss Dorrits. At the same moment, Miss Fanny,
    in the foreground of a grand pictorial composition, formed by the
    family, the family equipages, and the family servants, held her sister
    tight under one arm to detain her on the spot, and with the other arm
    fanned herself with a distinguished air, and negligently surveyed the
    lady from head to foot.

    The lady, recovering herself quickly--for it was Mrs Merdle and she was
    not easily dashed--went on to add that she trusted in saying this, she
    apologised for her boldness, and restored this well-behaved landlord to
    the favour that was so very valuable to him. Mr Dorrit, on the altar of
    whose dignity all this was incense, made a gracious reply; and said
    that his people should--ha--countermand his horses, and he
    would--hum--overlook what he had at first supposed to be an affront,
    but now regarded as an honour. Upon this the bosom bent to him; and its
    owner, with a wonderful command of feature, addressed a winning smile of
    adieu to the two sisters, as young ladies of fortune in whose favour she
    was much prepossessed, and whom she had never had the gratification of
    seeing before.

    Not so, however, Mr Sparkler. This gentleman, becoming transfixed at
    the same moment as his lady-mother, could not by any means unfix himself
    again, but stood stiffly staring at the whole composition with Miss
    Fanny in the Foreground. On his mother saying, 'Edmund, we are quite
    ready; will you give me your arm?' he seemed, by the motion of his lips,
    to reply with some remark comprehending the form of words in which his
    shining talents found the most frequent utterance, but he relaxed no
    muscle. So fixed was his figure, that it would have been matter of some
    difficulty to bend him sufficiently to get him in the carriage-door,
    if he had not received the timely assistance of a maternal pull from
    within. He was no sooner within than the pad of the little window in the
    back of the chariot disappeared, and his eye usurped its place. There
    it remained as long as so small an object was discernible, and probably
    much longer, staring (as though something inexpressibly surprising
            should happen to a codfish) like an ill-executed eye in a large locket.

    This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her
    so much to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her
    asperities exceedingly. When the procession was again in motion next
    day, she occupied her place in it with a new gaiety; and showed such a
    flow of spirits indeed, that Mrs General looked rather surprised.

    Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that Fanny
    was pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing part, and a
    quiet one. Sitting opposite her father in the travelling-carriage, and
    recalling the old Marshalsea room, her present existence was a dream.
    All that she saw was new and wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed
    to her as if those visions of mountains and picturesque countries might
    melt away at any moment, and the carriage, turning some abrupt corner,
    bring up with a jolt at the old Marshalsea gate.

    To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as having
    glided into a corner where she had no one to think for, nothing to plan
    and contrive, no cares of others to load herself with. Strange as that
    was, it was far stranger yet to find a space between herself and her
    father, where others occupied themselves in taking care of him, and
    where she was never expected to be. At first, this was so much more
    unlike her old experience than even the mountains themselves, that she
    had been unable to resign herself to it, and had tried to retain her
    old place about him. But he had spoken to her alone, and had said that
    people--ha--people in an exalted position, my dear, must scrupulously
    exact respect from their dependents; and that for her, his daughter,
    Miss Amy Dorrit, of the sole remaining branch of the Dorrits of
    Dorsetshire, to be known to--hum--to occupy herself in fulfilling the
    functions of--ha hum--a valet, would be incompatible with that respect.
    Therefore, my dear, he--ha--he laid his parental injunctions upon
    her, to remember that she was a lady, who had now to conduct herself
    with--hum--a proper pride, and to preserve the rank of a lady;
    and consequently he requested her to abstain from doing what would
    occasion--ha--unpleasant and derogatory remarks. She had obeyed without
    a murmur. Thus it had been brought about that she now sat in her corner
    of the luxurious carriage with her little patient hands folded before
    her, quite displaced even from the last point of the old standing ground
    in life on which her feet had lingered.

    It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the more
    surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality of her
    own inner life as she went through its vacant places all day long. The
    gorges of the Simplon, its enormous depths and thundering waterfalls,
    the wonderful road, the points of danger where a loose wheel or a
    faltering horse would have been destruction, the descent into Italy, the
    opening of that beautiful land as the rugged mountain-chasm widened and
    let them out from a gloomy and dark imprisonment--all a dream--only the
    old mean Marshalsea a reality. Nay, even the old mean Marshalsea was
    shaken to its foundations when she pictured it without her father. She
    could scarcely believe that the prisoners were still lingering in the
    close yard, that the mean rooms were still every one tenanted, and that
    the turnkey still stood in the Lodge letting people in and out, all just
    as she well knew it to be.

    With a remembrance of her father's old life in prison hanging about her
    like the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake from a
    dream of her birth-place into a whole day's dream. The painted room in
    which she awoke, often a humbled state-chamber in a dilapidated palace,
    would begin it; with its wild red autumnal vine-leaves overhanging the
    glass, its orange-trees on the cracked white terrace outside the window,
    a group of monks and peasants in the little street below, misery and
    magnificence wrestling with each other upon every rood of ground in
    the prospect, no matter how widely diversified, and misery throwing
    magnificence with the strength of fate. To this would succeed a
    labyrinth of bare passages and pillared galleries, with the family
    procession already preparing in the quadrangle below, through the
    carriages and luggage being brought together by the servants for the
    day's journey. Then breakfast in another painted chamber, damp-stained
    and of desolate proportions; and then the departure, which, to her
    timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her place in the
    ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing. For then the courier (who
            himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the
            Marshalsea) would present himself to report that all was ready; and then
    her father's valet would pompously induct him into his travelling-cloak;
    and then Fanny's maid, and her own maid (who was a weight on Little
            Dorrit's mind--absolutely made her cry at first, she knew so little
            what to do with her), would be in attendance; and then her brother's man
    would complete his master's equipment; and then her father would give
    his arm to Mrs General, and her uncle would give his to her, and,
    escorted by the landlord and Inn servants, they would swoop down-stairs.
    There, a crowd would be collected to see them enter their carriages,
    which, amidst much bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and
    clattering, they would do; and so they would be driven madly through
    narrow unsavoury streets, and jerked out at the town gate.

    Among the day's unrealities would be roads where the bright red vines
    were looped and garlanded together on trees for many miles; woods of
    olives; white villages and towns on hill-sides, lovely without, but
    frightful in their dirt and poverty within; crosses by the way; deep
    blue lakes with fairy islands, and clustering boats with awnings of
    bright colours and sails of beautiful forms; vast piles of building
    mouldering to dust; hanging-gardens where the weeds had grown so strong
    that their stems, like wedges driven home, had split the arch and rent
    the wall; stone-terraced lanes, with the lizards running into and out
    of every chink; beggars of all sorts everywhere: pitiful, picturesque,
    hungry, merry; children beggars and aged beggars. Often at
    posting-houses and other halting places, these miserable creatures would
    appear to her the only realities of the day; and many a time, when the
    money she had brought to give them was all given away, she would sit
    with her folded hands, thoughtfully looking after some diminutive girl
    leading her grey father, as if the sight reminded her of something in
    the days that were gone.

    Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together in
    splendid rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of wonders,
    walked through miles of palaces, and rested in dark corners of great
    churches; where there were winking lamps of gold and silver among
    pillars and arches, kneeling figures dotted about at confessionals and
    on the pavements; where there was the mist and scent of incense; where
    there were pictures, fantastic images, gaudy altars, great heights and
    distances, all softly lighted through stained glass, and the massive
    curtains that hung in the doorways. From these cities they would go on
    again, by the roads of vines and olives, through squalid villages, where
    there was not a hovel without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window
    with a whole inch of glass or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to
    support life, nothing to eat, nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing
    to hope, nothing to do but die.

    Again they would come to whole towns of palaces, whose proper inmates
    were all banished, and which were all changed into barracks: troops
    of idle soldiers leaning out of the state windows, where their
    accoutrements hung drying on the marble architecture, and showing to the
    mind like hosts of rats who were (happily) eating away the props of the
    edifices that supported them, and must soon, with them, be smashed on
    the heads of the other swarms of soldiers and the swarms of priests, and
    the swarms of spies, who were all the ill-looking population left to be
    ruined, in the streets below.

    Through such scenes, the family procession moved on to Venice. And here
    it dispersed for a time, as they were to live in Venice some few months
    in a palace (itself six times as big as the whole Marshalsea) on the
    Grand Canal.

    In this crowning unreality, where all the streets were paved with water,
    and where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was broken by
    no sound but the softened ringing of church-bells, the rippling of
    the current, and the cry of the gondoliers turning the corners of the
    flowing streets, Little Dorrit, quite lost by her task being done, sat
    down to muse. The family began a gay life, went here and there, and
    turned night into day; but she was timid of joining in their gaieties,
    and only asked leave to be left alone.

    Sometimes she would step into one of the gondolas that were always kept
    in waiting, moored to painted posts at the door--when she could escape
    from the attendance of that oppressive maid, who was her mistress, and
    a very hard one--and would be taken all over the strange city. Social
    people in other gondolas began to ask each other who the little solitary
    girl was whom they passed, sitting in her boat with folded hands,
    looking so pensively and wonderingly about her. Never thinking that
    it would be worth anybody's while to notice her or her doings, Little
    Dorrit, in her quiet, scared, lost manner, went about the city none the
    less.

    But her favourite station was the balcony of her own room, overhanging
    the canal, with other balconies below, and none above. It was of massive
    stone darkened by ages, built in a wild fancy which came from the East
    to that collection of wild fancies; and Little Dorrit was little indeed,
    leaning on the broad-cushioned ledge, and looking over. As she liked no
    place of an evening half so well, she soon began to be watched for, and
    many eyes in passing gondolas were raised, and many people said, There
    was the little figure of the English girl who was always alone.

    Such people were not realities to the little figure of the English girl;
    such people were all unknown to her. She would watch the sunset, in its
    long low lines of purple and red, and its burning flush high up into
    the sky: so glowing on the buildings, and so lightening their structure,
    that it made them look as if their strong walls were transparent, and
    they shone from within. She would watch those glories expire; and then,
    after looking at the black gondolas underneath, taking guests to music
    and dancing, would raise her eyes to the shining stars. Was there no
    party of her own, in other times, on which the stars had shone? To think
    of that old gate now!

    She would think of that old gate, and of herself sitting at it in the
    dead of the night, pillowing Maggy's head; and of other places and of
    other scenes associated with those different times. And then she would
    lean upon her balcony, and look over at the water, as though they all
    lay underneath it. When she got to that, she would musingly watch its
    running, as if, in the general vision, it might run dry, and show her
    the prison again, and herself, and the old room, and the old inmates,
    and the old visitors: all lasting realities that had never changed.

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

completion: The next morning the Dorrits and their huge retinue of servants pack up to go down the mountains into Italy. Amy tells Tip that Pet Gowan is doing better, and he worries that she's been trying to take care of her - which is low-class and something only servants are supposed to do. Fanny overhears this exchange and loses it. She figures out that Pet must know Arthur, who apparently did something she finds super-offensive in between the novel's two books. It's not clear what this thing Arthur did is, but Fanny writes him off entirely. Dorrit is less angry about Arthur but tells Amy she is just not doing enough to preserve their family dignity. Poor Amy. No one wants to hang out with Prisony McPrisonson. The only person who is nice to her is her uncle Frederick, who goes out of his way to make sure she is well taken care of and that everyone defers to her. Too bad he's a half-senile old man. After some traveling, the Dorrits get to Venice. When they arrive at their hotel, the innkeeper tells them that a lady and gentleman are using their dining room and will be out in a minute. Dorrit flips his lid and starts yelling at the innkeeper - why is he being treated as less important than the lady? The poor guy doesn't know what to say, and Dorrit threatens to leave the hotel, until out of the dining room pops... Edmund Sparkler! He's all apologies and stuff, and his mom Mrs. Merdle is not too far behind with some more apologies. In the middle of apologizing, she recognizes Fanny and Amy. But Mrs. Merdle is a lady of the world, so she plays it off like she's never met either of them before. Dorrit is satisfied with the apologies, and Mrs. Merdle and Edmund Sparkler go off in the carriage, with Edmund never taking his eyes off Fanny. Fanny is totally psyched by this encounter and is a in a good mood for a while afterwards. Amy, meanwhile, is living in kind of a dream world. They go around Venice and everything seems dreamy and strange to her - the canals and the museums and all the people. All she does is think about the prison and wonder how it's possible that it still exists. It's also very stressful for her to no longer be taking physical care of her father's needs and to be replaced by servants. Looks like Amy is going to have to find a new identity!


prompt:
Chapter: Dear Mr Clennam,

     I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be glad to
     hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear from me as I am
     to write to you; for everything about you is as you have been accustomed
     to see it, and you miss nothing--unless it should be me, which can only
     be for a very little while together and very seldom--while everything in
     my life is so strange, and I miss so much.

     When we were in Switzerland, which appears to have been years ago,
     though it was only weeks, I met young Mrs Gowan, who was on a mountain
     excursion like ourselves. She told me she was very well and very happy.
     She sent you the message, by me, that she thanked you affectionately and
     would never forget you. She was quite confiding with me, and I loved her
     almost as soon as I spoke to her. But there is nothing singular in that;
     who could help loving so beautiful and winning a creature! I could not
     wonder at any one loving her. No indeed.

     It will not make you uneasy on Mrs Gowan's account, I hope--for I
     remember that you said you had the interest of a true friend in her--if
     I tell you that I wish she could have married some one better suited to
     her. Mr Gowan seems fond of her, and of course she is very fond of him,
     but I thought he was not earnest enough--I don't mean in that respect--I
     mean in anything. I could not keep it out of my mind that if I was Mrs
     Gowan (what a change that would be, and how I must alter to become like
             her!) I should feel that I was rather lonely and lost, for the want of
     some one who was steadfast and firm in purpose. I even thought she felt
     this want a little, almost without knowing it. But mind you are not made
     uneasy by this, for she was 'very well and very happy.' And she looked
     most beautiful.

     I expect to meet her again before long, and indeed have been expecting
     for some days past to see her here. I will ever be as good a friend to
     her as I can for your sake. Dear Mr Clennam, I dare say you think little
     of having been a friend to me when I had no other (not that I have any
             other now, for I have made no new friends), but I think much of it, and
     I never can forget it.

     I wish I knew--but it is best for no one to write to me--how Mr and Mrs
     Plornish prosper in the business which my dear father bought for them,
     and that old Mr Nandy lives happily with them and his two grandchildren,
     and sings all his songs over and over again. I cannot quite keep back
     the tears from my eyes when I think of my poor Maggy, and of the blank
     she must have felt at first, however kind they all are to her, without
     her Little Mother. Will you go and tell her, as a strict secret, with my
     love, that she never can have regretted our separation more than I have
     regretted it? And will you tell them all that I have thought of them
     every day, and that my heart is faithful to them everywhere? O, if you
     could know how faithful, you would almost pity me for being so far away
     and being so grand!

     You will be glad, I am sure, to know that my dear father is very well
     in health, and that all these changes are highly beneficial to him, and
     that he is very different indeed from what he used to be when you used
     to see him. There is an improvement in my uncle too, I think, though he
     never complained of old, and never exults now. Fanny is very graceful,
     quick, and clever. It is natural to her to be a lady; she has adapted
     herself to our new fortunes with wonderful ease.

     This reminds me that I have not been able to do so, and that I sometimes
     almost despair of ever being able to do so. I find that I cannot learn.
     Mrs General is always with us, and we speak French and speak Italian,
     and she takes pains to form us in many ways. When I say we speak French
     and Italian, I mean they do. As for me, I am so slow that I scarcely
     get on at all. As soon as I begin to plan, and think, and try, all my
     planning, thinking, and trying go in old directions, and I begin to feel
     careful again about the expenses of the day, and about my dear father,
     and about my work, and then I remember with a start that there are no
     such cares left, and that in itself is so new and improbable that it
     sets me wandering again. I should not have the courage to mention this
     to any one but you.

     It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights.
     They are very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not collected
     enough--not familiar enough with myself, if you can quite understand
     what I mean--to have all the pleasure in them that I might have. What
     I knew before them, blends with them, too, so curiously. For instance,
     when we were among the mountains, I often felt (I hesitate to tell such
             an idle thing, dear Mr Clennam, even to you) as if the Marshalsea must
     be behind that great rock; or as if Mrs Clennam's room where I have
     worked so many days, and where I first saw you, must be just beyond that
     snow. Do you remember one night when I came with Maggy to your lodging
     in Covent Garden? That room I have often and often fancied I have seen
     before me, travelling along for miles by the side of our carriage, when
     I have looked out of the carriage-window after dark. We were shut out
     that night, and sat at the iron gate, and walked about till morning.
     I often look up at the stars, even from the balcony of this room, and
     believe that I am in the street again, shut out with Maggy. It is the
     same with people that I left in England.

     When I go about here in a gondola, I surprise myself looking into other
     gondolas as if I hoped to see them. It would overcome me with joy to
     see them, but I don't think it would surprise me much, at first. In my
     fanciful times, I fancy that they might be anywhere; and I almost expect
     to see their dear faces on the bridges or the quays.

     Another difficulty that I have will seem very strange to you. It must
     seem very strange to any one but me, and does even to me: I often feel
     the old sad pity for--I need not write the word--for him. Changed as he
     is, and inexpressibly blest and thankful as I always am to know it, the
     old sorrowful feeling of compassion comes upon me sometimes with such
     strength that I want to put my arms round his neck, tell him how I love
     him, and cry a little on his breast. I should be glad after that, and
     proud and happy. But I know that I must not do this; that he would not
     like it, that Fanny would be angry, that Mrs General would be amazed;
     and so I quiet myself. Yet in doing so, I struggle with the feeling that
     I have come to be at a distance from him; and that even in the midst of
     all the servants and attendants, he is deserted, and in want of me.

     Dear Mr Clennam, I have written a great deal about myself, but I must
     write a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say in this
     weak letter would be left out of it. In all these foolish thoughts of
     mine, which I have been so hardy as to confess to you because I know you
     will understand me if anybody can, and will make more allowance for me
     than anybody else would if you cannot--in all these thoughts, there is
     one thought scarcely ever--never--out of my memory, and that is that
     I hope you sometimes, in a quiet moment, have a thought for me. I must
     tell you that as to this, I have felt, ever since I have been away, an
     anxiety which I am very anxious to relieve. I have been afraid that you
     may think of me in a new light, or a new character. Don't do that, I
     could not bear that--it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose.
     It would break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way
     that would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to
     me. What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never think
     of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never think of me
     as dressing any better, or living any better, than when you first
     knew me. That you will remember me only as the little shabby girl you
     protected with so much tenderness, from whose threadbare dress you have
     kept away the rain, and whose wet feet you have dried at your fire.
     That you will think of me (when you think of me at all), and of my true
     affection and devoted gratitude, always without change, as of

     Your poor child,

     LITTLE DORRIT.

     P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs
     Gowan. Her words were, 'Very well and very happy.' And she looked most
     beautiful.

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

completion: This chapter is just a short letter from Amy to Arthur. Amy is all mopey and homesick and a little passive aggressive in the letter - much like in real life. She writes about meeting Mrs. Gowan and goes on and on how super-beautiful Pet is, and how much Amy is not nearly as beautiful, and how she totally could never measure up to the awesomeness that is Pet. She adds that Gowan kind of sucks, and that Pet seems kind of unhappy, and that they are not that well matched as a couple. But still, Pet? Really very pretty. Yikes, Amy, put down the whip. We're thinking that horse is already dead. In other news, Amy can't adjust to their new life and misses everyone from home. She wonders about the Plornishes, and how they are doing now that Dorrit bought them a business and they are able to have Old Nandy come live with them again. She also keeps expecting to find the prison around every corner and Mrs. Clennam's house on the next block. On top of that, she's super-sad that she isn't at Dorrit's beck and call anymore. Finally she hopes Arthur thinks about her sometimes, and that he'll keep remembering her as the poor, raggedy girl he met, not the daughter of some rich obnoxious dude.


prompt:
Chapter: The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was
much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour
of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference
with Mrs General.

The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his
valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed about a
        third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his compliments to that
lady, and represent him as desiring the favour of an interview. It being
that period of the forenoon when the various members of the family had
coffee in their own chambers, some couple of hours before assembling at
breakfast in a faded hall which had once been sumptuous, but was now
the prey of watery vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was
accessible to the valet. That envoy found her on a little square of
carpet, so extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone
and marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for
the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come into
possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty purses by
one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had that moment been
transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial saloon with which it had
no connection.

Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty
coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's
apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming to her (which, in his
        gallantry, he had proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and
escorted Mrs General to the presence. It was quite a walk, by mysterious
staircases and corridors, from Mrs General's apartment,--hoodwinked by
a narrow side street with a low gloomy bridge in it, and dungeon-like
opposite tenements, their walls besmeared with a thousand downward
stains and streaks, as if every crazy aperture in them had been weeping
tears of rust into the Adriatic for centuries--to Mr Dorrit's apartment:
with a whole English house-front of window, a prospect of beautiful
church-domes rising into the blue sky sheer out of the water which
reflected them, and a hushed murmur of the Grand Canal laving the
doorways below, where his gondolas and gondoliers attended his pleasure,
         drowsily swinging in a little forest of piles.

         Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap--the dormant grub that
         had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into a rare
         butterfly--rose to receive Mrs General. A chair to Mrs General. An
         easier chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you about, what do you
         mean? Now, leave us!

         'Mrs General,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty--'

         'By no means,' Mrs General interposed. 'I was quite at your disposition.
         I had had my coffee.'

         '--I took the liberty,' said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent
         placidity of one who was above correction, 'to solicit the favour of
         a little private conversation with you, because I feel rather worried
         respecting my--ha--my younger daughter. You will have observed a great
         difference of temperament, madam, between my two daughters?'

         Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never
                 without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), 'There is a
         great difference.'

         'May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?' said Mr Dorrit, with a
         deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.

         'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'has force of character and
         self-reliance. Amy, none.'

         None? O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs General,
         ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who
         taught her sister to dance. O Mrs General, Mrs General, ask me, her
         father, what I owe her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this
         slighted little creature from her childhood up!

         No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit's head. He looked at Mrs
         General, seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the
         proprieties, and he said in a thoughtful manner, 'True, madam.'

         'I would not,' said Mrs General, 'be understood to say, observe,
         that there is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material
         there--perhaps, indeed, a little too much.'

         'Will you be kind enough, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to be--ha--more
         explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having--hum--too
         much material. What material?'

         'Fanny,' returned Mrs General, 'at present forms too many opinions.
         Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.'

         Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr Dorrit
         hastened to reply, 'Unquestionably, madam, you are right.' Mrs General
         returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, 'I believe so.'

         'But you are aware, my dear madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'that my daughters
         had the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when they were very
         young; and that, in consequence of my not having been until lately
         the recognised heir to my property, they have lived with me as
         a comparatively poor, though always proud, gentleman, in--ha
         hum--retirement!'

         'I do not,' said Mrs General, 'lose sight of the circumstance.'

         'Madam,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'of my daughter Fanny, under her present
         guidance and with such an example constantly before her--'

(Mrs General shut her eyes.)

    --'I have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in Fanny.
    But my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and vexes my
    thoughts. I must inform you that she has always been my favourite.'

    'There is no accounting,' said Mrs General, 'for these partialities.'

    'Ha--no,' assented Mr Dorrit. 'No. Now, madam, I am troubled by noticing
    that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does not care to go
    about with us; she is lost in the society we have here; our tastes
    are evidently not her tastes. Which,' said Mr Dorrit, summing up with
    judicial gravity, 'is to say, in other words, that there is something
    wrong in--ha--Amy.'

    'May we incline to the supposition,' said Mrs General, with a little
    touch of varnish, 'that something is referable to the novelty of the
    position?'

    'Excuse me, madam,' observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly. 'The daughter
    of a gentleman, though--ha--himself at one time comparatively far from
    affluent--comparatively--and herself reared in--hum--retirement, need
    not of necessity find this position so very novel.'

    'True,' said Mrs General, 'true.'

    'Therefore, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I took the liberty' (he laid an
            emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with
            urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), 'I took the
    liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the
    topic to you, and inquire how you would advise me?'

    'Mr Dorrit,' returned Mrs General, 'I have conversed with Amy several
    times since we have been residing here, on the general subject of the
    formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering
    exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to
    wonder. I have pointed out to her that the celebrated Mr Eustace, the
    classical tourist, did not think much of it; and that he compared the
    Rialto, greatly to its disadvantage, with Westminster and Blackfriars
    Bridges. I need not add, after what you have said, that I have not yet
    found my arguments successful. You do me the honour to ask me what to
    advise. It always appears to me (if this should prove to be a baseless
            assumption, I shall be pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been accustomed to
    exercise influence over the minds of others.'

    'Hum--madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I have been at the head of--ha of
    a considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not
    unaccustomed to--an influential position.'

    'I am happy,' returned Mrs General, 'to be so corroborated. I would
    therefore the more confidently recommend that Mr Dorrit should speak to
    Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes known to her. Being
    his favourite, besides, and no doubt attached to him, she is all the
    more likely to yield to his influence.'

    'I had anticipated your suggestion, madam,' said Mr Dorrit,
    'but--ha--was not sure that I might--hum--not encroach on--'

    'On my province, Mr Dorrit?' said Mrs General, graciously. 'Do not
    mention it.'

    'Then, with your leave, madam,' resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his little
    bell to summon his valet, 'I will send for her at once.'

    'Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?'

    'Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for a
    minute or two--'

    'Not at all.'

    So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy's maid, and to
    request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit wished to
    see her in his own room. In delivering this charge to Tinkler, Mr Dorrit
    looked severely at him, and also kept a jealous eye upon him until he
    went out at the door, mistrusting that he might have something in his
    mind prejudicial to the family dignity; that he might have even got wind
    of some Collegiate joke before he came into the service, and might be
    derisively reviving its remembrance at the present moment. If Tinkler
    had happened to smile, however faintly and innocently, nothing would
    have persuaded Mr Dorrit, to the hour of his death, but that this was
    the case. As Tinkler happened, however, very fortunately for himself, to
    be of a serious and composed countenance, he escaped the secret danger
    that threatened him. And as on his return--when Mr Dorrit eyed him
    again--he announced Miss Amy as if she had come to a funeral, he left a
    vague impression on Mr Dorrit's mind that he was a well-conducted young
    fellow, who had been brought up in the study of his Catechism by a
    widowed mother.

    'Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, 'you have just now been the subject of some
    conversation between myself and Mrs General. We agree that you scarcely
    seem at home here. Ha--how is this?'

    A pause.

    'I think, father, I require a little time.'

    'Papa is a preferable mode of address,' observed Mrs General. 'Father is
    rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to
    the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very
    good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism. You will find it
    serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to
    yourself in company--on entering a room, for instance--Papa, potatoes,
    poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.'

    'Pray, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, 'attend to the--hum--precepts of Mrs
    General.'

    Poor Little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent
    varnisher, promised to try.

    'You say, Amy,' pursued Mr Dorrit, 'that you think you require time.
    Time for what?'

    Another pause.

    'To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant,' said
    Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she had very
    nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, in her desire
    to submit herself to Mrs General and please him.

    Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased. 'Amy,' he returned,
    'it appears to me, I must say, that you have had abundance of time for
    that. Ha--you surprise me. You disappoint me. Fanny has conquered any
    such little difficulties, and--hum--why not you?'

    'I hope I shall do better soon,' said Little Dorrit.

    'I hope so,' returned her father. 'I--ha--I most devoutly hope so, Amy.
    I sent for you, in order that I might say--hum--impressively say, in
    the presence of Mrs General, to whom we are all so much indebted
    for obligingly being present among us, on--ha--on this or any other
    occasion,' Mrs General shut her eyes, 'that I--ha hum--am not pleased
    with you. You make Mrs General's a thankless task. You--ha--embarrass
    me very much. You have always (as I have informed Mrs General) been my
    favourite child; I have always made you a--hum--a friend and companion;
    in return, I beg--I--ha--I _do_ beg, that you accommodate yourself
    better to--hum--circumstances, and dutifully do what becomes your--your
    station.'

    Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual, being excited
    on the subject and anxious to make himself particularly emphatic.

    'I do beg,' he repeated, 'that this may be attended to, and that you
    will seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a manner both
    becoming your position as--ha--Miss Amy Dorrit, and satisfactory to
    myself and Mrs General.'

    That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then, slowly
    opening them and rising, added these words:

    'If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of
    my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr. Dorrit will have
    no further cause of anxiety. May I take this opportunity of remarking,
    as an instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at
    vagrants with the attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a
    very dear young friend of mine? They should not be looked at. Nothing
    disagreeable should ever be looked at. Apart from such a habit standing
    in the way of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive
    of good breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A
    truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything
    that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.' Having delivered
    this exalted sentiment, Mrs General made a sweeping obeisance, and
    retired with an expression of mouth indicative of Prunes and Prism.

    Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet
    earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except for a
    passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone with him
    the fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and there was
    repressed emotion in her face.

    Not for herself. She might feel a little wounded, but her care was not
    for herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had turned, to
    him. A faint misgiving, which had hung about her since their accession
    to fortune, that even now she could never see him as he used to be
    before the prison days, had gradually begun to assume form in her mind.
    She felt that, in what he had just now said to her and in his whole
    bearing towards her, there was the well-known shadow of the Marshalsea
    wall. It took a new shape, but it was the old sad shadow. She began
    with sorrowful unwillingness to acknowledge to herself that she was
    not strong enough to keep off the fear that no space in the life of man
    could overcome that quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had
    no blame to bestow upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with,
    no emotions in her faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded
    tenderness.

    This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in the
    brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city without and
    the splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at the moment in the
    long-familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, and wished to take her
    seat beside him, and comfort him, and be again full of confidence with
    him, and of usefulness to him. If he divined what was in her thoughts,
    his own were not in tune with it. After some uneasy moving in his seat,
    he got up and walked about, looking very much dissatisfied.

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

    'No, no. Nothing else.'

    'I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you will not
    think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more than ever, to
    adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me--for indeed I have tried
    all along, though I have failed, I know.'

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

    'Hurt you, father! I!'

    'There is a--hum--a topic,' said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the
    ceiling of the room, and never at the attentive, uncomplainingly shocked
    face, 'a painful topic, a series of events which I wish--ha--altogether
    to obliterate. This is understood by your sister, who has already
    remonstrated with you in my presence; it is understood by your brother;
    it is understood by--ha hum--by every one of delicacy and sensitiveness
    except yourself--ha--I am sorry to say, except yourself. You,
    Amy--hum--you alone and only you--constantly revive the topic, though
    not in words.'

    She laid her hand on his arm. She did nothing more. She gently touched
    him. The trembling hand may have said, with some expression, 'Think of
    me, think how I have worked, think of my many cares!' But she said not a
    syllable herself.

    There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had
    not foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand. He began to justify
    himself in a heated, stumbling, angry manner, which made nothing of it.

    'I was there all those years. I was--ha--universally acknowledged as
    the head of the place. I--hum--I caused you to be respected there, Amy.
    I--ha hum--I gave my family a position there. I deserve a return. I
    claim a return. I say, sweep it off the face of the earth and begin
    afresh. Is that much? I ask, is _that_ much?'

    He did not once look at her, as he rambled on in this way; but
    gesticulated at, and appealed to, the empty air.

    'I have suffered. Probably I know how much I have suffered better than
    any one--ha--I say than any one! If _I_ can put that aside, if _I_ can
    eradicate the marks of what I have endured, and can emerge before the
    world--a--ha--gentleman unspoiled, unspotted--is it a great deal to
    expect--I say again, is it a great deal to expect--that my children
    should--hum--do the same and sweep that accursed experience off the face
    of the earth?'

    In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in a
    carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear anything.

    'Accordingly, they do it. Your sister does it. Your brother does it. You
    alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and companion of my
    life when you were a mere--hum--Baby, do not do it. You alone say you
    can't do it. I provide you with valuable assistance to do it. I attach
    an accomplished and highly bred lady--ha--Mrs General, to you, for the
    purpose of doing it. Is it surprising that I should be displeased? Is it
    necessary that I should defend myself for expressing my displeasure?
    No!'

    Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself, without any
    abatement of his flushed mood.

    'I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I express
    any displeasure at all. I--hum--I necessarily make that appeal within
    limited bounds, or I--ha--should render legible, by that lady, what I
    desire to be blotted out. Am I selfish? Do I complain for my own sake?
    No. No. Principally for--ha hum--your sake, Amy.'

    This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of pursuing
    it, to have just that instant come into his head.

    'I said I was hurt. So I am. So I--ha--am determined to be, whatever
    is advanced to the contrary. I am hurt that my daughter, seated in
    the--hum--lap of fortune, should mope and retire and proclaim herself
    unequal to her destiny. I am hurt that she should--ha--systematically
    reproduce what the rest of us blot out; and seem--hum--I had almost said
    positively anxious--to announce to wealthy and distinguished society
    that she was born and bred in--ha hum--a place that I myself decline to
    name. But there is no inconsistency--ha--not the least, in my feeling
    hurt, and yet complaining principally for your sake, Amy. I do; I say
    again, I do. It is for your sake that I wish you, under the auspices of
    Mrs General, to form a--hum--a surface. It is for your sake that I wish
    you to have a--ha--truly refined mind, and (in the striking words of
            Mrs General) to be ignorant of everything that is not perfectly proper,
    placid, and pleasant.'

    He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a
    sort of ill-adjusted alarum. The touch was still upon his arm. He fell
    silent; and after looking about the ceiling again for a little while,
    looked down at her. Her head drooped, and he could not see her face; but
    her touch was tender and quiet, and in the expression of her dejected
    figure there was no blame--nothing but love. He began to whimper, just
    as he had done that night in the prison when she afterwards sat at
    his bedside till morning; exclaimed that he was a poor ruin and a poor
    wretch in the midst of his wealth; and clasped her in his arms. 'Hush,
    hush, my own dear! Kiss me!' was all she said to him. His tears
    were soon dried, much sooner than on the former occasion; and he was
    presently afterwards very high with his valet, as a way of righting
    himself for having shed any.

    With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this was
    the only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he spoke to his
    daughter Amy of the old days.

    But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from her
    apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment. Both these young persons of
    distinction were something the worse for late hours. As to Miss Fanny,
    she had become the victim of an insatiate mania for what she called
    'going into society;'and would have gone into it head-foremost fifty
    times between sunset and sunrise, if so many opportunities had been at
    her disposal. As to Mr Edward, he, too, had a large acquaintance, and
    was generally engaged (for the most part, in diceing circles, or others
            of a kindred nature), during the greater part of every night. For this
    gentleman, when his fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage
    of being already prepared for the highest associates, and having little
    to learn: so much was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made
    him acquainted with horse-dealing and billiard-marking.

    At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit likewise appeared. As the old
    gentleman inhabited the highest story of the palace, where he might have
    practised pistol-shooting without much chance of discovery by the other
    inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to propose the restoration
    to him of his clarionet, which Mr Dorrit had ordered to be confiscated,
    but which she had ventured to preserve. Notwithstanding some objections
    from Miss Fanny, that it was a low instrument, and that she detested the
    sound of it, the concession had been made. But it was then discovered
    that he had had enough of it, and never played it, now that it was no
    longer his means of getting bread. He had insensibly acquired a new
    habit of shuffling into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted
    paper of snuff in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who
            had proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might
            not be discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when it was
            bought); and of passing hours and hours before the portraits of renowned
    Venetians. It was never made out what his dazed eyes saw in them;
    whether he had an interest in them merely as pictures, or whether he
    confusedly identified them with a glory that was departed, like the
    strength of his own mind. But he paid his court to them with great
    exactness, and clearly derived pleasure from the pursuit. After the
    first few days, Little Dorrit happened one morning to assist at these
    attentions. It so evidently heightened his gratification that she often
    accompanied him afterwards, and the greatest delight of which the old
    man had shown himself susceptible since his ruin, arose out of these
    excursions, when he would carry a chair about for her from picture
    to picture, and stand behind it, in spite of all her remonstrances,
    silently presenting her to the noble Venetians.

    It fell out that, at this family breakfast, he referred to their having
    seen in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and gentleman whom they
    had encountered on the Great Saint Bernard, 'I forget the name,' said
    he. 'I dare say you remember them, William? I dare say you do, Edward?'

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

    'I should think so,' observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head and
    a glance at her sister. 'But they would not have been recalled to our
    remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn't tumbled over the subject.'

    'My dear, what a curious phrase,' said Mrs General. 'Would not
    inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be better?'

    'Thank you very much, Mrs General,' returned the young lady, 'no, I
    think not. On the whole I prefer my own expression.'

    This was always Miss Fanny's way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs
    General. But she always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at
    another time.

    'I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny,' said
    Little Dorrit, 'even if Uncle had not. I have scarcely seen you since,
    you know. I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast; because I should
    like to pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become better acquainted with
    her, if Papa and Mrs General do not object.'

    'Well, Amy,' said Fanny, 'I am sure I am glad to find you at last
    expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in Venice.
    Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable acquaintances, remains to
    be determined.'

    'Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear.'

    'No doubt,' said Fanny. 'But you can't separate her from her husband, I
    believe, without an Act of Parliament.'

    'Do you think, Papa,' inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and
    hesitation, 'there is any objection to my making this visit?'

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

    Mrs General's view was, that not having the honour of any acquaintance
    with the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not in a position
    to varnish the present article. She could only remark, as a general
    principle observed in the varnishing trade, that much depended on the
    quarter from which the lady under consideration was accredited to a
    family so conspicuously niched in the social temple as the family of
    Dorrit.

    At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably. He was about
    (connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the name
     of Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former state of
     existence) to black-ball the name of Gowan finally, when Edward Dorrit,
    Esquire, came into the conversation, with his glass in his eye, and the
    preliminary remark of 'I say--you there! Go out, will you!'--which was
    addressed to a couple of men who were handing the dishes round, as a
    courteous intimation that their services could be temporarily dispensed
    with.

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

    'Perhaps it's a matter of policy to let you all know that these
    Gowans--in whose favour, or at least the gentleman's, I can't be
    supposed to be much prepossessed myself--are known to people of
    importance, if that makes any difference.'

    'That, I would say,' observed the fair varnisher, 'Makes the greatest
    difference. The connection in question, being really people of
    importance and consideration--'

    'As to that,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'I'll give you the means of
    judging for yourself. You are acquainted, perhaps, with the famous name
    of Merdle?'

    'The great Merdle!' exclaimed Mrs General.

    '_The_ Merdle,' said Edward Dorrit, Esquire. 'They are known to him.
    Mrs Gowan--I mean the dowager, my polite friend's mother--is intimate
    with Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their visiting list.'

    'If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given,' said Mrs
    General to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if she
    were doing homage to some visible graven image.

    'I beg to ask my son, from motives of--ah--curiosity,' Mr Dorrit
    observed, with a decided change in his manner, 'how he becomes possessed
    of this--hum--timely information?'

    'It's not a long story, sir,' returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, 'and you
    shall have it out of hand. To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the lady you had
    the parley with at what's-his-name place.'

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

    'Martigny,' assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight wink;
    in acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and laughed and
    reddened.

    'How can that be, Edward?' said Mr Dorrit. 'You informed me that the
    name of the gentleman with whom you conferred was--ha--Sparkler. Indeed,
    you showed me his card. Hum. Sparkler.'

    'No doubt of it, father; but it doesn't follow that his mother's name
    must be the same. Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is her son. She
    is in Rome now; where probably we shall know more of her, as you decide
    to winter there. Sparkler is just come here. I passed last evening in
    company with Sparkler. Sparkler is a very good fellow on the
    whole, though rather a bore on one subject, in consequence of being
    tremendously smitten with a certain young lady.' Here Edward Dorrit,
    Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his glass across the table. 'We
    happened last night to compare notes about our travels, and I had the
    information I have given you from Sparkler himself.' Here he ceased;
    continuing to eye Miss Fanny through his glass, with a face much
    twisted, and not ornamentally so, in part by the action of keeping his
    glass in his eye, and in part by the great subtlety of his smile.

    'Under these circumstances,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I believe I express the
    sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say
    that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to your
    gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may--ha--hail--this desire,' said
    Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, 'as an auspicious
    omen. It is quite right to know these people. It is a very proper
    thing. Mr Merdle's is a name of--ha--world-wide repute. Mr Merdle's
    undertakings are immense. They bring him in such vast sums of money that
    they are regarded as--hum--national benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of
    this time. The name of Merdle is the name of the age. Pray do everything
    on my behalf that is civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will
    certainly notice them.'

    This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit's recognition settled the
    matter. It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate, and
    forgotten his breakfast; but he was not much observed at any time,
    except by Little Dorrit. The servants were recalled, and the meal
    proceeded to its conclusion. Mrs General rose and left the table.
    Little Dorrit rose and left the table. When Edward and Fanny remained
    whispering together across it, and when Mr Dorrit remained eating figs
    and reading a French newspaper, Uncle suddenly fixed the attention of
    all three by rising out of his chair, striking his hand upon the table,
    and saying, 'Brother! I protest against it!'

    If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up the
    ghost immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his audience
    more. The paper fell from Mr Dorrit's hand, and he sat petrified, with a
    fig half way to his mouth.

    'Brother!' said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his
    trembling voice, 'I protest against it! I love you; you know I love you
    dearly. In these many years I have never been untrue to you in a single
    thought. Weak as I am, I would at any time have struck any man who spoke
    ill of you. But, brother, brother, brother, I protest against it!'

    It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a
    decrepit man was capable. His eyes became bright, his grey hair rose on
    his head, markings of purpose on his brow and face which had faded from
    them for five-and-twenty years, started out again, and there was an
    energy in his hand that made its action nervous once more.

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

    'How dare you,' said the old man, turning round on Fanny, 'how dare you
    do it? Have you no memory? Have you no heart?'

    'Uncle?' cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, 'why do you
    attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?'

    'Done?' returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place, 'where's
    your affectionate invaluable friend? Where's your devoted guardian?
    Where's your more than mother? How dare you set up superiorities against
    all these characters combined in your sister? For shame, you false girl,
    for shame!'

    'I love Amy,' cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, 'as well as I love
    my life--better than I love my life. I don't deserve to be so treated. I
    am as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it's possible for any
    human being to be. I wish I was dead. I never was so wickedly wronged.
    And only because I am anxious for the family credit.'

    'To the winds with the family credit!' cried the old man, with great
    scorn and indignation. 'Brother, I protest against pride. I protest
    against ingratitude. I protest against any one of us here who have known
    what we have known, and have seen what we have seen, setting up any
    pretension that puts Amy at a moment's disadvantage, or to the cost of
    a moment's pain. We may know that it's a base pretension by its having
    that effect. It ought to bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest
    against it in the sight of God!'

    As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might
    have been a blacksmith's. After a few moments' silence, it had relaxed
    into its usual weak condition. He went round to his brother with his
    ordinary shuffling step, put the hand on his shoulder, and said, in a
    softened voice, 'William, my dear, I felt obliged to say it; forgive me,
    for I felt obliged to say it!' and then went, in his bowed way, out of
    the palace hall, just as he might have gone out of the Marshalsea room.

    All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still continued to
    do so. Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement, had not opened his
    lips, and had done nothing but stare. Mr Dorrit also had been utterly
    discomfited, and quite unable to assert himself in any way. Fanny was
    now the first to speak.

    'I never, never, never was so used!' she sobbed. 'There never was
    anything so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and cruel!
    Dear, kind, quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if she could know
    that she had been innocently the means of exposing me to such treatment!
    But I'll never tell her! No, good darling, I'll never tell her!'

    This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence.

    'My dear,' said he, 'I--ha--approve of your resolution. It will be--ha
    hum--much better not to speak of this to Amy. It might--hum--it
    might distress her. Ha. No doubt it would distress her greatly. It
    is considerate and right to avoid doing so. We will--ha--keep this to
    ourselves.'

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

    'My dear,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained
    unusually pale, 'I must request you not to say so. You must remember
    that your uncle is--ha--not what he formerly was. You must remember
    that your uncle's state requires--hum--great forbearance from us, great
    forbearance.'

    'I am sure,' cried Fanny, piteously, 'it is only charitable to suppose
    that there must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he never could
    have so attacked Me, of all the people in the world.'

    'Fanny,' returned Mr Dorrit in a deeply fraternal tone, 'you know, with
    his innumerable good points, what a--hum--wreck your uncle is; and, I
    entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the fidelity
    that you know I have always shown him, to--ha--to draw your own
    conclusions, and to spare my brotherly feelings.'

    This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing throughout,
    but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful. Miss Fanny awakened
    much affectionate uneasiness in her sister's mind that day by passing
    the greater part of it in violent fits of embracing her, and in
    alternately giving her brooches, and wishing herself dead.

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

completion: During a little break in his social life, Dorrit summons Mrs. General. The way he does it shows how pretentiously the Dorrits now live: one servant is told to find a second servant to pass a message to a third servant to ask Mrs. General to join Dorrit in the study. Turns out Dorrit kind of wants to do a parent-teacher meeting about Amy and how she doesn't seem to be adjusting to their fancy-pants new lifestyle. From the conversation, it's obvious that Mrs. General just thinks that this was a poor gentleman's family that suddenly became rich; she doesn't know about the whole prison thing. In any case, Mrs. General points out that Fanny and Amy are totally different. Fanny is probably too independent and self-willed , but Amy is just a lump of sad, depressive nothingness. With some long, elaborate, ridiculous talking around the subject, they finally decide that Dorrit will tell Amy to shape up himself, because maybe she'll listen to him. But this takes a crazy amount of roundabout conversation to get to. It's like they're trying to out-polite each other. There is some more elaborate servant-to-servant nonsense, and finally Amy comes in. Mr. Dorrit starts lecturing her about being more lively and less comatose. She starts to answer and calls him father. Mrs. General immediately interrupts with this awesome bit of teaching: "Papa is a preferable mode of address, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips: especially prunes and prism" . Nice, right? Where were we? Oh, yes, being lectured by Dorrit. So Amy is bummed that dear old dad is harshing her mellow with all this "cheer up" stuff. Mrs. General leaves and Dorrit gets to the point: stop bringing up the prison every five seconds, OK? We all want to move on. Amy gets all self-sacrificing like she always does, and Dorrit throws himself a pity party. She calms him down, kisses him, and does that creepy maternal thing she always does. The narrator tells us that that's the last time Dorrit ever mentions his prison time. So things go in Venice. Frederick Dorrit likes to walk around the portrait galleries for some reason, and Amy starts coming with him. One day at breakfast, Fanny mentions that they ran into the Gowans. Amy asks if it's OK to try to make friends with Pet Gowan. Fanny doesn't know if the Gowans are suitable company, meaning they might be too low-class. But as soon as Tip points out that Gowan's mom is BFFs with Mrs. Merdle, who is the pinnacle of high society, everyone is psyched to have Amy make friends. Also, it turns out that Tip is now friends with Edmund Sparkler, Mrs. Merdle's son. Tip kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudges Fanny and says Edmund is reasonably fun, but also a little annoying because he has a huge crush on someone. Hint, hint. Mrs. General and Amy leave the room. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the usually quiet and meek Frederick Dorrit decides to chew everyone out for how obnoxious they are to Amy. He yells and calls them names, and it's a pretty shocking scene. Fanny starts to cry and feels like a victim. Dorrit, meanwhile, chalks it up to Frederick's being senile. Tip doesn't say anything but clearly feels guilty. They decide not to tell Amy that her uncle said any of this.