prompt:
Chapter: To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two
powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding
promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral
ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind,
    which time is not likely to improve. The worst class of sum worked in
    the every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are
    always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of
    others, and never in Addition as to their own.

    The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented
    boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy. A
    certain idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of
    it. To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is
    one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose
    with the truth, in any game, without growing the worse for it.

    In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of painting
    that were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the most liberal
    fellow on earth. He would declare such a man to have more power in his
    little finger (provided he had none), than such another had (provided he
            had much) in his whole mind and body. If the objection were taken that
    the thing commended was trash, he would reply, on behalf of his art, 'My
    good fellow, what do we all turn out but trash? _I_ turn out nothing else,
    and I make you a present of the confession.'

    To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his
    splenetic state, though this may have had the design in it of showing
    that he ought to be rich; just as he would publicly laud and decry the
    Barnacles, lest it should be forgotten that he belonged to the family.
    Howbeit, these two subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed
    them so well that he might have praised himself by the month together,
    and not have made himself out half so important a man as he did by his
    light disparagement of his claims on anybody's consideration.

    Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be understood,
    wherever he and his wife went, that he had married against the wishes
    of his exalted relations, and had had much ado to prevail on them to
    countenance her. He never made the representation, on the contrary
    seemed to laugh the idea to scorn; but it did happen that, with all his
    pains to depreciate himself, he was always in the superior position.
    From the days of their honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being
    usually regarded as the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying
    her, but whose chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality.

    To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, and
    at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the society of
    Gowan. When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva,
    Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had
    remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle
    the point to his satisfaction, that he had thought of tossing up a
    five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails, kick; heads, encourage,' and
    abiding by the voice of the oracle. It chanced, however, that his wife
    expressed a dislike to the engaging Blandois, and that the balance
    of feeling in the hotel was against him. Upon it, Gowan resolved to
    encourage him.

    Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it was
    not. Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of Paris, and
    very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to pieces and find
    out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a man? In the first
    place, he opposed the first separate wish he observed in his wife,
    because her father had paid his debts and it was desirable to take an
    early opportunity of asserting his independence. In the second place,
    he opposed the prevalent feeling, because with many capacities of
    being otherwise, he was an ill-conditioned man. He found a pleasure in
    declaring that a courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought
    to rise to the greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a
    pleasure in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making
    him a satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces.
    He seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was perfect, that the
    address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the picturesque ease
    of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a gift, and
            unpurchasable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration in the
    manner of the man which has been noticed as appertaining to him and to
    every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly as the sun
    belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a caricature, which
    he found it a humorous resource to have at hand for the ridiculing of
    numbers of people who necessarily did more or less of what Blandois
    overdid. Thus he had taken up with him; and thus, negligently
    strengthening these inclinations with habit, and idly deriving some
    amusement from his talk, he had glided into a way of having him for
    a companion. This, though he supposed him to live by his wits at
    play-tables and the like; though he suspected him to be a coward, while
    he himself was daring and courageous; though he thoroughly knew him to
    be disliked by Minnie; and though he cared so little for him, after all,
    that if he had given her any tangible personal cause to regard him with
    aversion, he would have had no compunction whatever in flinging him out
    of the highest window in Venice into the deepest water of the city.

    Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan,
    alone; but as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle's protest,
    though it was four-and-twenty hours of age, pressingly offered her
    company, the two sisters stepped together into one of the gondolas under
    Mr Dorrit's window, and, with the courier in attendance, were taken in
    high state to Mrs Gowan's lodging. In truth, their state was rather too
    high for the lodging, which was, as Fanny complained, 'fearfully out of
    the way,' and which took them through a complexity of narrow streets of
    water, which the same lady disparaged as 'mere ditches.'

    The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken
    away from somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its present
    anchorage in company with a vine almost as much in want of training as
    the poor wretches who were lying under its leaves. The features of the
    surrounding picture were, a church with hoarding and scaffolding about
    it, which had been under suppositious repair so long that the means of
    repair looked a hundred years old, and had themselves fallen into decay;
    a quantity of washed linen, spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses
    at odds with one another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like
    rotten pre-Adamite cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites;
    and a feverish bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all
    hanging askew, and something draggled and dirty dangling out of most of
    them.

    On the first-floor of the house was a Bank--a surprising experience for
    any gentleman of commercial pursuits bringing laws for all mankind from
    a British city--where two spare clerks, like dried dragoons, in green
    velvet caps adorned with golden tassels, stood, bearded, behind a small
    counter in a small room, containing no other visible objects than an
    empty iron-safe with the door open, a jug of water, and a papering of
    garland of roses; but who, on lawful requisition, by merely dipping
    their hands out of sight, could produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc
    pieces. Below the Bank was a suite of three or four rooms with barred
    windows, which had the appearance of a jail for criminal rats. Above the
    Bank was Mrs Gowan's residence.

    Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps were
    bursting out of them to impart geographical knowledge; notwithstanding
    that its weird furniture was forlornly faded and musty, and that the
    prevailing Venetian odour of bilge water and an ebb tide on a weedy
    shore was very strong; the place was better within, than it promised.
    The door was opened by a smiling man like a reformed assassin--a
    temporary servant--who ushered them into the room where Mrs Gowan sat,
    with the announcement that two beautiful English ladies were come to see
    the mistress.

    Mrs Gowan, who was engaged in needlework, put her work aside in a
    covered basket, and rose, a little hurriedly. Miss Fanny was excessively
    courteous to her, and said the usual nothings with the skill of a
    veteran.

    'Papa was extremely sorry,' proceeded Fanny, 'to be engaged to-day (he
            is so much engaged here, our acquaintance being so wretchedly large!);
    and particularly requested me to bring his card for Mr Gowan. That I may
    be sure to acquit myself of a commission which he impressed upon me at
    least a dozen times, allow me to relieve my conscience by placing it on
    the table at once.'

    Which she did with veteran ease.

    'We have been,' said Fanny, 'charmed to understand that you know the
    Merdles. We hope it may be another means of bringing us together.'

    'They are friends,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of Mr Gowan's family. I have not
    yet had the pleasure of a personal introduction to Mrs Merdle, but I
    suppose I shall be presented to her at Rome.'

    'Indeed?' returned Fanny, with an appearance of amiably quenching her
    own superiority. 'I think you'll like her.'

    'You know her very well?'

    'Why, you see,' said Fanny, with a frank action of her pretty shoulders,
    'in London one knows every one. We met her on our way here, and, to say
    the truth, papa was at first rather cross with her for taking one of the
    rooms that our people had ordered for us. However, of course, that soon
    blew over, and we were all good friends again.'

    Although the visit had as yet given Little Dorrit no opportunity of
    conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between
    them, which did as well. She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and unabated
    interest; the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; nothing that was
    near her, or about her, or at all concerned her, escaped Little Dorrit.
    She was quicker to perceive the slightest matter here, than in any other
    case--but one.

    'You have been quite well,' she now said, 'since that night?'

    'Quite, my dear. And you?'

    'Oh! I am always well,' said Little Dorrit, timidly. 'I--yes, thank you.'

    There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than that
    Mrs Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their looks had
    met. Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, soft eyes, had
    checked Little Dorrit in an instant.

    'You don't know that you are a favourite of my husband's, and that I am
    almost bound to be jealous of you?' said Mrs Gowan.

    Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head.

    'He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are
    quieter and quicker of resource than any one he ever saw.'

    'He speaks far too well of me,' said Little Dorrit.

    'I doubt that; but I don't at all doubt that I must tell him you
    are here. I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you--and Miss
    Dorrit--go, without doing so. May I? You can excuse the disorder and
    discomfort of a painter's studio?'

    The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied that
    she would be beyond anything interested and enchanted. Mrs Gowan went to
    a door, looked in beyond it, and came back. 'Do Henry the favour to come
    in,' said she, 'I knew he would be pleased!'

    The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was
    Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, standing
    on a throne platform in a corner, as he had stood on the Great Saint
    Bernard, when the warning arms seemed to be all pointing up at him. She
    recoiled from this figure, as it smiled at her.

    'Don't be alarmed,' said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the door.
    'It's only Blandois. He is doing duty as a model to-day. I am making
    a study of him. It saves me money to turn him to some use. We poor
    painters have none to spare.'

    Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the ladies
    without coming out of his corner.

    'A thousand pardons!' said he. 'But the Professore here is so inexorable
    with me, that I am afraid to stir.'

    'Don't stir, then,' said Gowan coolly, as the sisters approached the
    easel. 'Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, that they
    may know what it's meant for. There he stands, you see. A bravo waiting
    for his prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save his country, the
    common enemy waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an angelic messenger
    waiting to do somebody a good turn--whatever you think he looks most
    like!'

    'Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to
    elegance and beauty,' remarked Blandois.

    'Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio,' returned Gowan, touching the painted
    face with his brush in the part where the real face had moved, 'a
    murderer after the fact. Show that white hand of yours, Blandois. Put it
    outside the cloak. Keep it still.'

    Blandois' hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would naturally
    shake it.

    'He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a
    victim, you observe,' said Gowan, putting in the markings of the hand
    with a quick, impatient, unskilful touch, 'and these are the tokens of
    it. Outside the cloak, man!--Corpo di San Marco, what are you thinking
    of?'

    Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook more;
    now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp appearance;
    and now he stood in the required position, with a little new swagger.

    His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little Dorrit
    stood by the easel, that throughout he looked at her. Once attracted by
    his peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and they had looked
    at each other all the time. She trembled now; Gowan, feeling it, and
    supposing her to be alarmed by the large dog beside him, whose head she
    caressed in her hand, and who had just uttered a low growl, glanced at
    her to say, 'He won't hurt you, Miss Dorrit.'

    'I am not afraid of him,' she returned in the same breath; 'but will you
    look at him?'

    In a moment Gowan had thrown down his brush, and seized the dog with
    both hands by the collar.

    'Blandois! How can you be such a fool as to provoke him! By Heaven, and
    the other place too, he'll tear you to bits! Lie down! Lion! Do you hear
    my voice, you rebel!'

    The great dog, regardless of being half-choked by his collar, was
    obdurately pulling with his dead weight against his master, resolved to
    get across the room. He had been crouching for a spring at the moment
    when his master caught him.

    'Lion! Lion!' He was up on his hind legs, and it was a wrestle between
    master and dog. 'Get back! Down, Lion! Get out of his sight, Blandois!
    What devil have you conjured into the dog?'

    'I have done nothing to him.'

    'Get out of his sight or I can't hold the wild beast! Get out of the
    room! By my soul, he'll kill you!'

    The dog, with a ferocious bark, made one other struggle as Blandois
    vanished; then, in the moment of the dog's submission, the master,
    little less angry than the dog, felled him with a blow on the head, and
    standing over him, struck him many times severely with the heel of his
    boot, so that his mouth was presently bloody.

    'Now get you into that corner and lie down,' said Gowan, 'or I'll take
    you out and shoot you.'

    Lion did as he was ordered, and lay down licking his mouth and chest.
    Lion's master stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, recovering
    his usual coolness of manner, turned to speak to his frightened wife
    and her visitors. Probably the whole occurrence had not occupied two
    minutes.

    'Come, come, Minnie! You know he is always good-humoured and tractable.
    Blandois must have irritated him,--made faces at him. The dog has his
    likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great favourite of his; but
    I am sure you will give him a character, Minnie, for never having been
    like this before.'

    Minnie was too much disturbed to say anything connected in reply; Little
    Dorrit was already occupied in soothing her; Fanny, who had cried out
    twice or thrice, held Gowan's arm for protection; Lion, deeply ashamed
    of having caused them this alarm, came trailing himself along the ground
    to the feet of his mistress.

    'You furious brute,' said Gowan, striking him with his foot again. 'You
    shall do penance for this.' And he struck him again, and yet again.

    'O, pray don't punish him any more,' cried Little Dorrit. 'Don't hurt
    him. See how gentle he is!' At her entreaty, Gowan spared him; and he
    deserved her intercession, for truly he was as submissive, and as sorry,
    and as wretched as a dog could be.

    It was not easy to recover this shock and make the visit unrestrained,
    even though Fanny had not been, under the best of circumstances, the
    least trifle in the way. In such further communication as passed among
    them before the sisters took their departure, Little Dorrit fancied it
    was revealed to her that Mr Gowan treated his wife, even in his very
    fondness, too much like a beautiful child. He seemed so unsuspicious of
    the depths of feeling which she knew must lie below that surface, that
    she doubted if there could be any such depths in himself. She wondered
    whether his want of earnestness might be the natural result of his want
    of such qualities, and whether it was with people as with ships, that,
    in too shallow and rocky waters, their anchors had no hold, and they
    drifted anywhere.

    He attended them down the staircase, jocosely apologising for the
    poor quarters to which such poor fellows as himself were limited, and
    remarking that when the high and mighty Barnacles, his relatives, who
    would be dreadfully ashamed of them, presented him with better, he would
    live in better to oblige them. At the water's edge they were saluted by
    Blandois, who looked white enough after his late adventure, but who made
    very light of it notwithstanding,--laughing at the mention of Lion.

    Leaving the two together under the scrap of vine upon the causeway,
    Gowan idly scattering the leaves from it into the water, and Blandois
    lighting a cigarette, the sisters were paddled away in state as they had
    come. They had not glided on for many minutes, when Little Dorrit became
    aware that Fanny was more showy in manner than the occasion appeared to
    require, and, looking about for the cause through the window and through
    the open door, saw another gondola evidently in waiting on them.

    As this gondola attended their progress in various artful ways;
    sometimes shooting on a-head, and stopping to let them pass; sometimes,
    when the way was broad enough, skimming along side by side with them;
and sometimes following close astern; and as Fanny gradually made no
disguise that she was playing off graces upon somebody within it, of
whom she at the same time feigned to be unconscious; Little Dorrit at
length asked who it was?

To which Fanny made the short answer, 'That gaby.'

'Who?' said Little Dorrit.

'My dear child,' returned Fanny (in a tone suggesting that before her
        Uncle's protest she might have said, You little fool, instead), 'how
slow you are! Young Sparkler.'

She lowered the window on her side, and, leaning back and resting her
elbow on it negligently, fanned herself with a rich Spanish fan of black
and gold. The attendant gondola, having skimmed forward again, with some
swift trace of an eye in the window, Fanny laughed coquettishly and
said, 'Did you ever see such a fool, my love?'

'Do you think he means to follow you all the way?' asked Little Dorrit.

'My precious child,' returned Fanny, 'I can't possibly answer for what
an idiot in a state of desperation may do, but I should think it highly
probable. It's not such an enormous distance. All Venice would scarcely
be that, I imagine, if he's dying for a glimpse of me.'

'And is he?' asked Little Dorrit in perfect simplicity.

'Well, my love, that really is an awkward question for me to answer,'
said her sister. 'I believe he is. You had better ask Edward. He tells
Edward he is, I believe. I understand he makes a perfect spectacle of
himself at the Casino, and that sort of places, by going on about me.
But you had better ask Edward if you want to know.'

'I wonder he doesn't call,' said Little Dorrit after thinking a moment.

'My dear Amy, your wonder will soon cease, if I am rightly informed.
I should not be at all surprised if he called to-day. The creature has
only been waiting to get his courage up, I suspect.'

'Will you see him?'

'Indeed, my darling,' said Fanny, 'that's just as it may happen. Here he
is again. Look at him. O, you simpleton!'

Mr Sparkler had, undeniably, a weak appearance; with his eye in the
window like a knot in the glass, and no reason on earth for stopping his
bark suddenly, except the real reason.

'When you asked me if I will see him, my dear,' said Fanny, almost as
well composed in the graceful indifference of her attitude as Mrs Merdle
herself, 'what do you mean?'

'I mean,' said Little Dorrit--'I think I rather mean what do you mean,
    dear Fanny?'

    Fanny laughed again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and
    affable; and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully
    affectionate way:

    'Now tell me, my little pet. When we saw that woman at Martigny, how
    did you think she carried it off? Did you see what she decided on in a
    moment?'

    'No, Fanny.'

    'Then I'll tell you, Amy. She settled with herself, now I'll never
    refer to that meeting under such different circumstances, and I'll never
    pretend to have any idea that these are the same girls. That's _her_ way
    out of a difficulty. What did I tell you when we came away from Harley
    Street that time? She is as insolent and false as any woman in the
    world. But in the first capacity, my love, she may find people who can
    match her.'

    A significant turn of the Spanish fan towards Fanny's bosom, indicated
    with great expression where one of these people was to be found.

    'Not only that,' pursued Fanny, 'but she gives the same charge to
    Young Sparkler; and doesn't let him come after me until she has got it
    thoroughly into his most ridiculous of all ridiculous noddles (for one
            really can't call it a head), that he is to pretend to have been first
    struck with me in that Inn Yard.'

    'Why?' asked Little Dorrit.

    'Why? Good gracious, my love!' (again very much in the tone of You
            stupid little creature) 'how can you ask? Don't you see that I may have
    become a rather desirable match for a noddle? And don't you see that she
    puts the deception upon us, and makes a pretence, while she shifts it
    from her own shoulders (very good shoulders they are too, I must say),'
    observed Miss Fanny, glancing complacently at herself, 'of considering
    our feelings?'

    'But we can always go back to the plain truth.'

    'Yes, but if you please we won't,' retorted Fanny. 'No; I am not going
    to have that done, Amy. The pretext is none of mine; it's hers, and she
    shall have enough of it.'

    In the triumphant exaltation of her feelings, Miss Fanny, using her
    Spanish fan with one hand, squeezed her sister's waist with the other,
    as if she were crushing Mrs Merdle.

    'No,' repeated Fanny. 'She shall find me go her way. She took it, and
    I'll follow it. And, with the blessing of fate and fortune, I'll go on
    improving that woman's acquaintance until I have given her maid,
    before her eyes, things from my dressmaker's ten times as handsome and
    expensive as she once gave me from hers!'

    Little Dorrit was silent; sensible that she was not to be heard on
    any question affecting the family dignity, and unwilling to lose to no
    purpose her sister's newly and unexpectedly restored favour. She could
    not concur, but she was silent. Fanny well knew what she was thinking
    of; so well, that she soon asked her.

    Her reply was, 'Do you mean to encourage Mr Sparkler, Fanny?'

    'Encourage him, my dear?' said her sister, smiling contemptuously, 'that
    depends upon what you call encourage. No, I don't mean to encourage him.
    But I'll make a slave of him.'

    Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but Fanny
    was not to be so brought to a check. She furled her fan of black and
    gold, and used it to tap her sister's nose; with the air of a proud
    beauty and a great spirit, who toyed with and playfully instructed a
    homely companion.

    'I shall make him fetch and carry, my dear, and I shall make him subject
    to me. And if I don't make his mother subject to me, too, it shall not
    be my fault.'

    'Do you think--dear Fanny, don't be offended, we are so comfortable
    together now--that you can quite see the end of that course?'

    'I can't say I have so much as looked for it yet, my dear,' answered
    Fanny, with supreme indifference; 'all in good time. Such are my
    intentions. And really they have taken me so long to develop, that here
    we are at home. And Young Sparkler at the door, inquiring who is within.
    By the merest accident, of course!'

    In effect, the swain was standing up in his gondola, card-case in
    hand, affecting to put the question to a servant. This conjunction
    of circumstances led to his immediately afterwards presenting himself
    before the young ladies in a posture, which in ancient times would not
    have been considered one of favourable augury for his suit; since the
    gondoliers of the young ladies, having been put to some inconvenience
    by the chase, so neatly brought their own boat in the gentlest collision
    with the bark of Mr Sparkler, as to tip that gentleman over like a
    larger species of ninepin, and cause him to exhibit the soles of his
    shoes to the object of his dearest wishes: while the nobler portions of
    his anatomy struggled at the bottom of his boat in the arms of one of
    his men.

    However, as Miss Fanny called out with much concern, Was the gentleman
    hurt, Mr Sparkler rose more restored than might have been expected, and
    stammered for himself with blushes, 'Not at all so.' Miss Fanny had no
    recollection of having ever seen him before, and was passing on, with a
    distant inclination of her head, when he announced himself by name. Even
    then she was in a difficulty from being unable to call it to mind, until
    he explained that he had had the honour of seeing her at Martigny. Then
    she remembered him, and hoped his lady-mother was well.

    'Thank you,' stammered Mr Sparkler, 'she's uncommonly well--at least,
    poorly.'

    'In Venice?' said Miss Fanny.

    'In Rome,' Mr Sparkler answered. 'I am here by myself, myself. I came to
    call upon Mr Edward Dorrit myself. Indeed, upon Mr Dorrit likewise. In
    fact, upon the family.'

    Turning graciously to the attendants, Miss Fanny inquired whether her
    papa or brother was within? The reply being that they were both within,
    Mr Sparkler humbly offered his arm. Miss Fanny accepting it, was squired
    up the great staircase by Mr Sparkler, who, if he still believed (which
            there is not any reason to doubt) that she had no nonsense about her,
    rather deceived himself.

    Arrived in a mouldering reception-room, where the faded hangings, of a
    sad sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if they
    might have claimed kindred with the waifs of seaweed drifting under
    the windows, or clinging to the walls and weeping for their imprisoned
    relations, Miss Fanny despatched emissaries for her father and brother.
    Pending whose appearance, she showed to great advantage on a sofa,
    completing Mr Sparkler's conquest with some remarks upon Dante--known
    to that gentleman as an eccentric man in the nature of an Old File,
    who used to put leaves round his head, and sit upon a stool for some
    unaccountable purpose, outside the cathedral at Florence.

    Mr Dorrit welcomed the visitor with the highest urbanity, and most
    courtly manners. He inquired particularly after Mrs Merdle. He inquired
    particularly after Mr Merdle. Mr Sparkler said, or rather twitched out
    of himself in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that Mrs Merdle having
    completely used up her place in the country, and also her house at
    Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don't you see, to remain in
    London when there wasn't a soul there, and not feeling herself this year
    quite up to visiting about at people's places, had resolved to have
    a touch at Rome, where a woman like herself, with a proverbially fine
    appearance, and with no nonsense about her, couldn't fail to be a great
    acquisition. As to Mr Merdle, he was so much wanted by the men in the
    City and the rest of those places, and was such a doosed extraordinary
    phenomenon in Buying and Banking and that, that Mr Sparkler doubted if
    the monetary system of the country would be able to spare him; though
    that his work was occasionally one too many for him, and that he would
    be all the better for a temporary shy at an entirely new scene and
    climate, Mr Sparkler did not conceal. As to himself, Mr Sparkler
    conveyed to the Dorrit family that he was going, on rather particular
    business, wherever they were going.

    This immense conversational achievement required time, but was effected.
    Being effected, Mr Dorrit expressed his hope that Mr Sparkler would
    shortly dine with them. Mr Sparkler received the idea so kindly that Mr
    Dorrit asked what he was going to do that day, for instance? As he was
    going to do nothing that day (his usual occupation, and one for which he
            was particularly qualified), he was secured without postponement; being
    further bound over to accompany the ladies to the Opera in the evening.

    At dinner-time Mr Sparkler rose out of the sea, like Venus's son taking
    after his mother, and made a splendid appearance ascending the great
    staircase. If Fanny had been charming in the morning, she was now thrice
    charming, very becomingly dressed in her most suitable colours, and with
    an air of negligence upon her that doubled Mr Sparkler's fetters, and
    riveted them.

    'I hear you are acquainted, Mr Sparkler,' said his host at dinner,
    'with--ha--Mr Gowan. Mr Henry Gowan?'

    'Perfectly, sir,' returned Mr Sparkler. 'His mother and my mother are
    cronies in fact.'

    'If I had thought of it, Amy,' said Mr Dorrit, with a patronage as
    magnificent as that of Lord Decimus himself, 'you should have despatched
    a note to them, asking them to dine to-day. Some of our people could
    have--ha--fetched them, and taken them home. We could have spared
    a--hum--gondola for that purpose. I am sorry to have forgotten this.
    Pray remind me of them to-morrow.'

    Little Dorrit was not without doubts how Mr Henry Gowan might take their
    patronage; but she promised not to fail in the reminder.

    'Pray, does Mr Henry Gowan paint--ha--Portraits?' inquired Mr Dorrit.

    Mr Sparkler opined that he painted anything, if he could get the job.

    'He has no particular walk?' said Mr Dorrit.

    Mr Sparkler, stimulated by Love to brilliancy, replied that for a
    particular walk a man ought to have a particular pair of shoes; as, for
    example, shooting, shooting-shoes; cricket, cricket-shoes. Whereas, he
    believed that Henry Gowan had no particular pair of shoes.

    'No speciality?' said Mr Dorrit.

    This being a very long word for Mr Sparkler, and his mind being
    exhausted by his late effort, he replied, 'No, thank you. I seldom take
    it.'

    'Well!' said Mr Dorrit. 'It would be very agreeable to me to present
    a gentleman so connected, with some--ha--Testimonial of my desire to
    further his interests, and develop the--hum--germs of his genius. I
    think I must engage Mr Gowan to paint my picture. If the result should
    be--ha--mutually satisfactory, I might afterwards engage him to try his
    hand upon my family.'

    The exquisitely bold and original thought presented itself to Mr
    Sparkler, that there was an opening here for saying there were some of
    the family (emphasising 'some' in a marked manner) to whom no painter
    could render justice. But, for want of a form of words in which to
    express the idea, it returned to the skies.

    This was the more to be regretted as Miss Fanny greatly applauded the
    notion of the portrait, and urged her papa to act upon it. She surmised,
    she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher opportunities by
    marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, painting pictures for
    dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that she begged her papa to
    give him the commission whether he could paint a likeness or not: though
    indeed both she and Amy knew he could, from having seen a speaking
    likeness on his easel that day, and having had the opportunity of
    comparing it with the original. These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as
            perhaps they were intended to do) nearly distracted; for while on
    the one hand they expressed Miss Fanny's susceptibility of the tender
    passion, she herself showed such an innocent unconsciousness of his
    admiration that his eyes goggled in his head with jealousy of an unknown
    rival.

    Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it
    at the Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like an
    attendant Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their box,
    and Mr Sparkler entered on an evening of agony. The theatre being
    dark, and the box light, several visitors lounged in during the
    representation; in whom Fanny was so interested, and in conversation
    with whom she fell into such charming attitudes, as she had little
    confidences with them, and little disputes concerning the identity of
    people in distant boxes, that the wretched Sparkler hated all mankind.
    But he had two consolations at the close of the performance. She gave
    him her fan to hold while she adjusted her cloak, and it was his
    blessed privilege to give her his arm down-stairs again. These crumbs of
    encouragement, Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; and it is
    not impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too.

    The Merman with his light was ready at the box-door, and other Mermen
    with other lights were ready at many of the doors. The Dorrit Merman
    held his lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr Sparkler put on another
    heavy set of fetters over his former set, as he watched her radiant
    feet twinkling down the stairs beside him. Among the loiterers here, was
    Blandois of Paris. He spoke, and moved forward beside Fanny.

    Little Dorrit was in front with her brother and Mrs General (Mr Dorrit
            had remained at home), but on the brink of the quay they all came
    together. She started again to find Blandois close to her, handing Fanny
    into the boat.

    'Gowan has had a loss,' he said, 'since he was made happy to-day by a
    visit from fair ladies.'

    'A loss?' repeated Fanny, relinquished by the bereaved Sparkler, and
    taking her seat.

    'A loss,' said Blandois. 'His dog Lion.'

    Little Dorrit's hand was in his, as he spoke.

    'He is dead,' said Blandois.

    'Dead?' echoed Little Dorrit. 'That noble dog?'

    'Faith, dear ladies!' said Blandois, smiling and shrugging his
    shoulders, 'somebody has poisoned that noble dog. He is as dead as the
    Doges!'

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

completion: Ah, the Gowans. What a sad, sad mess of a marriage. Turns out that pretty much everywhere they go, the story is that he married way down and she married way up, and wasn't it so super-duper romantic and decent of him to convince his family to accept her? After being yelled at by Uncle Frederick, Fanny has been nice to Amy. The two go to visit Mrs. Gowan. Fanny is of course super-patronizing, and Amy is very nice. Then they all go visit Gowan in his studio. He's painting from life - Blandois is modeling. Gowan says the painting is supposed to be a murderer - with blood still on his hands! Or whatever. Blandois kind of freaks out at this but manages to keep it together. Suddenly, Gowan's huge dog Lion almost attacks Blandois. Blandois runs into another room to escape as Gowan is just barely restraining Lion. Gowan starts to beat and kick the dog until it's bleeding from the mouth. Then he kicks it some more, until Amy begs him to stop. Dudes. Shmoop is going to go out on a limb here and say that a tendency to beat animals viciously is probably something to be avoided in a life partner. Too bad it's too late for Pet. Fanny and Amy leave in a gondola. Suddenly Amy notices that Fanny is striking poses left and right and realizes that there is a gondola following them. In it is Edmund Sparkler. Amy asks Fanny to explain, and Fanny basically tells her that her plan is this: Since Mrs. Merdle is clearly going to pretend that she's never met them, and since Sparkler is clearly nuts about her, most likely Mrs. Merdle thinks Fanny would be an OK match for Sparkler - as long as everything is hushed up about prison. Fanny is going to lead Sparkler and his mom on about the potential marriage. Amy is all, and then what? Fanny says she's doesn't know yet. Sparkler helps Fanny off the gondola and leads her up the stairs to her house. There, he makes nice with Dorrit, who invites him to stay for dinner and to go to the opera afterwards. At the opera Fanny flirts with Sparkler, then ignores him. She basically wraps him around her little finger. Afterward they run into Blandois, who tells them that... someone has fatally poisoned Gowan's dog Lion!


prompt:
Chapter: Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well
together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend,
    and Mrs General's very dear young friend tried hard to receive it. Hard
    as she had tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she had
    never tried harder than she did now, to be varnished by Mrs General. It
    made her anxious and ill at ease to be operated upon by that smoothing
    hand, it is true; but she submitted herself to the family want in
    its greatness as she had submitted herself to the family want in its
    littleness, and yielded to her own inclinations in this thing no more
    than she had yielded to her hunger itself, in the days when she had
    saved her dinner that her father might have his supper.

    One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more
    sustaining to her, and made her more grateful than to a less devoted
    and affectionate spirit, not habituated to her struggles and sacrifices,
    might appear quite reasonable; and, indeed, it may often be observed in
    life, that spirits like Little Dorrit do not appear to reason half
    as carefully as the folks who get the better of them. The continued
    kindness of her sister was this comfort to Little Dorrit. It was nothing
    to her that the kindness took the form of tolerant patronage; she was
    used to that. It was nothing to her that it kept her in a tributary
    position, and showed her in attendance on the flaming car in which Miss
    Fanny sat on an elevated seat, exacting homage; she sought no better
    place. Always admiring Fanny's beauty, and grace, and readiness, and not
    now asking herself how much of her disposition to be strongly attached
    to Fanny was due to her own heart, and how much to Fanny's, she gave her
    all the sisterly fondness her great heart contained.

    The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused into
    the family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by Fanny into
    society, left but a very small residue of any natural deposit at the
    bottom of the mixture. This rendered confidences with Fanny doubly
    precious to Little Dorrit, and heightened the relief they afforded her.

    'Amy,' said Fanny to her one night when they were alone, after a day so
    tiring that Little Dorrit was quite worn out, though Fanny would have
    taken another dip into society with the greatest pleasure in life, 'I
    am going to put something into your little head. You won't guess what it
    is, I suspect.'

    'I don't think that's likely, dear,' said Little Dorrit.

    'Come, I'll give you a clue, child,' said Fanny. 'Mrs General.'

    Prunes and Prism, in a thousand combinations, having been wearily in the
    ascendant all day--everything having been surface and varnish and show
    without substance--Little Dorrit looked as if she had hoped that Mrs
    General was safely tucked up in bed for some hours.

    '_Now_, can you guess, Amy?' said Fanny.

    'No, dear. Unless I have done anything,' said Little Dorrit, rather
    alarmed, and meaning anything calculated to crack varnish and ruffle
    surface.

    Fanny was so very much amused by the misgiving, that she took up her
    favourite fan (being then seated at her dressing-table with her armoury
            of cruel instruments about her, most of them reeking from the heart
            of Sparkler), and tapped her sister frequently on the nose with it,
    laughing all the time.

    'Oh, our Amy, our Amy!' said Fanny. 'What a timid little goose our Amy
    is! But this is nothing to laugh at. On the contrary, I am very cross,
    my dear.'

    'As it is not with me, Fanny, I don't mind,' returned her sister,
    smiling.

    'Ah! But I do mind,' said Fanny, 'and so will you, Pet, when I enlighten
    you. Amy, has it never struck you that somebody is monstrously polite to
    Mrs General?'

    'Everybody is polite to Mrs General,' said Little Dorrit. 'Because--'

    'Because she freezes them into it?' interrupted Fanny. 'I don't mean
    that; quite different from that. Come! Has it never struck you, Amy,
    that Pa is monstrously polite to Mrs General.'

    Amy, murmuring 'No,' looked quite confounded.

    'No; I dare say not. But he is,' said Fanny. 'He is, Amy. And remember
    my words. Mrs General has designs on Pa!'

    'Dear Fanny, do you think it possible that Mrs General has designs on
    any one?'

    'Do I think it possible?' retorted Fanny. 'My love, I know it. I tell
    you she has designs on Pa. And more than that, I tell you Pa considers
    her such a wonder, such a paragon of accomplishment, and such an
    acquisition to our family, that he is ready to get himself into a state
    of perfect infatuation with her at any moment. And that opens a pretty
    picture of things, I hope? Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama!'

    Little Dorrit did not reply, 'Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama;'
    but she looked anxious, and seriously inquired what had led Fanny to
    these conclusions.

    'Lord, my darling,' said Fanny, tartly. 'You might as well ask me how
    I know when a man is struck with myself! But, of course I do know. It
    happens pretty often: but I always know it. I know this in much the same
    way, I suppose. At all events, I know it.'

    'You never heard Papa say anything?'

    'Say anything?' repeated Fanny. 'My dearest, darling child, what
    necessity has he had, yet awhile, to say anything?'

    'And you have never heard Mrs General say anything?'

    'My goodness me, Amy,' returned Fanny, 'is she the sort of woman to say
    anything? Isn't it perfectly plain and clear that she has nothing to do
    at present but to hold herself upright, keep her aggravating gloves on,
    and go sweeping about? Say anything! If she had the ace of trumps in her
    hand at whist, she wouldn't say anything, child. It would come out when
    she played it.'

    'At least, you may be mistaken, Fanny. Now, may you not?'

    'O yes, I _may_ be,' said Fanny, 'but I am not. However, I am glad you
    can contemplate such an escape, my dear, and I am glad that you can take
    this for the present with sufficient coolness to think of such a chance.
    It makes me hope that you may be able to bear the connection. I should
    not be able to bear it, and I should not try. I'd marry young Sparkler
    first.'

    'O, you would never marry him, Fanny, under any circumstances.'

    'Upon my word, my dear,' rejoined that young lady with exceeding
    indifference, 'I wouldn't positively answer even for that. There's
    no knowing what might happen. Especially as I should have many
    opportunities, afterwards, of treating that woman, his mother, in her
    own style. Which I most decidedly should not be slow to avail myself of,
    Amy.'

    No more passed between the sisters then; but what had passed gave the
    two subjects of Mrs General and Mr Sparkler great prominence in Little
    Dorrit's mind, and thenceforth she thought very much of both.

    Mrs General, having long ago formed her own surface to such perfection
    that it hid whatever was below it (if anything), no observation was to
    be made in that quarter. Mr Dorrit was undeniably very polite to her
    and had a high opinion of her; but Fanny, impetuous at most times, might
    easily be wrong for all that. Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the
    different footing that any one could see what was going on there, and
    Little Dorrit saw it and pondered on it with many doubts and wonderings.

    The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice
    and cruelty of his enslaver. Sometimes she would prefer him to such
    distinction of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; next day,
    or next hour, she would overlook him so completely, and drop him into
    such an abyss of obscurity, that he would groan under a weak pretence of
    coughing. The constancy of his attendance never touched Fanny: though he
    was so inseparable from Edward, that, when that gentleman wished for
    a change of society, he was under the irksome necessity of gliding out
    like a conspirator in disguised boats and by secret doors and back ways;
    though he was so solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called
    every other day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an
    intermittent fever; though he was so constantly being paddled up and
    down before the principal windows, that he might have been supposed to
    have made a wager for a large stake to be paddled a thousand miles in
    a thousand hours; though whenever the gondola of his mistress left the
    gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot out from some watery ambush
    and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler and he a custom-house
    officer. It was probably owing to this fortification of the natural
    strength of his constitution with so much exposure to the air, and the
    salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine outwardly; but, whatever the
    cause, he was so far from having any prospect of moving his mistress by
    a languishing state of health, that he grew bluffer every day, and that
    peculiarity in his appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than
    a young man, became developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy
    puffiness.

    Blandois calling to pay his respects, Mr Dorrit received him with
    affability as the friend of Mr Gowan, and mentioned to him his idea of
    commissioning Mr Gowan to transmit him to posterity. Blandois highly
    extolling it, it occurred to Mr Dorrit that it might be agreeable to
    Blandois to communicate to his friend the great opportunity reserved
    for him. Blandois accepted the commission with his own free elegance of
    manner, and swore he would discharge it before he was an hour older. On
    his imparting the news to Gowan, that Master gave Mr Dorrit to the
    Devil with great liberality some round dozen of times (for he resented
            patronage almost as much as he resented the want of it), and was
    inclined to quarrel with his friend for bringing him the message.

    'It may be a defect in my mental vision, Blandois,' said he, 'but may I
    die if I see what you have to do with this.'

    'Death of my life,' replied Blandois, 'nor I neither, except that I
    thought I was serving my friend.'

    'By putting an upstart's hire in his pocket?' said Gowan, frowning.
    'Do you mean that? Tell your other friend to get his head painted for
    the sign of some public-house, and to get it done by a sign-painter. Who
    am I, and who is he?'

    'Professore,' returned the ambassador, 'and who is Blandois?'

    Without appearing at all interested in the latter question, Gowan
    angrily whistled Mr Dorrit away. But, next day, he resumed the subject
    by saying in his off-hand manner and with a slighting laugh, 'Well,
    Blandois, when shall we go to this Maecenas of yours? We journeymen must
    take jobs when we can get them. When shall we go and look after this
    job?'

    'When you will,' said the injured Blandois, 'as you please. What have I
    to do with it? What is it to me?'

    'I can tell you what it is to me,' said Gowan. 'Bread and cheese. One
    must eat! So come along, my Blandois.'

    Mr Dorrit received them in the presence of his daughters and of Mr
    Sparkler, who happened, by some surprising accident, to be calling
    there. 'How are you, Sparkler?' said Gowan carelessly. 'When you have
    to live by your mother wit, old boy, I hope you may get on better than I
    do.'

    Mr Dorrit then mentioned his proposal. 'Sir,' said Gowan, laughing,
    after receiving it gracefully enough, 'I am new to the trade, and not
    expert at its mysteries. I believe I ought to look at you in various
    lights, tell you you are a capital subject, and consider when I shall be
    sufficiently disengaged to devote myself with the necessary enthusiasm
    to the fine picture I mean to make of you. I assure you,' and he laughed
    again, 'I feel quite a traitor in the camp of those dear, gifted, good,
    noble fellows, my brother artists, by not doing the hocus-pocus better.
    But I have not been brought up to it, and it's too late to learn it.
    Now, the fact is, I am a very bad painter, but not much worse than the
    generality. If you are going to throw away a hundred guineas or so, I
    am as poor as a poor relation of great people usually is, and I shall be
    very much obliged to you, if you'll throw them away upon me. I'll do the
    best I can for the money; and if the best should be bad, why even then,
    you may probably have a bad picture with a small name to it, instead of
    a bad picture with a large name to it.'

    This tone, though not what he had expected, on the whole suited Mr
    Dorrit remarkably well. It showed that the gentleman, highly connected,
    and not a mere workman, would be under an obligation to him. He
    expressed his satisfaction in placing himself in Mr Gowan's hands, and
    trusted that he would have the pleasure, in their characters of private
    gentlemen, of improving his acquaintance.

    'You are very good,' said Gowan. 'I have not forsworn society since I
    joined the brotherhood of the brush (the most delightful fellows on the
            face of the earth), and am glad enough to smell the old fine gunpowder
    now and then, though it did blow me into mid-air and my present calling.
    You'll not think, Mr Dorrit,' and here he laughed again in the easiest
    way, 'that I am lapsing into the freemasonry of the craft--for it's not
    so; upon my life I can't help betraying it wherever I go, though, by
    Jupiter, I love and honour the craft with all my might--if I propose a
    stipulation as to time and place?'

    Ha! Mr Dorrit could erect no--hum--suspicion of that kind on Mr Gowan's
    frankness.

    'Again you are very good,' said Gowan. 'Mr Dorrit, I hear you are going
    to Rome. I am going to Rome, having friends there. Let me begin to do
    you the injustice I have conspired to do you, there--not here. We shall
    all be hurried during the rest of our stay here; and though there's not
    a poorer man with whole elbows in Venice, than myself, I have not quite
    got all the Amateur out of me yet--comprising the trade again, you
    see!--and can't fall on to order, in a hurry, for the mere sake of the
    sixpences.'

    These remarks were not less favourably received by Mr Dorrit than their
    predecessors. They were the prelude to the first reception of Mr and Mrs
    Gowan at dinner, and they skilfully placed Gowan on his usual ground in
    the new family.

    His wife, too, they placed on her usual ground. Miss Fanny understood,
    with particular distinctness, that Mrs Gowan's good looks had cost her
    husband very dear; that there had been a great disturbance about her
    in the Barnacle family; and that the Dowager Mrs Gowan, nearly
    heart-broken, had resolutely set her face against the marriage until
    overpowered by her maternal feelings. Mrs General likewise clearly
    understood that the attachment had occasioned much family grief and
    dissension. Of honest Mr Meagles no mention was made; except that it
    was natural enough that a person of that sort should wish to raise his
    daughter out of his own obscurity, and that no one could blame him for
    trying his best to do so.

    Little Dorrit's interest in the fair subject of this easily accepted
    belief was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate observation. She
    could see that it had its part in throwing upon Mrs Gowan the touch of a
    shadow under which she lived, and she even had an instinctive knowledge
    that there was not the least truth in it. But it had an influence in
    placing obstacles in the way of her association with Mrs Gowan by making
    the Prunes and Prism school excessively polite to her, but not very
    intimate with her; and Little Dorrit, as an enforced sizar of that
    college, was obliged to submit herself humbly to its ordinances.

    Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already
    established between the two, which would have carried them over
    greater difficulties, and made a friendship out of a more restricted
    intercourse. As though accidents were determined to be favourable to
    it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in the aversion which each
    perceived that the other felt towards Blandois of Paris; an aversion
    amounting to the repugnance and horror of a natural antipathy towards an
    odious creature of the reptile kind.

    And there was a passive congeniality between them, besides this active
    one. To both of them, Blandois behaved in exactly the same manner; and
    to both of them his manner had uniformly something in it, which
    they both knew to be different from his bearing towards others. The
    difference was too minute in its expression to be perceived by others,
    but they knew it to be there. A mere trick of his evil eyes, a mere turn
    of his smooth white hand, a mere hair's-breadth of addition to the fall
    of his nose and the rise of the moustache in the most frequent movement
    of his face, conveyed to both of them, equally, a swagger personal to
    themselves. It was as if he had said, 'I have a secret power in this
    quarter. I know what I know.'

    This had never been felt by them both in so great a degree, and never
    by each so perfectly to the knowledge of the other, as on a day when he
    came to Mr Dorrit's to take his leave before quitting Venice. Mrs
    Gowan was herself there for the same purpose, and he came upon the
    two together; the rest of the family being out. The two had not been
    together five minutes, and the peculiar manner seemed to convey to them,
    'You were going to talk about me. Ha! Behold me here to prevent it!'

    'Gowan is coming here?' said Blandois, with a smile.

    Mrs Gowan replied he was not coming.

    'Not coming!' said Blandois. 'Permit your devoted servant, when you
    leave here, to escort you home.'

    'Thank you: I am not going home.'

    'Not going home!' said Blandois. 'Then I am forlorn.'

    That he might be; but he was not so forlorn as to roam away and leave
    them together. He sat entertaining them with his finest compliments, and
    his choicest conversation; but he conveyed to them, all the time, 'No,
    no, no, dear ladies. Behold me here expressly to prevent it!'

    He conveyed it to them with so much meaning, and he had such a
    diabolical persistency in him, that at length, Mrs Gowan rose to depart.
    On his offering his hand to Mrs Gowan to lead her down the staircase,
    she retained Little Dorrit's hand in hers, with a cautious pressure, and
    said, 'No, thank you. But, if you will please to see if my boatman is
    there, I shall be obliged to you.'

    It left him no choice but to go down before them. As he did so, hat in
    hand, Mrs Gowan whispered:

    'He killed the dog.'

    'Does Mr Gowan know it?' Little Dorrit whispered.

    'No one knows it. Don't look towards me; look towards him. He will turn
    his face in a moment. No one knows it, but I am sure he did. You are?'

    'I--I think so,' Little Dorrit answered.

    'Henry likes him, and he will not think ill of him; he is so generous
    and open himself. But you and I feel sure that we think of him as he
    deserves. He argued with Henry that the dog had been already poisoned
    when he changed so, and sprang at him. Henry believes it, but we do not.
    I see he is listening, but can't hear. Good-bye, my love! Good-bye!'

    The last words were spoken aloud, as the vigilant Blandois stopped,
    turned his head, and looked at them from the bottom of the staircase.
    Assuredly he did look then, though he looked his politest, as if any
    real philanthropist could have desired no better employment than to lash
    a great stone to his neck, and drop him into the water flowing beyond
    the dark arched gateway in which he stood. No such benefactor to mankind
    being on the spot, he handed Mrs Gowan to her boat, and stood there
    until it had shot out of the narrow view; when he handed himself into
    his own boat and followed.

    Little Dorrit had sometimes thought, and now thought again as she
    retraced her steps up the staircase, that he had made his way too easily
    into her father's house. But so many and such varieties of people did
    the same, through Mr Dorrit's participation in his elder daughter's
    society mania, that it was hardly an exceptional case. A perfect fury
    for making acquaintances on whom to impress their riches and importance,
    had seized the House of Dorrit.

    It appeared on the whole, to Little Dorrit herself, that this same
    society in which they lived, greatly resembled a superior sort of
    Marshalsea. Numbers of people seemed to come abroad, pretty much
    as people had come into the prison; through debt, through idleness,
    relationship, curiosity, and general unfitness for getting on at home.
    They were brought into these foreign towns in the custody of couriers
    and local followers, just as the debtors had been brought into the
    prison. They prowled about the churches and picture-galleries, much in
    the old, dreary, prison-yard manner. They were usually going away again
    to-morrow or next week, and rarely knew their own minds, and seldom did
    what they said they would do, or went where they said they would go: in
    all this again, very like the prison debtors. They paid high for poor
    accommodation, and disparaged a place while they pretended to like it:
    which was exactly the Marshalsea custom. They were envied when they went
    away by people left behind, feigning not to want to go: and that again
    was the Marshalsea habit invariably. A certain set of words and phrases,
    as much belonging to tourists as the College and the Snuggery belonged
    to the jail, was always in their mouths. They had precisely the same
    incapacity for settling down to anything, as the prisoners used to have;
    they rather deteriorated one another, as the prisoners used to do; and
    they wore untidy dresses, and fell into a slouching way of life: still,
    always like the people in the Marshalsea.

    The period of the family's stay at Venice came, in its course, to an
    end, and they moved, with their retinue, to Rome. Through a repetition
    of the former Italian scenes, growing more dirty and more haggard as
    they went on, and bringing them at length to where the very air was
    diseased, they passed to their destination. A fine residence had been
    taken for them on the Corso, and there they took up their abode, in a
    city where everything seemed to be trying to stand still for ever on
    the ruins of something else--except the water, which, following eternal
    laws, tumbled and rolled from its glorious multitude of fountains.

    Here it seemed to Little Dorrit that a change came over the Marshalsea
    spirit of their society, and that Prunes and Prism got the upper hand.
    Everybody was walking about St Peter's and the Vatican on somebody
    else's cork legs, and straining every visible object through somebody
    else's sieve. Nobody said what anything was, but everybody said what the
    Mrs Generals, Mr Eustace, or somebody else said it was. The whole body
    of travellers seemed to be a collection of voluntary human sacrifices,
    bound hand and foot, and delivered over to Mr Eustace and his
    attendants, to have the entrails of their intellects arranged according
    to the taste of that sacred priesthood. Through the rugged remains
    of temples and tombs and palaces and senate halls and theatres and
    amphitheatres of ancient days, hosts of tongue-tied and blindfolded
    moderns were carefully feeling their way, incessantly repeating Prunes
    and Prism in the endeavour to set their lips according to the received
    form. Mrs General was in her pure element. Nobody had an opinion. There
    was a formation of surface going on around her on an amazing scale, and
    it had not a flaw of courage or honest free speech in it.

    Another modification of Prunes and Prism insinuated itself on Little
    Dorrit's notice very shortly after their arrival. They received an early
    visit from Mrs Merdle, who led that extensive department of life in the
    Eternal City that winter; and the skilful manner in which she and Fanny
    fenced with one another on the occasion, almost made her quiet sister
    wink, like the glittering of small-swords.

    'So delighted,' said Mrs Merdle, 'to resume an acquaintance so
    inauspiciously begun at Martigny.'

    'At Martigny, of course,' said Fanny. 'Charmed, I am sure!'

    'I understand,' said Mrs Merdle, 'from my son Edmund Sparkler, that
    he has already improved that chance occasion. He has returned quite
    transported with Venice.'

    'Indeed?' returned the careless Fanny. 'Was he there long?'

    'I might refer that question to Mr Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, turning the
    bosom towards that gentleman; 'Edmund having been so much indebted to
    him for rendering his stay agreeable.'

    'Oh, pray don't speak of it,' returned Fanny. 'I believe Papa had the
    pleasure of inviting Mr Sparkler twice or thrice,--but it was nothing.
    We had so many people about us, and kept such open house, that if he had
    that pleasure, it was less than nothing.'

    'Except, my dear,' said Mr Dorrit, 'except--ha--as it afforded me
    unusual gratification to--hum--show by any means, however slight and
    worthless, the--ha, hum--high estimation in which, in--ha--common with
    the rest of the world, I hold so distinguished and princely a character
    as Mr Merdle's.'

    The bosom received this tribute in its most engaging manner. 'Mr
    Merdle,' observed Fanny, as a means of dismissing Mr Sparkler into the
    background, 'is quite a theme of Papa's, you must know, Mrs Merdle.'

    'I have been--ha--disappointed, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, 'to understand
    from Mr Sparkler that there is no great--hum--probability of Mr Merdle's
    coming abroad.'

    'Why, indeed,' said Mrs Merdle, 'he is so much engaged and in such
    request, that I fear not. He has not been able to get abroad for years.
    You, Miss Dorrit, I believe have been almost continually abroad for a
    long time.'

    'Oh dear yes,' drawled Fanny, with the greatest hardihood. 'An immense
    number of years.'

    'So I should have inferred,' said Mrs Merdle.

    'Exactly,' said Fanny.

    'I trust, however,' resumed Mr Dorrit, 'that if I have not
    the--hum--great advantage of becoming known to Mr Merdle on this side
    of the Alps or Mediterranean, I shall have that honour on returning to
    England. It is an honour I particularly desire and shall particularly
    esteem.'

    'Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle, who had been looking admiringly at Fanny
    through her eye-glass, 'will esteem it, I am sure, no less.'

    Little Dorrit, still habitually thoughtful and solitary though no longer
    alone, at first supposed this to be mere Prunes and Prism. But as her
    father when they had been to a brilliant reception at Mrs Merdle's,
    harped at their own family breakfast-table on his wish to know Mr
    Merdle, with the contingent view of benefiting by the advice of that
    wonderful man in the disposal of his fortune, she began to think it had
    a real meaning, and to entertain a curiosity on her own part to see the
    shining light of the time.

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

completion: Amy does her best to learn all about prunes and prism. It's totally miserable, but at least Fanny is being nice to her now, which is something, we guess. One day Fanny announces to Amy that Mrs. General clearly has designs on snagging their totally eligible father. Amy is all, really? And Fanny is all, duh. Amy tries to pay more attention to the situation but can't see anything unusual. She does see that Sparkler is way crazy about Fanny, who is still torturing him by playing hard to get - and then harder to get. One day Blandois comes to the house, and Dorrit welcomes him since he's Gowan's friend. Dorrit asks Blandois to tell Gowan that Dorrit would like to commission a portrait of himself. Aw, he's a patron of the arts. When Blandois tells Gowan, Gowan gets mad and snippy about how he's too high-class to paint Dorrit. But then again, mad and snippy are kind of his only modes. Finally, he decides he needs the money, so what the heck. Gowan goes to see Dorrit. They talk a little shop and decide to do it up in Rome. Also, Gowan manages to yet again set himself up as the big sacrificing loser in his marriage to Pet. Only Amy isn't fooled. Amy and Pet are both way freaked out by Blandois, who seems to have some kind of power over them. Some kind of evil, evil power. One day they want to talk about him, but he comes and will not take any hint to leave - instead doing his over-polite gentleman thing. Finally Pet asks him to get the gondola and quickly whispers to Amy that she's sure that Blandois killed the dog. No proof, but, seriously, just look at him. Amy agrees. Amy has some deep thoughts about wealth and high society. To her, they just seem like a different form of prison. Whoa - that's some crazy twist! Anyhoodle, the Dorrits are done with Venice and move on to Rome, where it's more of the same old. Except... they run into Mrs. Merdle. She takes a lot of pains to kind of play a game with Fanny, the rules of which are basically: 1) they met for the very first time in Dorrit's hotel dining room; and 2) Fanny and family have been traveling abroad for many, many years, and that's why no one in England really knows them. Fanny is a big fan of this game and plays another game right back at Mrs. Merdle, the rules of which are 1) Edmund Sparkler? I barely remember who that is; and 2) in reality, if Sparkler did come to the house it was only so Dorrit could eventually meet Mr. Merdle, who is the only one anyone cares about. It's really strategy on top of strategy here, folks. But who will win this battle of wits?