Chapter: Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This
history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and shall begin
that course by seeing him.

Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to
her, and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place
with famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold-laced coats and
swords had quarrelled and fought duels; costly ideas of Covent Garden,
       as a place where there were flowers in winter at guineas a-piece,
       pine-apples at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint; picturesque
       ideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there was a mighty theatre,
       showing wonderful and beautiful sights to richly-dressed ladies and
       gentlemen, and which was for ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or
       poor uncle; desolate ideas of Covent Garden, as having all those arches
       in it, where the miserable children in rags among whom she had just now
       passed, like young rats, slunk and hid, fed on offal, huddled together
       for warmth, and were hunted about (look to the rats young and old, all
               ye Barnacles, for before God they are eating away our foundations, and
               will bring the roofs on our heads!); teeming ideas of Covent Garden, as
       a place of past and present mystery, romance, abundance, want, beauty,
       ugliness, fair country gardens, and foul street gutters; all confused
       together,--made the room dimmer than it was in Little Dorrit's eyes, as
       they timidly saw it from the door.

       At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned round
       wondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought. The brown,
       grave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank and
       considerate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was
       something that reminded her of his mother, with the great difference
       that she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness. Now he regarded
       her with that attentive and inquiring look before which Little Dorrit's
       eyes had always fallen, and before which they fell still.

       'My poor child! Here at midnight?'

       'I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you. I knew you must
       be very much surprised.'

       'Are you alone?'

       'No sir, I have got Maggy with me.'

       Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention of
       her name, Maggy appeared from the landing outside, on the broad grin.
       She instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and became fixedly
       solemn.

       'And I have no fire,' said Clennam. 'And you are--' He was going to say
       so lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have been a reference
       to her poverty, saying instead, 'And it is so cold.'

       Putting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he made
       her sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped them
       together and got a blaze.

       'Your foot is like marble, my child;' he had happened to touch it, while
       stooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; 'put it nearer
       the warmth.' Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was quite warm, it
       was very warm! It smote upon his heart to feel that she hid her thin,
       worn shoe.

       Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes. He knew her story, and
       it was not that. Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might blame her
       father, if he saw them; that he might think, 'why did he dine to-day,
       and leave this little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!' She had
       no belief that it would have been a just reflection; she simply knew,
       by experience, that such delusions did sometimes present themselves to
       people. It was a part of her father's misfortunes that they did.

       'Before I say anything else,' Little Dorrit began, sitting before
       the pale fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its
       harmonious look of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to be a
       mystery far above her in degree, and almost removed beyond her guessing
       at; 'may I tell you something, sir?'

       'Yes, my child.'

       A slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling her a
       child. She was surprised that he should see it, or think of such a
       slight thing; but he said directly:

       'I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other. As you just now
       gave yourself the name they give you at my mother's, and as that is the
       name by which I always think of you, let me call you Little Dorrit.'

       'Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name.'

       'Little Dorrit.'

       'Little mother,' Maggy (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a
       correction.

       'It's all the same, Maggy,' returned Little Dorrit, 'all the same.'

       'Is it all the same, mother?'

       'Just the same.'

       Maggy laughed, and immediately snored. In Little Dorrit's eyes and ears,
       the uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could be.
       There was a glow of pride in her big child, overspreading her face, when
       it again met the eyes of the grave brown gentleman. She wondered what he
       was thinking of, as he looked at Maggy and her. She thought what a
       good father he would be. How, with some such look, he would counsel and
       cherish his daughter.

       'What I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, 'is, that my
       brother is at large.'

       Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well.

       'And what I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, trembling
       in all her little figure and in her voice, 'is, that I am not to know
       whose generosity released him--am never to ask, and am never to be told,
       and am never to thank that gentleman with all my grateful heart!'

       He would probably need no thanks, Clennam said. Very likely he would be
       thankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the means and chance
       of doing a little service to her, who well deserved a great one.

       'And what I was going to say, sir, is,' said Little Dorrit, trembling
       more and more, 'that if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him that
       he can never, never know how I feel his goodness, and how my good father
       would feel it. And what I was going to say, sir, is, that if I knew him,
       and I might--but I don't know him and I must not--I know that!--I would
       tell him that I shall never any more lie down to sleep without having
       prayed to Heaven to bless him and reward him. And if I knew him, and I
       might, I would go down on my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss
       it and ask him not to draw it away, but to leave it--O to leave it for a
       moment--and let my thankful tears fall on it; for I have no other thanks
       to give him!'

       Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled to
       him, but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair. Her
       eyes, and the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better than she
       thought. He was not able to say, quite as composedly as usual, 'There,
       Little Dorrit, there, there, there! We will suppose that you did know
       this person, and that you might do all this, and that it was all done.
       And now tell me, Who am quite another person--who am nothing more than
       the friend who begged you to trust him--why you are out at midnight, and
       what it is that brings you so far through the streets at this late hour,
       my slight, delicate,' child was on his lips again, 'Little Dorrit!'

       'Maggy and I have been to-night,' she answered, subduing herself with
       the quiet effort that had long been natural to her, 'to the theatre
       where my sister is engaged.'

       'And oh ain't it a Ev'nly place,' suddenly interrupted Maggy, who seemed
       to have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever she chose.
       'Almost as good as a hospital. Only there ain't no Chicking in it.'

       Here she shook herself, and fell asleep again.

       'We went there,' said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, 'because
       I like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my sister is doing
       well; and like to see her there, with my own eyes, when neither she nor
       Uncle is aware. It is very seldom indeed that I can do that, because
       when I am not out at work, I am with my father, and even when I am out
       at work, I hurry home to him. But I pretend to-night that I am at a
       party.'

       As she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes to
       the face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered it.

       'Oh no, certainly! I never was at a party in my life.'

       She paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, 'I hope
       there is no harm in it. I could never have been of any use, if I had
       not pretended a little.'

       She feared that he was blaming her in his mind for so devising to
       contrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their
       knowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed
       neglect. But what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its
       strong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, and the
       pretence of recreation and enjoyment. He asked where the suppositious
       party was? At a place where she worked, answered Little Dorrit,
       blushing. She had said very little about it; only a few words to
       make her father easy. Her father did not believe it to be a grand
       party--indeed he might suppose that. And she glanced for an instant at
       the shawl she wore.

       'It is the first night,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I have ever been away
       from home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild.' In Little
       Dorrit's eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremor
       passed over her as she said the words.

       'But this is not,' she added, with the quiet effort again, 'what I have
       come to trouble you with, sir. My sister's having found a friend, a lady
    she has told me of and made me rather anxious about, was the first cause
of my coming away from home. And being away, and coming (on purpose)
    round by where you lived and seeing a light in the window--'

    Not for the first time. No, not for the first time. In Little Dorrit's
    eyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star on other nights
    than this. She had toiled out of her way, tired and troubled, to look up
    at it, and wonder about the grave, brown gentleman from so far off, who
    had spoken to her as a friend and protector.

    'There were three things,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I thought I would
    like to say, if you were alone and I might come up-stairs. First, what I
    have tried to say, but never can--never shall--'

    'Hush, hush! That is done with, and disposed of. Let us pass to the
    second,' said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the blaze
    shine upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards her on the
    table.

    'I think,' said Little Dorrit--'this is the second thing, sir--I think
    Mrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know where I come
    from and where I go to. Where I live, I mean.'

    'Indeed!' returned Clennam quickly. He asked her, after short
    consideration, why she supposed so.

    'I think,' replied Little Dorrit, 'that Mr Flintwinch must have watched
    me.'

    And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent his
    brows, and considered again; why did she suppose that?

    'I have met him twice. Both times near home. Both times at night, when
    I was going back. Both times I thought (though that may easily be my
            mistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by accident.'

    'Did he say anything?'

    'No; he only nodded and put his head on one side.'

    'The devil take his head!' mused Clennam, still looking at the fire;
    'it's always on one side.'

    He roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and to
    touch something to eat--it was very difficult, she was so timid and
    shy--and then said, musing again:

    'Is my mother at all changed to you?'

    'Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had better
    tell her my history. I wondered whether I might--I mean, whether you
    would like me to tell her. I wondered,' said Little Dorrit, looking at
    him in a suppliant way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked
    at her, 'whether you would advise me what I ought to do.'

    'Little Dorrit,' said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, between
    these two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the
    varying tone and connection in which it was used; 'do nothing. I will
    have some talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery. Do nothing, Little
    Dorrit--except refresh yourself with such means as there are here. I
    entreat you to do that.'

    'Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor,' said Little Dorrit, as he softly
    put her glass towards her, 'nor thirsty.--I think Maggy might like
    something, perhaps.'

    'We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,' said
    Clennam: 'but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say.'

    'Yes. You will not be offended, sir?'

    'I promise that, unreservedly.'

    'It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don't think it
    unreasonable or ungrateful in me,' said Little Dorrit, with returning
    and increasing agitation.

    'No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not afraid
    that I shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is.'

    'Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?'

    'Yes.'

    'You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying
    that you are coming to-morrow?'

    'Oh, that was nothing! Yes.'

    'Can you guess,' said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in
    one another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul
    looking steadily out of her eyes, 'what I am going to ask you not to
    do?'

    'I think I can. But I may be wrong.'

    'No, you are not wrong,' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. 'If we
    should want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me
    ask you for it.'

    'I Will,--I Will.'

    'Don't encourage him to ask. Don't understand him if he does ask. Don't
    give it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to
    think better of him!'

    Clennam said--not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her
    anxious eyes--that her wish should be sacred with him.

    'You don't know what he is,' she said; 'you don't know what he really
    is. How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not
    gradually, as I have done! You have been so good to us, so delicately
    and truly good, that I want him to be better in your eyes than in
    anybody's. And I cannot bear to think,' cried Little Dorrit, covering
    her tears with her hands, 'I cannot bear to think that you of all the
    world should see him in his only moments of degradation.'

    'Pray,' said Clennam, 'do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little
    Dorrit! This is quite understood now.'

    'Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself from
    saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew
    for certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you.
    Not because I am ashamed of him,' she dried her tears quickly, 'but
    because I know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud
    of him.'

    Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone.
    Maggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the
    fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best
    diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she
    drank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe
    after every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent
    state, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious! Ain't it hospitally!' When she had
    finished the wine and these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket
    (she was never without her basket) with every eatable thing upon the
    table, and to take especial care to leave no scrap behind. Maggy's
    pleasure in doing this and her little mother's pleasure in seeing Maggy
    pleased, was as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the
    late conversation.

    'But the gates will have been locked long ago,' said Clennam, suddenly
    remembering it. 'Where are you going?'

    'I am going to Maggy's lodging,' answered Little Dorrit. 'I shall be
    quite safe, quite well taken care of.'

    'I must accompany you there,' said Clennam, 'I cannot let you go alone.'

    'Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. Pray do!' begged Little
    Dorrit.

    She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in
    obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand
    that Maggy's lodging was of the obscurest sort. 'Come, Maggy,' said
    Little Dorrit cheerily, 'we shall do very well; we know the way by this
    time, Maggy?'

    'Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,' chuckled Maggy. And away
    they went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, 'God bless you!' She
    said it very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above--who
    knows!--as a whole cathedral choir.

    Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street before he
    followed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time
    on Little Dorrit's privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure
    in the neighbourhood to which she was accustomed. So diminutive she
    looked, so fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather,
    flitting along in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in
    his compassion, and in his habit of considering her a child apart from
    the rest of the rough world, as if he would have been glad to take her
    up in his arms and carry her to her journey's end.

    In course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the
    Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn
    down a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further,
    and slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of
    being houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long
    afterwards.

    But, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in
    darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, 'Now, this is a
    good lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give offence. Consequently,
    we will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them
    so, we must walk about till day.'

    Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. Twice,
    Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. All was close
    and still. 'Maggy, we must do the best we can, my dear. We must be
    patient, and wait for day.'

    It was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came out
    into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past
    one. 'In only five hours and a half,' said Little Dorrit, 'we shall be
    able to go home.' To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being
    so near, was a natural sequence. They went to the closed gate, and
    peeped through into the court-yard. 'I hope he is sound asleep,' said
    Little Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, 'and does not miss me.'

    The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down
    Maggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close
    together, rested there for some time. While the street was empty and
    silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at
    a distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was
    startled, and whispered, 'Maggy, I see some one. Come away!' Maggy
    would then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a
    little, and come back again.

    As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up pretty
    well. But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and
    shivered and whimpered. 'It will soon be over, dear,' said Little Dorrit
    patiently. 'Oh it's all very fine for you, little mother,' returned
    Maggy, 'but I'm a poor thing, only ten years old.' At last, in the dead
    of the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid
    the heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she
    sat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing
    the clouds pass over them in their wild flight--which was the dance at
    Little Dorrit's party.

    'If it really was a party!' she thought once, as she sat there. 'If it
    was light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear
    was its master, and had never been inside these walls. And if Mr
    Clennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to delightful
    music, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we could be! I
    wonder--' Such a vista of wonder opened out before her, that she sat
    looking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy was querulous again,
    and wanted to get up and walk.

    Three o'clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London
    Bridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and
    looked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little
    spots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining
    like demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and
    misery. They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in
    nooks. They had run from drunkards. They had started from slinking men,
    whistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at
    full speed. Though everywhere the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit,
    happy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely
    upon Maggy. And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling
    or prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to 'let
    the woman and the child go by!'

    So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had
    sounded from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the east,
    already looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came
    after them.

    'What are you doing with the child?' she said to Maggy.

    She was young--far too young to be there, Heaven knows!--and neither
    ugly nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally
    coarse voice; there was even something musical in its sound.

    'What are you doing with yourself?' retorted Maggy, for want of a better
    answer.

    'Can't you see, without my telling you?'

    'I don't know as I can,' said Maggy.

    'Killing myself! Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you doing
    with the child?'

    The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close
    at Maggy's side.

    'Poor thing!' said the woman. 'Have you no feeling, that you keep her
    out in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no eyes, that
    you don't see how delicate and slender she is? Have you no sense (you
            don't look as if you had much) that you don't take more pity on this
    cold and trembling little hand?'

    She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own
    two, chafing it. 'Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,' she said, bending
    her face, 'and tell me where's she taking you.'

    Little Dorrit turned towards her.

    'Why, my God!' she said, recoiling, 'you're a woman!'

    'Don't mind that!' said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands that
    had suddenly released hers. 'I am not afraid of you.'

    'Then you had better be,' she answered. 'Have you no mother?'

    'No.'

    'No father?'

    'Yes, a very dear one.'

    'Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good night!'

    'I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a
    child.'

    'You can't do it,' said the woman. 'You are kind and innocent; but you
    can't look at me out of a child's eyes. I never should have touched you,
    but I thought that you were a child.' And with a strange, wild cry, she
    went away.

    No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of
    the streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going
    to various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic
    at markets; in the stir of the riverside. There was coming day in the
    flaring lights, with a feebler colour in them than they would have had
    at another time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and
    the ghastly dying of the night.

    They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it
    should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit,
    leading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going round by the
    Church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps
    and looked in.

    'Who's that?' cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap as if
    he were going to bed in a vault.

    'It's no one particular, sir,' said Little Dorrit.

    'Stop!' cried the man. 'Let's have a look at you!'

    This caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to
    present herself and her charge before him.

    'I thought so!' said he. 'I know _you_.'

    'We have often seen each other,' said Little Dorrit, recognising the
    sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, 'when I have
    been at church here.'

    'More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know; you're
    one of our curiosities.'

    'Indeed!' said Little Dorrit.

    'To be sure. As the child of the--by-the-bye, how did you get out so
    early?'

    'We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.'

    'You don't mean it? And there's another hour good yet! Come into the
    vestry. You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters.
    I'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't be here, you may depend
    upon it. One of our curiosities mustn't be cold when we have it in our
    power to warm her up comfortable. Come along.'

    He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred
    the vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a
    particular volume. 'Here you are, you see,' he said, taking it down and
    turning the leaves. 'Here you'll find yourself, as large as life. Amy,
    daughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of
    St George. And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much
    as a day's or a night's absence, ever since. Is it true?'

    'Quite true, till last night.'

    'Lord!' But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested Something
    else to him, to wit: 'I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and
    tired. Stay a bit. I'll get some cushions out of the church, and you and
    your friend shall lie down before the fire. Don't be afraid of not
    going in to join your father when the gate opens. _I'll_ call you.'

    He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground.

    'There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind
    thanking. I've daughters of my own. And though they weren't born in the
    Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of
    carrying on, of your father's breed. Stop a bit. I must put something
    under the cushion for your head. Here's a burial volume, just the
    thing! We have got Mrs Bangham in this book. But what makes these books
    interesting to most people is--not who's in 'em, but who isn't--who's
    coming, you know, and when. That's the interesting question.'

    Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them
    to their hour's repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit
    was soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate,
    untroubled by its mysterious blank leaves.

    This was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and
    exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and
    the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which
    Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy
    morning.

 What on earth are Little Dorrit and Maggy doing at Arthur's house at midnight? Turns out they were watching Fanny perform and got locked out of the Marshalsea. Little Dorrit told her dad she was going to a party. Arthur is horrified by how thin her clothes are considering it's a cold fall night. As she is warming by the fire, Little Dorrit thanks Arthur in a roundabout way for getting Tip out of prison. Then she tells him that Flintwinch has been watching her comings and goings. Finally she asks him to not give Dorrit money anymore, even if he starts asking for it. She doesn't want Arthur to only see Dorrit as a guy who degrades himself. There's a whole lot of denial going on, though, as Little Dorrit tells Arthur that she is super-proud of her dad. Finally, Little Dorrit and Maggy get up to leave. They tell Arthur they're going to Maggy's, and Arthur doesn't realize that they could end up homeless for the night. End up homeless they do, since they can't wake up the people from whom Maggy rents a room . They are forced to wander around the shady parts of London all night long, since sleeping on the street would be too dangerous. There are beggars, drunks, people fighting, and even a prostitute. It's really not a good scene. In the early morning, after a long night, Little Dorrit sees a light on in a church and goes in. It's the church closest to the Marshalsea, the one where her own baptism was recorded. The sexton there recognizes her and sets up a makeshift bed for her and Maggy in front of a fire. He gives Little Dorrit the burial volume of the church registry to use as a pillow. Nice. And then, as if we weren't feeling bad enough, the narrator piles it on: "This was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy morning" .

