prompt:
Chapter: Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his
lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing
nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer
coming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl
by the hand of her late young mistress, which might have melted her
if anything could (all three letters were returned weeks afterwards as
        having been refused at the house-door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make
the experiment of a personal interview. That worthy lady being unable to
obtain one, and being steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought
Arthur to essay once more what he could do. All that came of his
compliance was, his discovery that the empty house was left in charge
of the old woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of
furniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number of
half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information whatever
to exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering for perusal a
memorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-agent's young man had
left in the hall.

Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and leave
her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining the mastery
over the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for six successive
days, published a discreetly covert advertisement in the morning papers,
    to the effect that if a certain young person who had lately left
    home without reflection, would at any time apply to his address at
    Twickenham, everything would be as it had been before, and no reproaches
    need be apprehended. The unexpected consequences of this notification
    suggested to the dismayed Mr Meagles for the first time that some
    hundreds of young persons must be leaving their homes without reflection
    every day; for shoals of wrong young people came down to Twickenham,
    who, not finding themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded
    compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and
    back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the advertisement
    produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who would seem to be
    always watching eagerly for any hook, however small, to hang a letter
    upon, wrote to say that having seen the advertisement, they were induced
    to apply with confidence for various sums, ranging from ten shillings to
    fifty pounds: not because they knew anything about the young person,
    but because they felt that to part with those donations would greatly
    relieve the advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed
    themselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; as,
    for example, to apprise him that their attention having been called to
    the advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that if they should
    ever hear anything of the young person, they would not fail to make it
    known to him immediately, and that in the meantime if he would oblige
    them with the funds necessary for bringing to perfection a certain
    entirely novel description of Pump, the happiest results would ensue to
    mankind.

    Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, had
    begun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when the new
    and active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private capacities,
    went down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until Monday. The senior
    partner took the coach, and the junior partner took his walking-stick.

    A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of
    his walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had
    that sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which
    country quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. Everything
    within his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage of the trees,
    the luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the little green
    islands in the river, the beds of rushes, the water-lilies floating on
    the surface of the stream, the distant voices in boats borne musically
    towards him on the ripple of the water and the evening air, were all
    expressive of rest. In the occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar,
    or twittering of a bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog,
    or lowing of a cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath
    of rest, which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened
    the fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the
    glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon the
    purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which
    the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. Between the
    real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division; both
    were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn mystery
    of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart,
    because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful.

    Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look about
    him and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the shadows, looked
    at, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water. He was slowly
    resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he
    had, perhaps, already associated with the evening and its impressions.

    Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and seemed to
    have stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her face was towards
    him, and she appeared to have been coming from the opposite direction.
    There was a flutter in her manner, which Clennam had never seen in it
    before; and as he came near her, it entered his mind all at once that
    she was there of a set purpose to speak to him.

    She gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by myself?
    But the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I meant
    at first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that made me more
    confident. You always come this way, do you not?'

    As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand falter
    on his arm, and saw the roses shake.

    'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I came out
    of the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, thinking it so
    likely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than an hour ago, and
    told us you were walking down.'

    His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and thanked
    her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they turned into it on
    his movement or on hers matters little. He never knew how that was.

    'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at this hour.
    Passing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light at the
    other end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the best approach,
    I think.'

    In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich brown
    hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes raised to
    his for a moment with a look in which regard for him and trustfulness in
    him were strikingly blended with a kind of timid sorrow for him, she was
    so beautiful that it was well for his peace--or ill for his peace, he
    did not quite know which--that he had made that vigorous resolution he
    had so often thought about.

    She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had been
    thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it mentioned. She
    broke another momentary silence by adding, with some hesitation, that
    papa had abandoned the idea.

    At this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.'

    'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking so low
    that he bent his head to hear her. 'I should very much like to give you
    my confidence, if you would not mind having the goodness to receive
    it. I should have very much liked to have given it to you long ago,
    because--I felt that you were becoming so much our friend.'

    'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it to
    me. Pray trust me.'

    'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned, raising
    her eyes frankly to his face. 'I think I would have done so some time
    ago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how, even now.'

    'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy. God bless
    his wife and him!'

    She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her hand
    as it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the remaining
    roses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it seemed to him,
    he first finally resigned the dying hope that had flickered in nobody's
    heart so much to its pain and trouble; and from that time he became in
    his own eyes, as to any similar hope or prospect, a very much older man
    who had done with that part of life.

    He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little while,
    slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he asked her, in
    a voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else that she would
    say to him as her friend and her father's friend, many years older than
    herself; was there any trust she would repose in him, any service she
    would ask of him, any little aid to her happiness that she could give
    him the lasting gratification of believing it was in his power to
    render?

    She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little hidden
    sorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said, bursting
    into tears again: 'O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr Clennam, pray tell
    me you do not blame me.'

    'I blame you?' said Clennam. 'My dearest girl! I blame you? No!'

    After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially
    up into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked
    him from her heart (as she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she
    gradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement
    from him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the
    darkening trees.

    'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will you ask
    me nothing?'

    'Oh! I have very much to ask of you.'

    'That's well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.'

    'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly
    think it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great agitation,
    'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so
    dearly love it!'

    'I am sure of that,' said Clennam. 'Can you suppose I doubt it?'

    'No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and
    being so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems so
    neglectful of it, so unthankful.'

    'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and change
    of time. All homes are left so.'

    'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as
    there will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any scarcity of
    far better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not
    that I am much, but that they have made so much of me!'

    Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she
    pictured what would happen.

    'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at first
    I cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many years.
    And it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that I beg and
    entreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep him company when you
    can spare a little while; and to tell him that you know I was fonder
    of him when I left him, than I ever was in all my life. For there is
    nobody--he told me so himself when he talked to me this very day--there
    is nobody he likes so well as you, or trusts so much.'

    A clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped like
    a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and swelled the water
    to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so cheerily as he tried to
    say, that it should be done--that he gave her his faithful promise.

    'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more pretty
    in, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even to
    consider--for which reason he counted the trees between them and the
    fading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it is because mama
    will understand me better in this action, and will feel my loss in a
    different way, and will look forward in a different manner. But you know
    what a dear, devoted mother she is, and you will remember her too; will
    you not?'

    Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all she
    wished.

    'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom I need
    not name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another yet, as
    they will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the pride,
    and pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better knowledge of one
    another, and to be a happiness to one another, and to be proud of one
    another, and to love one another, both loving me so dearly; oh, as you
    are a kind, true man! when I am first separated from home (I am going a
            long distance away), try to reconcile papa to him a little more, and use
    your great influence to keep him before papa's mind free from
    prejudice and in his real form. Will you do this for me, as you are a
    noble-hearted friend?'

    Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes
    ever made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such
    reconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected! It has been tried
    many times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never succeeded; nothing
    has ever come of it but failure.

    So Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He bound himself
    to do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would do it.

    They were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and withdrew
    her arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his, and with the
    hand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by touching one of
    the roses in his breast as an additional appeal to him, she said:

    'Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you have seen
    me crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If you have
    anything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully done, but any
            trouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or having it in my
            power to help it), forgive me to-night out of your noble heart!'

    He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without shrinking. He
    kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had nothing to forgive.
    As he stooped to meet the innocent face once again, she whispered,
    'Good-bye!' and he repeated it. It was taking leave of all his old
    hopes--all nobody's old restless doubts. They came out of the avenue
    next moment, arm-in-arm as they had entered it: and the trees seemed to
    close up behind them in the darkness, like their own perspective of the
    past.

    The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible directly,
    speaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet's name among them, Clennam
    called out, 'She is here, with me.' There was some little wondering and
    laughing until they came up; but as soon as they had all come together,
    it ceased, and Pet glided away.

    Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and down
    on the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, for a few
    minutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into the house. Mr
    Meagles and Clennam walked up and down together for a few minutes more
    without speaking, until at length the former broke silence.

    'Arthur,' said he, using that familiar address for the first time in
    their communication, 'do you remember my telling you, as we walked up
    and down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at Marseilles, that
    Pet's baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother and me to have grown as
    she had grown, and changed as she had changed?'

    'Very well.'

    'You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to
    separate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet was,
    the other was?'

    'Yes, very well.'

    'Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, much subdued, 'I carry that fancy further
    to-night. I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had loved my dead
    child very tenderly, and had lost her when she was like what Pet is
    now.'

    'Thank you!' murmured Clennam, 'thank you!' And pressed his hand.

    'Will you come in?' said Mr Meagles, presently.

    'In a little while.'

    Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked on the
    river's brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, he put
    his hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of roses.
    Perhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but
    certainly he bent down on the shore and gently launched them on the
    flowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them
    away.

    The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces on
    which they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly cheerful.
    They talked of many subjects (his partner never had had such a ready
            store to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to
    sleep. While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away
    upon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our
    breasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.

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

completion: Meagles writes a couple of letters to Miss Wade to try to get Tattycoram back. No dice. He then puts some ads in the paper and gets a bunch of responses from random people asking for money, but still no Tattycoram. One day Arthur goes out to the Meagleses, and Pet meets him before they get to the house. She is strangely nice, and so Arthur puts two and two together and realizes that she and Gowan must be engaged. Pet clearly understands that Arthur was into her, and from what she says, it sounds like Meagles was sort of hoping Arthur and Pet would happen. But Arthur sucks it up, wishes Pet well, and says that he'll always be her friend. She in turn asks him to make her dad like Gowan a little more , and Arthur agrees. They meet Doyce and Meagles, and everyone but Arthur goes in the house. Arthur hangs out by the river to think about things. You know, sad love things. If it were modern times, he'd drive away and every song on the radio would now remind him of how he and Pet aren't together. But since it's back in the day, all he can do is watch the water flow by and think Deep Thoughts.


prompt:
Chapter: The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these
transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying
round of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each
recurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant
return of the same sequences of machinery, like a dragging piece of
clockwork.

The wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one may
suppose, as every place that is made the station of a human being has.
Pictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as they formerly were
when the occupant of the chair was familiar with them, images of people
as they too used to be, with little or no allowance made for the lapse
of time since they were seen; of these, there must have been many in the
long routine of gloomy days. To stop the clock of busy existence at the
hour when we were personally sequestered from it, to suppose mankind
stricken motionless when we were brought to a stand-still, to be unable
to measure the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than
the shrunken one of our own uniform and contracted existence, is the
infirmity of many invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost all
recluses.

What scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat
from season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself. Mr
Flintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily like
some eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it out of
her, if there had been less resistance in her; but she was too strong
for him. So far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to regard her
liege-lord and her disabled mistress with a face of blank wonder, to
go about the house after dark with her apron over her head, always to
listen for the strange noises and sometimes to hear them, and never
to emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, sleep-waking state, was occupation
enough for her.

There was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made out,
      for her husband had abundant occupation in his little office, and saw
      more people than had been used to come there for some years. This might
      easily be, the house having been long deserted; but he did receive
      letters, and comers, and keep books, and correspond. Moreover, he went
      about to other counting-houses, and to wharves, and docks, and to the
      Custom House, and to Garraway's Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee
      House, and on 'Change; so that he was much in and out. He began, too,
      sometimes of an evening, when Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish
      for his society, to resort to a tavern in the neighbourhood to look at
      the shipping news and closing prices in the evening paper, and even to
      exchange small socialities with mercantile Sea Captains who frequented
      that establishment. At some period of every day, he and Mrs Clennam held
      a council on matters of business; and it appeared to Affery, who was
      always groping about, listening and watching, that the two clever ones
      were making money.

      The state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch's dazed lady had fallen, had
      now begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions that she was
      held in very low account by the two clever ones, as a person, never
      of strong intellect, who was becoming foolish. Perhaps because her
      appearance was not of a commercial cast, or perhaps because it occurred
      to him that his having taken her to wife might expose his judgment to
      doubt in the minds of customers, Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon
      her that she should hold her peace on the subject of her conjugal
      relations, and should no longer call him Jeremiah out of the domestic
      trio. Her frequent forgetfulness of this admonition intensified her
      startled manner, since Mr Flintwinch's habit of avenging himself on her
      remissness by making springs after her on the staircase, and shaking
      her, occasioned her to be always nervously uncertain when she might be
      thus waylaid next.

      Little Dorrit had finished a long day's work in Mrs Clennam's room, and
      was neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before going home.
      Mr Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was addressing an inquiry to
      Mrs Clennam on the subject of her health, coupled with the remark that,
      'happening to find himself in that direction,' he had looked in to
      inquire, on behalf of his proprietor, how she found herself. Mrs
      Clennam, with a deep contraction of her brows, was looking at him.

      'Mr Casby knows,' said she, 'that I am not subject to changes. The
      change that I await here is the great change.'

      'Indeed, ma'am?' returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards the
      figure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and fraying
      of her work from the carpet. 'You look nicely, ma'am.'

      'I bear what I have to bear,' she answered. 'Do you what you have to
      do.'

      'Thank you, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks, 'such is my endeavour.'

      'You are often in this direction, are you not?' asked Mrs Clennam.

      'Why, yes, ma'am,' said Pancks, 'rather so lately; I have lately been
      round this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another.'

      'Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by deputy,
      about me. When they wish to see me, they know I am here to see them.
      They have no need to trouble themselves to send. You have no need to
      trouble yourself to come.'

      'Not the least trouble, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks. 'You really are looking
      uncommonly nicely, ma'am.'

      'Thank you. Good evening.'

      The dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the door,
      was so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to prolong his
      visit. He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest expression, glanced
      at the little figure again, said 'Good evening, ma 'am; don't come down,
      Mrs Affery, I know the road to the door,' and steamed out. Mrs Clennam,
      her chin resting on her hand, followed him with attentive and darkly
      distrustful eyes; and Affery stood looking at her as if she were
      spell-bound.

      Slowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam's eyes turned from the door by
      which Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the carpet.
      With her chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her eyes vigilant
      and lowering, the sick woman sat looking at her until she attracted her
      attention. Little Dorrit coloured under such a gaze, and looked down.
      Mrs Clennam still sat intent.

      'Little Dorrit,' she said, when she at last broke silence, 'what do you
      know of that man?'

      'I don't know anything of him, ma'am, except that I have seen him about,
      and that he has spoken to me.'

      'What has he said to you?'

      'I don't understand what he has said, he is so strange. But nothing
      rough or disagreeable.'

      'Why does he come here to see you?'

      'I don't know, ma'am,' said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness.

      'You know that he does come here to see you?'

      'I have fancied so,' said Little Dorrit. 'But why he should come here or
      anywhere for that, ma'am, I can't think.'

      Mrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong, set
      face, as intent upon a subject in her mind as it had lately been upon
      the form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat absorbed. Some minutes
      elapsed before she came out of this thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard
      composure.

      Little Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid to
      disturb her by moving. She now ventured to leave the spot where she
      had been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round by the
      wheeled chair. She stopped at its side to say 'Good night, ma'am.'

      Mrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm. Little Dorrit,
      confused under the touch, stood faltering. Perhaps some momentary
      recollection of the story of the Princess may have been in her mind.

      'Tell me, Little Dorrit,' said Mrs Clennam, 'have you many friends now?'

      'Very few, ma'am. Besides you, only Miss Flora and--one more.'

      'Meaning,' said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing to
      the door, 'that man?'

      'Oh no, ma'am!'

      'Some friend of his, perhaps?'

      'No ma'am.' Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head. 'Oh no! No one at
      all like him, or belonging to him.'

      'Well!' said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling. 'It is no affair of mine. I
      ask, because I take an interest in you; and because I believe I was your
      friend when you had no other who could serve you. Is that so?'

      'Yes, ma'am; indeed it is. I have been here many a time when, but for
      you and the work you gave me, we should have wanted everything.'

      'We,' repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her dead
      husband's, which always lay upon her table. 'Are there many of you?'

      'Only father and I, now. I mean, only father and I to keep regularly out
      of what we get.'

      'Have you undergone many privations? You and your father and who else
      there may be of you?' asked Mrs Clennam, speaking deliberately, and
      meditatively turning the watch over and over.

      'Sometimes it has been rather hard to live,' said Little Dorrit, in her
      soft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; 'but I think not harder--as to
      that--than many people find it.'

      'That's well said!' Mrs Clennam quickly returned. 'That's the truth!
      You are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl too, or I much
      mistake you.'

      'It is only natural to be that. There is no merit in being that,' said
      Little Dorrit. 'I am indeed.'

      Mrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had never
      dreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little seamstress,
      and kissed her on the forehead.

      'Now go, Little Dorrit,' said she,'or you will be late, poor child!'

      In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she first
      became devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more astonishing
      than this. Her head ached with the idea that she would find the other
      clever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the two clever ones
      embracing each other and dissolving into tears of tenderness for all
      mankind. The idea quite stunned her, as she attended the light footsteps
      down the stairs, that the house door might be safely shut.

      On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, instead
      of having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and among less
      wonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably expected to do,
      fluttering up and down the court outside the house. The moment he saw
      Little Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with his finger to his nose
      (as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), 'Pancks the gipsy, fortune-telling,'
      and went away. 'Lord save us, here's a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it
      now!' cried Mistress Affery. 'What next!'

      She stood at the open door, staggering herself with this enigma, on a
      rainy, thundery evening. The clouds were flying fast, and the wind was
      coming up in gusts, banging some neighbouring shutters that had broken
      loose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing
      round and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to
      blow the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering
      in all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for
      this attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest! Let them
      rest!'

      Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to
      be equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and
      preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or not,
      until the question was settled for her by the door blowing upon her in
      a violent gust of wind and shutting her out. 'What's to be done now,
      what's to be done now!' cried Mistress Affery, wringing her hands in
      this last uneasy dream of all; 'when she's all alone by herself
      inside, and can no more come down to open it than the churchyard dead
      themselves!'

      In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep the
      rain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure several
      times. Why she should then stoop down and look in at the keyhole of the
      door as if an eye would open it, it would be difficult to say; but it
      is none the less what most people would have done in the same situation,
      and it is what she did.

      From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling
      something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand.

      The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about
      it, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had a quantity
      of hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where
      it had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose. He laughed at Mistress
      Affery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his moustache went up under
      his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.

      'What's the matter?' he asked in plain English. 'What are you frightened
      at?'

      'At you,' panted Affery.

      'Me, madam?'

      'And the dismal evening, and--and everything,' said Affery. 'And here!
      The wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get in.'

      'Hah!' said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. 'Indeed! Do you
      know such a name as Clennam about here?'

      'Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!' cried
      Affery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry.

      'Where about here?'

      'Where!' cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the keyhole.
      'Where but here in this house? And she's all alone in her room, and lost
      the use of her limbs and can't stir to help herself or me, and t'other
      clever one's out, and Lord forgive me!' cried Affery, driven into a
      frantic dance by these accumulated considerations, 'if I ain't a-going
      headlong out of my mind!'

      Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, the
      gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon rested
      on the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-door.

      'Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?' he
      inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could not
      choose but keep her eyes upon.

      'Up there!' said Affery. 'Them two windows.'

      'Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of presenting
      myself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam, frankly--frankness is
      a part of my character--shall I open the door for you?'

      'Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,' cried
      Affery, 'for she may be a-calling to me at this very present minute, or
      may be setting herself a fire and burning herself to death, or there's
      no knowing what may be happening to her, and me a-going out of my mind
      at thinking of it!'

      'Stay, my good madam!' He restrained her impatience with a smooth white
      hand. 'Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?'

      'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Affery. 'Long ago.'

      'Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my character.
      I am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.' He showed her
      that his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were saturated with
      water; she had previously observed that he was dishevelled and sallow,
      as if from a rough voyage, and so chilled that he could not keep his
      teeth from chattering. 'I am just landed from the packet-boat, madam,
      and have been delayed by the weather: the infernal weather! In
      consequence of this, madam, some necessary business that I should
      otherwise have transacted here within the regular hours (necessary
              business because money-business), still remains to be done. Now, if you
      will fetch any authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for
      my opening the door, I'll open the door. If this arrangement should be
      objectionable, I'll--' and with the same smile he made a significant
      feint of backing away.

      Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave
      in her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once requested her to
      do him the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow
      window, made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in
      a moment had his hand at the sash, raising it. His eyes looked so very
      sinister, as he put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress
      Affery, that she thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go
      straight up-stairs to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent
      him?

      Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the
      house door. 'Now, my dear madam,' he said, as he took back his cloak and
      threw it on, 'if you have the goodness to--what the Devil's that!'

      The strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar
      shock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far off. A
      tremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter.

      'What the Devil is it?'

      'I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and over
      again,' said Affery, who had caught his arm.

      He could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy
      start and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless. After
      listening a few moments, he made light of it.

      'Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some clever
      personage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that genius?' He
      held the door in his hand, as though he were quite ready to shut her out
      again if she failed.

      'Don't you say anything about the door and me, then,' whispered Affery.

      'Not a word.'

      'And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run round
      the corner.'

      'Madam, I am a statue.'

      Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the moment
      her back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she returned to
      the gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the threshold, more out
      of the house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no
      desire to probe its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a
      message into the tavern to Mr Flintwinch, who came out directly. The
      two returning together--the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up
      briskly behind, animated with the hope of shaking her before she could
      get housed--saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark,
      and heard the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, 'Who is
      it? What is it? Why does no one answer? Who _is_ that, down there?'

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

completion: Same old same old at Mrs. Clennam's place. Well, sort of. Affery notices that suddenly business seems to be picking up, and Flintwinch is constantly going out to the City. This stresses Affery out. Also, the constant weird house noises also stress her out. One day, when Little Dorrit is doing needlework at Mrs. Clennam's, Pancks stops by. He acts sort of odd, pretending to ask about Mrs. Clennam's health on behalf of Casby, but he's clearly really there to see Little Dorrit. Mrs. Clennam gets suspicious and interrogates Little Dorrit about him. Little Dorrit doesn't know anything, so Mrs. Clennam interrogates her a little bit about what her life in poverty is like. It's sucky, and Little Dorrit tells her so. Then - get ready for this, because it knocks Affery for a huge loop - out of nowhere... OK, are you sitting down? No, really, sit down - it's about to get crazy.... Mrs. Clennam kisses Little Dorrit! Oh, for Pete's sake, on the forehead, people! Calm down and get your heads out of the gutter. Still, who ever thought Mrs. Clennam would kiss anyone? It's nuts. Little Dorrit leaves and Affery sees her out. As she turns to go back into the house, the wind slams shut the door, locking her out, and it starts to rain. Suddenly, Affery is accosted by... Rigaud! Or, as we will now call him, Blandois. He introduces himself as a traveler with business , and offers to break open the house door if Affery will go find him someone to talk to about business. Affery is a little wary but doesn't think she has a choice. He opens the window, then the door, really quickly. In the house, he has a mild panic attack at a strange noise and some falling dust. Affery gets Flintwinch from the pub.


prompt:
Chapter: When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the
twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back.
'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you get here?'

Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's
wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over
his own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of
standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at
a loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation;
receiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness
that he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim
raillery, as he did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my
woman! This is some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again,
    mistress. What's it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be
    choked! It's the only choice I'll give you.'

    Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment,
    her choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable
    to this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards
    and forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however,
    picking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed.

    'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who
    stopped and released his victim. 'Thank you. Excuse me. Husband and
    wife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always agreeable to see that
    relation playfully maintained. Listen! May I suggest that somebody
    up-stairs, in the dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what
    is going on here?'

    This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step
    into the hall and call up the staircase. 'It's all right, I am here,
    Affery is coming with your light.' Then he said to the latter
    flustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with you, and get
    up-stairs!' and then turned to the stranger and said to him, 'Now, sir,
    what might you please to want?'

    'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to
    propose a candle.'

    'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand where
    you are while I get one.'

    The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the
    gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his
    eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box.
    When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match
    after match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull
    glare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little
    spots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger,
    taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked
    intently and wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted
    the candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of
    a lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the
    doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.

    'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty
    sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step into my
    counting-house.--It's all right, I tell you!' petulantly breaking off to
    answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there,
    speaking in persuasive tones. 'Don't I tell you it's all right? Preserve
    the woman, has she no reason at all in her!'

    'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.

    'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went
    before with the candle. 'More courageous than ninety men in a hundred,
    sir, let me tell you.'

    'Though an invalid?'

    'Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left
    in the House now. My partner.'

    Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the effect
    that at that time of night they were not in the habit of receiving any
    one, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own
    office, which presented a sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he
    put the light on his desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest
    twist upon him, 'Your commands.'

    'My name is Blandois.'

    'Blandois. I don't know it,' said Jeremiah.

    'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have been
    advised from Paris--'

    'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of
    Blandois,' said Jeremiah.

    'No?'

    'No.'

    Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois,
    opening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to say,
    with a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr Flintwinch
    were too near together:

    'You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as I
    supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same in the
    dusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a readiness
    to confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness of my
    character--still, however, uncommonly like.'

    'Indeed?' said Jeremiah, perversely. 'But I have not received any letter
    of advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of Blandois.'

    'Just so,' said the stranger.

    '_Just_ so,' said Jeremiah.

    Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the
    correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-book
    from his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that receptacle, and
    handed it to Mr Flintwinch. 'No doubt you are well acquainted with the
    writing. Perhaps the letter speaks for itself, and requires no advice.
    You are a far more competent judge of such affairs than I am. It is my
    misfortune to be, not so much a man of business, as what the world calls
    (arbitrarily) a gentleman.'

    Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, 'We have
    to present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed correspondent of our
    Firm, M. Blandois, of this city,' &c. &c. 'Such facilities as he may
    require and such attentions as may lie in your power,' &c. &c. 'Also
    have to add that if you will honour M. Blandois' drafts at sight to the
    extent of, say Fifty Pounds sterling (50_l_.),' &c. &c.

    'Very good, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Take a chair. To the extent of
    anything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old-fashioned,
    steady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render you our best
    assistance. I observe, from the date of this, that we could not yet be
    advised of it. Probably you came over with the delayed mail that brings
    the advice.'

    'That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,' returned Mr Blandois,
    passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, 'I know to the cost
    of my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable weather having
    racked them both. You see me in the plight in which I came out of the
    packet within this half-hour. I ought to have been here hours ago,
    and then I should not have to apologise--permit me to apologise--for
    presenting myself so unreasonably, and frightening--no, by-the-bye, you
    said not frightening; permit me to apologise again--the esteemed lady,
    Mrs Clennam, in her invalid chamber above stairs.'

    Swagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that
    Mr Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly
    personage. Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he scraped
    his chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing for Mr
    Blandois to-night, out of business hours?

    'Faith!' returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders,
    'I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have the
    kindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a matter of
    perfect indifference until to-morrow. The nearer the place, the better.
    Next door, if that's all.'

    Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, 'For a gentleman of your habits,
    there is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--' when Mr
    Blandois took him up.

    'So much for my habits! my dear sir,' snapping his fingers. 'A citizen
    of the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman,
    by Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced
    habits. A clean room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not
    absolutely poisonous wine, are all I want tonight. But I want that much
    without the trouble of going one unnecessary inch to get it.'

    'There is,' said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual deliberation,
    as he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes, which were restless;
'there is a coffee-house and tavern close here, which, so far, I can
recommend; but there's no style about it.'

'I dispense with style!' said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. 'Do me the
honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am not too
        troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.'

Mr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr Blandois
across the hall again. As he put the candle on a bracket, where the
dark old panelling almost served as an extinguisher for it, he bethought
himself of going up to tell the invalid that he would not be absent five
minutes.

'Oblige me,' said the visitor, on his saying so, 'by presenting my card
of visit. Do me the favour to add that I shall be happy to wait on Mrs
Clennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to apologise for having
occasioned any agitation in this tranquil corner, if it should suit her
convenience to endure the presence of a stranger for a few minutes,
            after he shall have changed his wet clothes and fortified himself with
            something to eat and drink.'

            Jeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, 'She'll be glad
            to see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has no
            attractions, wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your offer, in
            case you should think better of it.'

            'To think better of it,' returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be to
            slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry
            towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my
            character!' Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his
            cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern;
            taking up on the road a porter who was waiting with his portmanteau on
            the outer side of the gateway.

            The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr
            Blandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar
            in which the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was
            much too big for the narrow wainscoted room with a bagatelle-board in
            it, that was first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the
            little private holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally
            given up to him. Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked
            hair, a great ring on each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain,
            Mr Blandois waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his
            knees drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the
                    jewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who had
            once so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of the iron
            grating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles.

            His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of
            Monsieur Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting all
            the eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while devouring
            others with his jaws, was the same manner. His utter disregard of
            other people, as shown in his way of tossing the little womanly toys
            of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions under his boots for a
            softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings with his big body and his
            great black head, had the same brute selfishness at the bottom of it.
            The softly moving hands that were so busy among the dishes had the old
            wicked facility of the hands that had clung to the bars. And when he
            could eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers one by one and
            wiping them on a cloth, there wanted nothing but the substitution of
            vine-leaves to finish the picture.

            On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in
            that most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they
            belonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting
            light stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never
            working in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was not her fault, if the
            warning were fruitless. She is never to blame in any such instance.

            Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, took
            a cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again, smoked it
            out at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke as it parted
            from his thin lips in a thin stream:

            'Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child. Haha!
            Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an excellent
            master in English or French; a man for the bosom of families! You have
            a quick perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating
            manners, you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman! A
            gentleman you shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die.
            You shall win, however the game goes. They shall all confess your merit,
            Blandois. You shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged
            you, to your own high spirit. Death of my soul! You are high spirited by
            right and by nature, my Blandois!'

            To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and
            drink out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook himself into
            a sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious apostrophe, 'Hold,
            then! Blandois, you ingenious one, have all your wits about you!' arose
            and went back to the house of Clennam and Co.

            He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under instructions
            from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall and a third on the
            staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs Clennam's room. Tea was prepared
            there, and such little company arrangements had been made as usually
            attended the reception of expected visitors. They were slight on the
            greatest occasion, never extending beyond the production of the China
            tea-service, and the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery.
            For the rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and
            the figure in the widow's dress, as if attired for execution; the fire
            topped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second little
            mound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all as they had
            been for fifteen years.

            Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the consideration of
            Clennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter lying before her, bent
            her head and requested him to sit. They looked very closely at one
            another. That was but natural curiosity.

            'I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me. Few who
            come here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so removed
            from observation. It would be idle to expect that they should have. Out
            of sight, out of mind. While I am grateful for the exception, I don't
            complain of the rule.'

            Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed
            her by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time. For
            which he had already offered his best apologies to Mr--he begged
            pardon--but by name had not the distinguished honour--

            'Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years.'

            Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant. He
            entreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest
            consideration.

            'My husband being dead,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and my son preferring
            another pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these days
            than Mr Flintwinch.'

            'What do you call yourself?' was the surly demand of that gentleman.
            'You have the head of two men.'

            'My sex disqualifies me,' she proceeded with merely a slight turn of
            her eyes in Jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible part in
            the business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch
            combines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It is not what it
            used to be; but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this
                    letter) have the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power
            of doing what they entrust to us as efficiently as we ever did. This
            however is not interesting to you. You are English, sir?'

            'Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England. In effect, I
            am of no country,' said Mr Blandois, stretching out his leg and smiting
            it: 'I descend from half-a-dozen countries.'

            'You have been much about the world?'

            'It is true. By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and
            everywhere!'

            'You have no ties, probably. Are not married?'

            'Madam,' said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, 'I adore
            your sex, but I am not married--never was.'

            Mistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the tea,
            happened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these words, and
            to fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which attracted her
            own eyes so that she could not get them away. The effect of this fancy
            was to keep her staring at him with the tea-pot in her hand, not only to
            her own great uneasiness, but manifestly to his, too; and, through them
            both, to Mrs Clennam's and Mr Flintwinch's. Thus a few ghostly moments
            supervened, when they were all confusedly staring without knowing why.

            'Affery,' her mistress was the first to say, 'what is the matter with
            you?'

            'I don't know,' said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand
            extended towards the visitor. 'It ain't me. It's him!'

            'What does this good woman mean?' cried Mr Blandois, turning white, hot,
            and slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it contrasted
            surprisingly with the slight force of his words. 'How is it possible to
            understand this good creature?'

            'It's _not_ possible,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly
            in that direction. 'She don't know what she means. She's an idiot, a
            wanderer in her mind. She shall have a dose, she shall have such a dose!
            Get along with you, my woman,' he added in her ear, 'get along with you,
            while you know you're Affery, and before you're shaken to yeast.'

            Mistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity stood,
            relinquished the tea-pot as her husband seized it, put her apron over
            her head, and in a twinkling vanished. The visitor gradually broke into
            a smile, and sat down again.

            'You'll excuse her, Mr Blandois,' said Jeremiah, pouring out the tea
            himself, 'she's failing and breaking up; that's what she's about. Do you
            take sugar, sir?'

            'Thank you, no tea for me.--Pardon my observing it, but that's a very
            remarkable watch!'

            The tea-table was drawn up near the sofa, with a small interval between
            it and Mrs Clennam's own particular table. Mr Blandois in his gallantry
            had risen to hand that lady her tea (her dish of toast was already
                    there), and it was in placing the cup conveniently within her reach that
            the watch, lying before her as it always did, attracted his attention.
            Mrs Clennam looked suddenly up at him.

            'May I be permitted? Thank you. A fine old-fashioned watch,' he said,
            taking it in his hand. 'Heavy for use, but massive and genuine. I have
            a partiality for everything genuine. Such as I am, I am genuine myself.
            Hah! A gentleman's watch with two cases in the old fashion. May I remove
            it from the outer case? Thank you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked
            with beads! I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians.
            Quaint things!'

            'They are old-fashioned, too,' said Mrs Clennam.

            'Very. But this is not so old as the watch, I think?'

            'I think not.'

            'Extraordinary how they used to complicate these cyphers!' remarked Mr
            Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again. 'Now is this D. N. F.?
            It might be almost anything.'

            'Those are the letters.'

            Mr Flintwinch, who had been observantly pausing all this time with a cup
            of tea in his hand, and his mouth open ready to swallow the contents,
            began to do so: always entirely filling his mouth before he emptied it
            at a gulp; and always deliberating again before he refilled it.

            'D. N. F. was some tender, lovely, fascinating fair-creature, I make no
            doubt,' observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case again. 'I adore
            her memory on the assumption. Unfortunately for my peace of mind,
            I adore but too readily. It may be a vice, it may be a virtue, but
            adoration of female beauty and merit constitutes three parts of my
            character, madam.'

            Mr Flintwinch had by this time poured himself out another cup of tea,
            which he was swallowing in gulps as before, with his eyes directed to
            the invalid.

            'You may be heart-free here, sir,' she returned to Mr Blandois. 'Those
            letters are not intended, I believe, for the initials of any name.'

            'Of a motto, perhaps,' said Mr Blandois, casually.

            'Of a sentence. They have always stood, I believe, for Do Not Forget!'

            'And naturally,' said Mr Blandois, replacing the watch and stepping
            backward to his former chair, 'you do _not_ forget.'

            Mr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than he
            had taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new circumstances:
            that is to say, with his head thrown back and his cup held still at his
            lips, while his eyes were still directed at the invalid. She had that
            force of face, and that concentrated air of collecting her firmness or
            obstinacy, which represented in her case what would have been gesture
            and action in another, as she replied with her deliberate strength of
            speech:

            'No, sir, I do not forget. To lead a life as monotonous as mine has been
            during many years, is not the way to forget. To lead a life of
            self-correction is not the way to forget. To be sensible of having (as
                    we all have, every one of us, all the children of Adam!) offences
            to expiate and peace to make, does not justify the desire to forget.
            Therefore I have long dismissed it, and I neither forget nor wish to
            forget.'

            Mr Flintwinch, who had latterly been shaking the sediment at the bottom
            of his tea-cup, round and round, here gulped it down, and putting the
            cup in the tea-tray, as done with, turned his eyes upon Mr Blandois as
            if to ask him what he thought of that?

            'All expressed, madam,' said Mr Blandois, with his smoothest bow and his
            white hand on his breast, 'by the word "naturally," which I am proud
            to have had sufficient apprehension and appreciation (but without
                    appreciation I could not be Blandois) to employ.'

            'Pardon me, sir,' she returned, 'if I doubt the likelihood of a
            gentleman of pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to court
            and to be courted--'

            'Oh madam! By Heaven!'

            '--If I doubt the likelihood of such a character quite comprehending
            what belongs to mine in my circumstances. Not to obtrude doctrine upon
            you,' she looked at the rigid pile of hard pale books before her, '(for
                    you go your own way, and the consequences are on your own head), I will
            say this much: that I shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and
            tried pilots, under whom I cannot be shipwrecked--can not be--and that
            if I were unmindful of the admonition conveyed in those three letters, I
            should not be half as chastened as I am.'

            It was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some invisible
            opponent. Perhaps with her own better sense, always turning upon herself
            and her own deception.

            'If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might
            complain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never do; I never
            have done. If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to
            be a scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who
            are made out of its dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities.
            But I have no such tenderness. If I did not know that we are, every one,
            the subject (most justly the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied,
            and against which mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the
            difference between me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that
            gateway yonder. But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to
            make the satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for certain
            here, and to work out what I have worked out here. My affliction might
            otherwise have had no meaning to me. Hence I would forget, and I do
            forget, nothing. Hence I am contented, and say it is better with me
            than with millions.'

            As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored
            it to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied.
            With her touch lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards,
            looking at it steadily and half-defiantly.

            Mr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive,
            keeping his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his
            moustache with his two hands. Mr Flintwinch had been a little fidgety,
            and now struck in.

            'There, there, there!' said he. 'That is quite understood, Mrs Clennam,
            and you have spoken piously and well. Mr Blandois, I suspect, is not
            of a pious cast.'

            'On the contrary, sir!' that gentleman protested, snapping his fingers.
            'Your pardon! It's a part of my character. I am sensitive, ardent,
            conscientious, and imaginative. A sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and
            imaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be that, or nothing!'

            There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch's face that he might
            be nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of
                    this man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did,
                    he overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hairsbreadth), and
            approached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam.

            'With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, sir,' she
            then said, 'though really through your accidental allusion, I have
            been led away into the subject of myself and my infirmities. Being so
            considerate as to visit me, I hope you will be likewise so considerate
            as to overlook that. Don't compliment me, if you please.' For he was
            evidently going to do it. 'Mr Flintwinch will be happy to render you any
            service, and I hope your stay in this city may prove agreeable.'

            Mr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times. 'This is an
            old room,' he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking
            round when he got near the door, 'I have been so interested that I have
            not observed it. But it's a genuine old room.'

            'It is a genuine old house,' said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen smile. 'A
            place of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity.'

            'Faith!' cried the visitor. 'If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to
            take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more.
            An old house is a weakness with me. I have many weaknesses, but none
            greater. I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties. I have
            been called picturesque myself. It is no merit to be picturesque--I
            have greater merits, perhaps--but I may be, by an accident. Sympathy,
            sympathy!'

            'I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you'll find it very dingy and
            very bare,' said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. 'It's not worth your
            looking at.'But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the
            back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs
            Clennam, and they went out of the room together.

            'You don't care to go up-stairs?' said Jeremiah, on the landing.

            'On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be
            ravished!'

            Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr
            Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room
            which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. 'There, Mr
            Blandois!' said Jeremiah, showing it, 'I hope you may think that worth
            coming so high to see. I confess I don't.'

            Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and
            passages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr Flintwinch
            had remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after
            throwing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking
            at him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned
            about on the staircase for another experiment. He met his eyes directly;
            and on the instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with
            that ugly play of nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every
                    similar moment since they left Mrs Clennam's chamber) a diabolically
            silent laugh.

            As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the
            physical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a
            height; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a
            step or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time
            increased. He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this
            accidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late Mr
            Clennam's room. But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon him, he
            found his look unchanged.

            'A most admirable old house,' smiled Mr Blandois. 'So mysterious. Do you
            never hear any haunted noises here?'

            'Noises,' returned Mr Flintwinch. 'No.'

            'Nor see any devils?'

            'Not,' said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his questioner,
            'not any that introduce themselves under that name and in that
            capacity.'

            'Haha! A portrait here, I see.'

(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.)

    'It's a portrait, sir, as you observe.'

    'May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?'

    'Mr Clennam, deceased. Her husband.'

    'Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?' said the visitor.

    Mr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted
    himself about again, and again found himself the subject of the same
    look and smile. 'Yes, Mr Blandois,' he replied tartly. 'It was his, and
    his uncle's before him, and Lord knows who before him; and that's all I
    can tell you of its pedigree.'

    'That's a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend
    up-stairs.'

    'Yes, sir,' said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, as he
    did during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw-machine that
    fell short of its grip; for the other never changed, and he always
    felt obliged to retreat a little. 'She is a remarkable woman. Great
    fortitude--great strength of mind.'

    'They must have been very happy,' said Blandois.

    'Who?' demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him.

    Mr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick room, and his
    left forefinger towards the portrait, and then, putting his arms akimbo
    and striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at Mr Flintwinch
    with the advancing nose and the retreating moustache.

    'As happy as most other married people, I suppose,' returned Mr
    Flintwinch. 'I can't say. I don't know. There are secrets in all
    families.'

    'Secrets!' cried Mr Blandois, quickly. 'Say it again, my son.'

    'I say,' replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so
    suddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the dilated
    chest. 'I say there are secrets in all families.'

    'So there are,' cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, and
    rolling him backwards and forwards. 'Haha! you are right. So there are!
    Secrets! Holy Blue! There are the devil's own secrets in some families,
    Mr Flintwinch!' With that, after clapping Mr Flintwinch on both
    shoulders several times, as if in a friendly and humorous way he were
    rallying him on a joke he had made, he threw up his arms, threw back
    his head, hooked his hands together behind it, and burst into a roar of
    laughter. It was in vain for Mr Flintwinch to try another screw at him.
    He had his laugh out.

    'But, favour me with the candle a moment,' he said, when he had done.
    'Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. Hah!' holding
    up the light at arm's length. 'A decided expression of face here too,
    though not of the same character. Looks as if he were saying, what is
    it--Do Not Forget--does he not, Mr Flintwinch? By Heaven, sir, he does!'

    As he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then,
    leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a
    charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him that
    he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds.

    Throughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which
    involved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser
    and rougher, much more violent and audacious than before, Mr Flintwinch,
    whose leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its
    immobility intact. Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left
    hanging a trifle too long before that friendly operation of cutting
    down, he outwardly maintained an equable composure. They had brought
    their survey to a close in the little room at the side of the hall, and
    he stood there, eyeing Mr Blandois.

    'I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,' was his calm remark. 'I
    didn't expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.'

    'In admirable spirits,' returned Blandois. 'Word of honour! never more
    refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?'

    'I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,' replied that
    gentleman.

    'Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure
    to come.'

    'I can't say I'm sensible of such a sensation at present,' returned Mr
    Flintwinch with the utmost gravity. 'If I should find it coming on, I'll
    mention it.'

    'Now I,' said Blandois, 'I, my son, have a presentiment to-night that we
    shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?'

    'N-no,' returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. 'I
    can't say I do.'

    'I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately
    acquainted.--You have no feeling of that sort yet?'

    'Not yet,' said Mr Flintwinch.

    Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a
    little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and
    invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old
    dog as he was.

    Without a moment's indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation,
    and they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged,
    through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and
    pavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago
    passed over, but the rain was furious. On their arrival at Mr Blandois'
    room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who
    (crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition
     of his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr
    Flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr
    Blandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr
    Flintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering
    gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr
    Flintwinch's, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr
    Flintwinch's, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw.
    Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get,
    and said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses (which was
            at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the
    clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion's part of the wine
    as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask.

    In short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent
    Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had
    the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion
    were, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew
    indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He
    therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.

    'You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a
    business-like face at parting.

    'My Cabbage,' returned the other, taking him by the collar with both
    hands, 'I'll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive
    at parting;' here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly
    on both cheeks; 'the word of a gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you
    shall see me again!'

    He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came
    duly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with
    surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by
    way of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating
    face a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this
    occasion, and would be seen again.

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

completion: Blandois recognizes Flintwinch and is floored to see him. Flintwinch has no idea what's going on and starts choking Affery. After a little while, Blandois interrupts and kind of laughs off the domestic abuse, basically saying that Flintwinch puts the fun in dysfunctional. In any case, Blandois has a letter of introduction from a company in Paris that's well known to Clennam & Co. This is basically how international banking was done back in the day. Now Blandois can withdraw money from Clennam & Co. with the understanding that the Paris bank will pay them back. Blandois asks for an inn to go freshen up in before meeting Mrs. Clennam. Flintwinch is sort of at a loss, since Blandois seems to be a gentleman and there are no fancy places anywhere in the neighborhood, but Blandois says he's fine anywhere. He eats alone and does a weird self-talk to psych himself up. After dinner Blandois comes back and goes upstairs. Mrs. Clennam is waiting for him with some tea. They are clearly thinking he's some kind of reasonably important customer or client. There's some small talk. Blandois is charming and terrifying at the same time. Mrs. Clennam is her usual half-catatonic self. Suddenly Blandois notices the watch that Mr. Clennam left Mrs. Clennam. It turns out the watch is engraved "D.N.F." which stands for "Do Not Forget," according to Mrs. Clennam. She goes off on a tirade about how she will never forget and how she lives her life just waiting to die and get to heaven. She thinks she's a shoo-in. Finally Blandois is ready to go, but first he asks for a tour of the house. This is bizarre, since it's just an old dump, but Flintwinch takes him around. It turns out, though, that Blandois is mostly just looking at Flintwinch and not the house itself. After the tour, Blandois invites Flintwinch for a drink, but as drunk as the two get, it's impossible to get any information out of Flintwinch. Finally Blandois says good night and promises that he'll be back. Terminator-style.