Chapter: The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking
upon it, was unwontedly quiet. Arthur Clennam dropped into a solitary
arm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and yielded
himself to his thoughts.

In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest, and
got there,--the first change of feeling which the prison most commonly
induced, and from which dangerous resting-place so many men had slipped
down to the depths of degradation and disgrace by so many ways,--he
could think of some passages in his life, almost as if he were removed
from them into another state of existence. Taking into account where he
was, the interest that had first brought him there when he had been free
to keep away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from
the walls and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his
later life which no walls or bars could imprison, it was not remarkable
that everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to
Little Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact
itself, but because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the
dear little creature had influenced his better resolutions.

None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise,
     until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right
     perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it
     comes with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent
     uses of adversity. It came to Clennam in his adversity, strongly and
     tenderly. 'When I first gathered myself together,' he thought, 'and
     set something like purpose before my jaded eyes, whom had I before me,
     toiling on, for a good object's sake, without encouragement, without
     notice, against ignoble obstacles that would have turned an army of
     received heroes and heroines? One weak girl! When I tried to conquer
     my misplaced love, and to be generous to the man who was more fortunate
     than I, though he should never know it or repay me with a gracious word,
     in whom had I watched patience, self-denial, self-subdual, charitable
     construction, the noblest generosity of the affections? In the same poor
     girl! If I, a man, with a man's advantages and means and energies, had
     slighted the whisper in my heart, that if my father had erred, it was my
     first duty to conceal the fault and to repair it, what youthful figure
     with tender feet going almost bare on the damp ground, with spare hands
     ever working, with its slight shape but half protected from the
     sharp weather, would have stood before me to put me to shame? Little
     Dorrit's.' So always as he sat alone in the faded chair, thinking.
     Always, Little Dorrit. Until it seemed to him as if he met the reward of
     having wandered away from her, and suffered anything to pass between him
     and his remembrance of her virtues.

     His door was opened, and the head of the elder Chivery was put in a very
     little way, without being turned towards him.

     'I am off the Lock, Mr Clennam, and going out. Can I do anything for
     you?'

     'Many thanks. Nothing.'

     'You'll excuse me opening the door,' said Mr Chivery; 'but I couldn't
     make you hear.'

     'Did you knock?' 'Half-a-dozen times.'

     Rousing himself, Clennam observed that the prison had awakened from its
     noontide doze, that the inmates were loitering about the shady yard, and
     that it was late in the afternoon. He had been thinking for hours.

     'Your things is come,' said Mr Chivery, 'and my son is going to carry
     'em up. I should have sent 'em up but for his wishing to carry 'em
     himself. Indeed he would have 'em himself, and so I couldn't send 'em
     up. Mr Clennam, could I say a word to you?'

     'Pray come in,' said Arthur; for Mr Chivery's head was still put in at
     the door a very little way, and Mr Chivery had but one ear upon him,
     instead of both eyes. This was native delicacy in Mr Chivery--true
     politeness; though his exterior had very much of a turnkey about it, and
     not the least of a gentleman.

     'Thank you, sir,' said Mr Chivery, without advancing; 'it's no odds me
     coming in. Mr Clennam, don't you take no notice of my son (if you'll
             be so good) in case you find him cut up anyways difficult. My son has a
     'art, and my son's 'art is in the right place. Me and his mother knows
     where to find it, and we find it sitiwated correct.'

     With this mysterious speech, Mr Chivery took his ear away and shut the
     door. He might have been gone ten minutes, when his son succeeded him.

     'Here's your portmanteau,' he said to Arthur, putting it carefully down.

     'It's very kind of you. I am ashamed that you should have the trouble.'

     He was gone before it came to that; but soon returned, saying exactly as
     before, 'Here's your black box:' which he also put down with care.

     'I am very sensible of this attention. I hope we may shake hands now, Mr
     John.'

     Young John, however, drew back, turning his right wrist in a socket made
     of his left thumb and middle-finger and said as he had said at first,
     'I don't know as I can. No; I find I can't!' He then stood regarding the
     prisoner sternly, though with a swelling humour in his eyes that looked
     like pity.

     'Why are you angry with me,' said Clennam, 'and yet so ready to do me
     these kind services? There must be some mistake between us. If I have
     done anything to occasion it I am sorry.'

     'No mistake, sir,' returned John, turning the wrist backwards and
     forwards in the socket, for which it was rather tight. 'No mistake, sir,
     in the feelings with which my eyes behold you at the present moment! If
     I was at all fairly equal to your weight, Mr Clennam--which I am not;
     and if you weren't under a cloud--which you are; and if it wasn't
     against all rules of the Marshalsea--which it is; those feelings are
     such, that they would stimulate me, more to having it out with you in
     a Round on the present spot than to anything else I could name.'

     Arthur looked at him for a moment in some wonder, and some little anger.
     'Well, well!' he said. 'A mistake, a mistake!' Turning away, he sat down
     with a heavy sigh in the faded chair again.

     Young John followed him with his eyes, and, after a short pause, cried
     out, 'I beg your pardon!'

     'Freely granted,' said Clennam, waving his hand without raising his
     sunken head. 'Say no more. I am not worth it.'

     'This furniture, sir,' said Young John in a voice of mild and soft
     explanation, 'belongs to me. I am in the habit of letting it out to
     parties without furniture, that have the room. It an't much, but it's at
     your service. Free, I mean. I could not think of letting you have it on
     any other terms. You're welcome to it for nothing.'

     Arthur raised his head again to thank him, and to say he could
     not accept the favour. John was still turning his wrist, and still
     contending with himself in his former divided manner.

     'What is the matter between us?' said Arthur.

     'I decline to name it, sir,' returned Young John, suddenly turning loud
     and sharp. 'Nothing's the matter.'

     Arthur looked at him again, in vain, for an explanation of his
     behaviour. After a while, Arthur turned away his head again. Young John
     said, presently afterwards, with the utmost mildness:

     'The little round table, sir, that's nigh your elbow, was--you know
     whose--I needn't mention him--he died a great gentleman. I bought it of
     an individual that he gave it to, and that lived here after him. But the
     individual wasn't any ways equal to him. Most individuals would find it
     hard to come up to his level.'

     Arthur drew the little table nearer, rested his arm upon it, and kept it
     there.

     'Perhaps you may not be aware, sir,' said Young John, 'that I intruded
     upon him when he was over here in London. On the whole he was of opinion
     that it _was_ an intrusion, though he was so good as to ask me to sit
     down and to inquire after father and all other old friends. Leastways
     humblest acquaintances. He looked, to me, a good deal changed, and I
     said so when I came back. I asked him if Miss Amy was well--'

     'And she was?'

     'I should have thought you would have known without putting the question
     to such as me,' returned Young John, after appearing to take a large
     invisible pill. 'Since you do put me the question, I am sorry I can't
     answer it. But the truth is, he looked upon the inquiry as a liberty,
     and said, "What was that to me?" It was then I became quite aware I was
     intruding: of which I had been fearful before. However, he spoke very
     handsome afterwards; very handsome.'

     They were both silent for several minutes: except that Young John
     remarked, at about the middle of the pause, 'He both spoke and acted
     very handsome.'

     It was again Young John who broke the silence by inquiring:

     'If it's not a liberty, how long may it be your intentions, sir, to go
     without eating and drinking?'

     'I have not felt the want of anything yet,' returned Clennam. 'I have no
     appetite just now.'

     'The more reason why you should take some support, sir,' urged Young
     John. 'If you find yourself going on sitting here for hours and hours
     partaking of no refreshment because you have no appetite, why then you
     should and must partake of refreshment without an appetite. I'm going to
     have tea in my own apartment. If it's not a liberty, please to come and
     take a cup. Or I can bring a tray here in two minutes.'

     Feeling that Young John would impose that trouble on himself if he
     refused, and also feeling anxious to show that he bore in mind both
     the elder Mr Chivery's entreaty, and the younger Mr Chivery's apology,
     Arthur rose and expressed his willingness to take a cup of tea in Mr
     John's apartment. Young John locked his door for him as they went out,
     slided the key into his pocket with great dexterity, and led the way to
     his own residence.

     It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway. It was the room
     to which Clennam had hurried on the day when the enriched family had
     left the prison for ever, and where he had lifted her insensible from
     the floor. He foresaw where they were going as soon as their feet
     touched the staircase. The room was so far changed that it was papered
     now, and had been repainted, and was far more comfortably furnished; but
     he could recall it just as he had seen it in that single glance, when he
     raised her from the ground and carried her down to the carriage.

     Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers.

     'I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?'

     'I recollect it well, Heaven bless her!'

     Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers and to
     look at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance about
     the room. Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily rattled a
     quantity of tea into it from a canister, and set off for the common
     kitchen to fill it with hot water.

     The room was so eloquent to Clennam in the changed circumstances of his
     return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so mournfully of
     her, and of his loss of her; that it would have gone hard with him to
     resist it, even though he had not been alone. Alone, he did not try.
     He had his hand on the insensible wall as tenderly as if it had been
     herself that he touched, and pronounced her name in a low voice. He
     stood at the window, looking over the prison-parapet with its grim
     spiked border, and breathed a benediction through the summer haze
     towards the distant land where she was rich and prosperous.

     Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed that he
     had been outside by bringing with him fresh butter in a cabbage leaf,
     some thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage leaf, and a little
     basket of water-cresses and salad herbs. When these were arranged upon
     the table to his satisfaction, they sat down to tea.

     Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly. The ham
     sickened him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth. He could
     force nothing upon himself but a cup of tea.

     'Try a little something green,' said Young John, handing him the basket.

     He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but the bread
     turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it was good
             enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham through the whole
     Marshalsea.

     'Try a little more something green, sir,' said Young John; and again
     handed the basket.

     It was so like handing green meat into the cage of a dull imprisoned
     bird, and John had so evidently brought the little basket as a handful
     of fresh relief from the stale hot paving-stones and bricks of the jail,
     that Clennam said, with a smile, 'It was very kind of you to think of
     putting this between the wires; but I cannot even get this down to-day.'

     As if the difficulty were contagious, Young John soon pushed away his
     own plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had contained the
     ham. When he had folded it into a number of layers, one over another,
     so that it was small in the palm of his hand, he began to flatten it
     between both his hands, and to eye Clennam attentively.

     'I wonder,' he at length said, compressing his green packet with some
     force, 'that if it's not worth your while to take care of yourself for
     your own sake, it's not worth doing for some one else's.'

     'Truly,' returned Arthur, with a sigh and a smile, 'I don't know for
     whose.'

     'Mr Clennam,' said John, warmly, 'I am surprised that a gentleman who
     is capable of the straightforwardness that you are capable of, should be
     capable of the mean action of making me such an answer. Mr Clennam, I am
     surprised that a gentleman who is capable of having a heart of his own,
     should be capable of the heartlessness of treating mine in that way. I
     am astonished at it, sir. Really and truly I am astonished!'

     Having got upon his feet to emphasise his concluding words, Young John
     sat down again, and fell to rolling his green packet on his right leg;
     never taking his eyes off Clennam, but surveying him with a fixed look
     of indignant reproach.

     'I had got over it, sir,' said John. 'I had conquered it, knowing that
     it _must_ be conquered, and had come to the resolution to think no more
     about it. I shouldn't have given my mind to it again, I hope, if to this
     prison you had not been brought, and in an hour unfortunate for me,
     this day!' (In his agitation Young John adopted his mother's powerful
             construction of sentences.) 'When you first came upon me, sir, in the
     Lodge, this day, more as if a Upas tree had been made a capture of than
     a private defendant, such mingled streams of feelings broke loose again
     within me, that everything was for the first few minutes swept away
     before them, and I was going round and round in a vortex. I got out of
     it. I struggled, and got out of it. If it was the last word I had to
     speak, against that vortex with my utmost powers I strove, and out of it
     I came. I argued that if I had been rude, apologies was due, and those
     apologies without a question of demeaning, I did make. And now, when
     I've been so wishful to show that one thought is next to being a holy
     one with me and goes before all others--now, after all, you dodge me
     when I ever so gently hint at it, and throw me back upon myself. For, do
     not, sir,' said Young John, 'do not be so base as to deny that dodge you
     do, and thrown me back upon myself you have!'

     All amazement, Arthur gazed at him like one lost, only saying, 'What is
     it? What do you mean, John?' But, John, being in that state of mind in
     which nothing would seem to be more impossible to a certain class of
     people than the giving of an answer, went ahead blindly.

     'I hadn't,' John declared, 'no, I hadn't, and I never had the
     audaciousness to think, I am sure, that all was anything but lost. I
     hadn't, no, why should I say I hadn't if I ever had, any hope that it
     was possible to be so blest, not after the words that passed, not even
     if barriers insurmountable had not been raised! But is that a reason why
     I am to have no memory, why I am to have no thoughts, why I am to have
     no sacred spots, nor anything?'

     'What can you mean?' cried Arthur.

     'It's all very well to trample on it, sir,' John went on, scouring a
     very prairie of wild words, 'if a person can make up his mind to be
     guilty of the action. It's all very well to trample on it, but it's
     there. It may be that it couldn't be trampled upon if it wasn't there.
     But that doesn't make it gentlemanly, that doesn't make it honourable,
     that doesn't justify throwing a person back upon himself after he has
     struggled and strived out of himself like a butterfly. The world may
     sneer at a turnkey, but he's a man--when he isn't a woman, which among
     female criminals he's expected to be.'

     Ridiculous as the incoherence of his talk was, there was yet a
     truthfulness in Young John's simple, sentimental character, and a sense
     of being wounded in some very tender respect, expressed in his burning
     face and in the agitation of his voice and manner, which Arthur must
     have been cruel to disregard. He turned his thoughts back to the
     starting-point of this unknown injury; and in the meantime Young John,
     having rolled his green packet pretty round, cut it carefully into three
     pieces, and laid it on a plate as if it were some particular delicacy.

     'It seems to me just possible,' said Arthur, when he had retraced the
     conversation to the water-cresses and back again, 'that you have made
     some reference to Miss Dorrit.'

     'It is just possible, sir,' returned John Chivery.

     'I don't understand it. I hope I may not be so unlucky as to make you
     think I mean to offend you again, for I never have meant to offend you
     yet, when I say I don't understand it.'

     'Sir,' said Young John, 'will you have the perfidy to deny that you know
     and long have known that I felt towards Miss Dorrit, call it not the
     presumption of love, but adoration and sacrifice?'

     'Indeed, John, I will not have any perfidy if I know it; why you should
     suspect me of it I am at a loss to think. Did you ever hear from Mrs
     Chivery, your mother, that I went to see her once?'

     'No, sir,' returned John, shortly. 'Never heard of such a thing.'

     'But I did. Can you imagine why?'

     'No, sir,' returned John, shortly. 'I can't imagine why.'

     'I will tell you. I was solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit's happiness;
     and if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned your affection--'

     Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears. 'Miss Dorrit
     never did, sir. I wish to be honourable and true, so far as in my humble
     way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment that she ever did,
     or that she ever led me to believe she did; no, nor even that it was
     ever to be expected in any cool reason that she would or could. She was
     far above me in all respects at all times. As likewise,' added John,
     'similarly was her gen-teel family.'

     His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her made him so very
     respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak legs, and
     his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a Goliath might
     have sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur's hands.

     'You speak, John,' he said, with cordial admiration, 'like a Man.'

     'Well, sir,' returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes, 'then I
     wish you'd do the same.'

     He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur
     regard him with a wondering expression of face.

     'Leastways,' said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray, 'if too
     strong a remark, withdrawn! But, why not, why not? When I say to you,
     Mr Clennam, take care of yourself for some one else's sake, why not be
     open, though a turnkey? Why did I get you the room which I knew you'd
     like best? Why did I carry up your things? Not that I found 'em heavy;
     I don't mention 'em on that accounts; far from it. Why have I cultivated
     you in the manner I have done since the morning? On the ground of your
     own merits? No. They're very great, I've no doubt at all; but not on the
     ground of them. Another's merits have had their weight, and have had far
     more weight with Me. Then why not speak free?'

     'Unaffectedly, John,' said Clennam, 'you are so good a fellow and I have
     so true a respect for your character, that if I have appeared to be less
     sensible than I really am of the fact that the kind services you have
     rendered me to-day are attributable to my having been trusted by
     Miss Dorrit as her friend--I confess it to be a fault, and I ask your
     forgiveness.'

     'Oh! why not,' John repeated with returning scorn, 'why not speak free!'

     'I declare to you,' returned Arthur, 'that I do not understand you.
     Look at me. Consider the trouble I have been in. Is it likely that I
     would wilfully add to my other self-reproaches, that of being ungrateful
     or treacherous to you. I do not understand you.'

     John's incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt. He rose,
     backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to come
     there, and stood looking at him thoughtfully.

     'Mr Clennam, do you mean to say that you don't know?'

     'What, John?'

     'Lord,' said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the
     wall. 'He says, What!'

     Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the
     spikes, and looked at John.

     'He says What! And what is more,' exclaimed Young John, surveying him in
     a doleful maze, 'he appears to mean it! Do you see this window, sir?'

     'Of course I see this window.'

     'See this room?'

     'Why, of course I see this room.'

     'That wall opposite, and that yard down below? They have all been
     witnesses of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to
     week, from month to month. For how often have I seen Miss Dorrit here
     when she has not seen me!'

     'Witnesses of what?' said Clennam.

     'Of Miss Dorrit's love.'

     'For whom?'

     'You,' said John. And touched him with the back of his hand upon the
     breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down on it with a pale face,
     holding the arms, and shaking his head at him.

     If he had dealt Clennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light touch
     upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more. He stood
     amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and seeming now and
     then to form the word 'Me!' without uttering it; his hands dropped at
     his sides; his whole appearance that of a man who has been awakened from
     sleep, and stupefied by intelligence beyond his full comprehension.

     'Me!' he at length said aloud.

     'Ah!' groaned Young John. 'You!'

     He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, 'Your fancy. You
     are completely mistaken.'

     'I mistaken, sir!' said Young John. '_I_ completely mistaken on that
     subject! No, Mr Clennam, don't tell me so. On any other, if you like,
     for I don't set up to be a penetrating character, and am well aware of
     my own deficiencies. But, _I_ mistaken on a point that has caused me
     more smart in my breast than a flight of savages' arrows could have
     done! _I_ mistaken on a point that almost sent me into my grave, as
     I sometimes wished it would, if the grave could only have been made
     compatible with the tobacco-business and father and mother's feelings! I
     mistaken on a point that, even at the present moment, makes me take out
     my pocket-handkerchief like a great girl, as people say: though I am sure
     I don't know why a great girl should be a term of reproach, for every
     rightly constituted male mind loves 'em great and small. Don't tell me
     so, don't tell me so!'

     Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the
     surface, Young John took out his pocket-handkerchief with a genuine
     absence both of display and concealment, which is only to be seen in
     a man with a great deal of good in him, when he takes out his
     pocket-handkerchief for the purpose of wiping his eyes. Having dried
     them, and indulged in the harmless luxury of a sob and a sniff, he put
     it up again.

     The touch was still in its influence so like a blow that Arthur could
     not get many words together to close the subject with. He assured John
     Chivery when he had returned his handkerchief to his pocket, that he
     did all honour to his disinterestedness and to the fidelity of his
     remembrance of Miss Dorrit. As to the impression on his mind, of which
     he had just relieved it--here John interposed, and said, 'No impression!
     Certainty!'--as to that, they might perhaps speak of it at another time,
     but would say no more now. Feeling low-spirited and weary, he would go
     back to his room, with John's leave, and come out no more that night.
     John assented, and he crept back in the shadow of the wall to his own
     lodging.

     The feeling of the blow was still so strong upon him that, when the
     dirty old woman was gone whom he found sitting on the stairs outside
     his door, waiting to make his bed, and who gave him to understand while
     doing it, that she had received her instructions from Mr Chivery, 'not
     the old 'un but the young 'un,' he sat down in the faded arm-chair,
     pressing his head between his hands, as if he had been stunned. Little
     Dorrit love him! More bewildering to him than his misery, far.

     Consider the improbability. He had been accustomed to call her his
     child, and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling upon
     the difference in their respective ages, and to speak of himself as one
     who was turning old. Yet she might not have thought him old. Something
     reminded him that he had not thought himself so, until the roses had
     floated away upon the river.

     He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took them
     out and read them. There seemed to be a sound in them like the sound
     of her sweet voice. It fell upon his ear with many tones of tenderness,
     that were not insusceptible of the new meaning. Now it was that the
     quiet desolation of her answer,'No, No, No,' made to him that night
     in that very room--that night when he had been shown the dawn of her
     altered fortune, and when other words had passed between them which he
     had been destined to remember in humiliation and a prisoner, rushed into
     his mind.

     Consider the improbability.

     But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become
     fainter. There was another and a curious inquiry of his own heart's that
     concurrently became stronger. In the reluctance he had felt to believe
     that she loved any one; in his desire to set that question at rest; in
     a half-formed consciousness he had had that there would be a kind of
     nobleness in his helping her love for any one, was there no suppressed
     something on his own side that he had hushed as it arose? Had he ever
     whispered to himself that he must not think of such a thing as her
     loving him, that he must not take advantage of her gratitude, that he
     must keep his experience in remembrance as a warning and reproof;
     that he must regard such youthful hopes as having passed away, as his
     friend's dead daughter had passed away; that he must be steady in saying
     to himself that the time had gone by him, and he was too saddened and
     old?

     He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground on the day when she
     had been so consistently and expressively forgotten. Quite as he might
     have kissed her, if she had been conscious? No difference?

     The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness also
     found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought with them a
     basket, filled with choice selections from that stock in trade which met
     with such a quick sale and produced such a slow return. Mrs Plornish was
     affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but
     not lucid manner, that there was ups you see, and there was downs. It
     was in vain to ask why ups, why downs; there they was, you know. He had
     heerd it given for a truth that accordin' as the world went round, which
     round it did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his
     turn of standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying
     the wrong way into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What
     Mr Plornish said was, wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come
     up-ards when his turn come, that gentleman's air would be a pleasure to
     look upon being all smooth again, and wery well then!

     It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical,
     wept. It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical,
     was intelligible. It may have arisen out of her softened state of mind,
     out of her sex's wit, out of a woman's quick association of ideas,
     or out of a woman's no association of ideas, but it further happened
     somehow that Mrs Plornish's intelligibility displayed itself upon the
     very subject of Arthur's meditations.

     'The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam,' said Mrs
     Plornish, 'you hardly would believe. It's made him quite poorly. As
     to his voice, this misfortune has took it away. You know what a sweet
     singer father is; but he couldn't get a note out for the children at
     tea, if you'll credit what I tell you.'

     While speaking, Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes, and
     looked retrospectively about the room.

     'As to Mr Baptist,' pursued Mrs Plornish, 'whatever he'll do when he
     comes to know of it, I can't conceive nor yet imagine. He'd have been
     here before now, you may be sure, but that he's away on confidential
     business of your own. The persevering manner in which he follows up that
     business, and gives himself no rest from it--it really do,' said
     Mrs Plornish, winding up in the Italian manner, 'as I say to him,
     Mooshattonisha padrona.'

     Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this Tuscan
     sentence with peculiar elegance. Mr Plornish could not conceal his
     exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist.

     'But what I say is, Mr Clennam,' the good woman went on, 'there's always
     something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself admit.
     Speaking in this room, it's not hard to think what the present something
     is. It's a thing to be thankful for, indeed, that Miss Dorrit is not
     here to know it.'

     Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression.

     'It's a thing,' reiterated Mrs Plornish, 'to be thankful for, indeed,
     that Miss Dorrit is far away. It's to be hoped she is not likely to hear
     of it. If she had been here to see it, sir, it's not to be doubted
     that the sight of you,' Mrs Plornish repeated those words--'not to be
     doubted, that the sight of you--in misfortune and trouble, would have
     been almost too much for her affectionate heart. There's nothing I can
     think of, that would have touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that.'

     Of a certainty Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of
     quivering defiance in her friendly emotion.

     'Yes!' said she. 'And it shows what notice father takes, though at his
     time of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy Cottage
     knows I neither make it up nor any ways enlarge, "Mary, it's much to
     be rejoiced in that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it." Those
     were father's words. Father's own words was, "Much to be rejoiced in,
     Mary, that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it." I says to
     father then, I says to him, "Father, you are right!" That,' Mrs Plornish
     concluded, with the air of a very precise legal witness, 'is what passed
     betwixt father and me. And I tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt
     me and father.'

     Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this
     opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave
     Mr Clennam to himself. 'For, you see,' said Mr Plornish, gravely, 'I
     know what it is, old gal;' repeating that valuable remark several times,
     as if it appeared to him to include some great moral secret. Finally,
     the worthy couple went away arm in arm.

     Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little Dorrit!


     Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over. Granted
     that she had loved him, and he had known it and had suffered himself
     to love her, what a road to have led her away upon--the road that would
     have brought her back to this miserable place! He ought to be much
     comforted by the reflection that she was quit of it forever; that she
     was, or would soon be, married (vague rumours of her father's projects
             in that direction had reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her
             sister's marriage); and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on
     all those perplexed possibilities of a time that was gone.

     Dear Little Dorrit.

     Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point. Every
     thing in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had travelled
     thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and doubts had
     worked themselves out before it; it was the centre of the interest
     of his life; it was the termination of everything that was good and
     pleasant in it; beyond, there was nothing but mere waste and darkened
     sky.

     As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep within
     those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such thoughts. What time
     Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber, after composing and arranging
     the following monumental inscription on his pillow--


     STRANGER!
     RESPECT THE TOMB OF
     JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR,
     WHO DIED AT AN ADVANCED AGE
     NOT NECESSARY TO MENTION.
     HE ENCOUNTERED HIS RIVAL IN A DISTRESSED STATE,
     AND FELT INCLINED
     TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM;
     BUT, FOR THE SAKE OF THE LOVED ONE,
     CONQUERED THOSE FEELINGS OF BITTERNESS, AND BECAME
     MAGNANIMOUS.

 Arthur is sad. Super duper sad. Also, he's thinking a bunch about Little Dorrit and how awesome she was and how nearly every good decision he ever made was under her influence. Chivery shows up, asks if Arthur needs anything, tells him that John Chivery will bring up his bags , and then asks Arthur not to mind if John is acting kind of weird. John brings up his bags, with this sort of passive-aggressive niceness, but refuses to shake his hand. Arthur is totally confused and keeps asking why John is mad at him. John keeps saying that he's not mad and then rolling his eyes and acting angry. Oh, total drama. John then tells him that the furniture in the room is some of Dorrit's old stuff. Arthur kind of pets a nearby table. Then John tells Arthur about visiting Dorrit when he was in London. In John's version, even though Dorrit thought it was an imposition for John to come, he still acted very nicely... until John asked about Little Dorrit, that is. Arthur is all, oh, OK. John invites Arthur to have some tea. In John's room, Arthur is sort of woozy. Even though John comes back with some yummy stuff, Arthur can't make himself eat. Suddenly John launches into a long speech that makes very little sense but sounds super-poetic and lyrical. It's all about vortexes of feelings and trampled-on emotions. Arthur can't make heads or tails out of whatever is going on. Finally John lays it all out there: dude, Amy is obviously totally in love with you! Arthur is floored and shocked. He somehow gets back to his room and starts combing all his memories and feelings. He realizes that: 1) He is not really an old man. 2) He totally told himself to not fall in love with Amy because she owed him so much that it would have been taking advantage of her. And 3) he kissed her for real that time that she was passed out - way more for real than if she had been conscious. Whoa. At this point the Plornishes come to visit and bring some food. They are really sad to see Arthur in prison. Old Nandy is apparently also quite sad. Mr. Baptist would be sad if he knew, but he's still away on Arthur's errand to find Blandois. Mrs. Plornish then rubs some salt in the wound by talking about how the silver lining is that Amy isn't there to see any of this. Arthur agrees, especially since if she had been with him, they would have been back in prison together. John Chivery, meanwhile, finally gets over Amy through the mental healing brought about by being nice to his rival.

