Chapter: Dear Mr Clennam,

     As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and
     as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other
     trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure
             for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to
     devote an hour to writing to you again. This time, I write from Rome.

     We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so long
     upon the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, and so
     when we arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place called the
     Via Gregoriana. I dare say you know it.

     Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know that is
     what you most want to hear. Theirs is not a very comfortable lodging,
     but perhaps I thought it less so when I first saw it than you would have
     done, because you have been in many different countries and have
     seen many different customs. Of course it is a far, far better
     place--millions of times--than any I have ever been used to until
     lately; and I fancy I don't look at it with my own eyes, but with hers.
     For it would be easy to see that she has always been brought up in a
     tender and happy home, even if she had not told me so with great love
     for it.

     Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common staircase, and
     it is nearly all a large dull room, where Mr Gowan paints. The windows
     are blocked up where any one could look out, and the walls have been
     all drawn over with chalk and charcoal by others who have lived there
     before--oh,--I should think, for years! There is a curtain more
     dust-coloured than red, which divides it, and the part behind the
     curtain makes the private sitting-room. When I first saw her there she
     was alone, and her work had fallen out of her hand, and she was looking
     up at the sky shining through the tops of the windows. Pray do not be
     uneasy when I tell you, but it was not quite so airy, nor so bright, nor
     so cheerful, nor so happy and youthful altogether as I should have liked
     it to be.

     On account of Mr Gowan's painting Papa's picture (which I am not quite
             convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him
             doing it), I have had more opportunities of being with her since then
     than I might have had without this fortunate chance. She is very much
     alone. Very much alone indeed.

     Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her? I went one day, when
     it happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five o'clock
     in the afternoon. She was then dining alone, and her solitary dinner had
     been brought in from somewhere, over a kind of brazier with a fire in
     it, and she had no company or prospect of company, that I could see,
     but the old man who had brought it. He was telling her a long story (of
             robbers outside the walls being taken up by a stone statue of a Saint),
     to entertain her--as he said to me when I came out, 'because he had a
     daughter of his own, though she was not so pretty.'

     I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I have to
     say about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her,
     for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not
     doubt that he is--but in his way. You know his way, and if it appears
     as careless and discontented in your eyes as it does in mine, I am not
     wrong in thinking that it might be better suited to her. If it does not
     seem so to you, I am quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged
     poor child confides in your knowledge and goodness more than she could
     ever tell you if she was to try. But don't be frightened, I am not going
     to try.

     Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan's unsettled
     and dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little.
     He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and
     throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring
     about them. When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings
     for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no
     belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself. Is it so?
     I wonder what you will say when you come to this! I know how you will
     look, and I can almost hear the voice in which you would tell me on the
     Iron Bridge.

     Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best company
     here--though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked it when he is
     with it--and she sometimes accompanies him, but lately she has gone out
     very little. I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way
     of speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested
     success in marrying Mr Gowan, though, at the same time, the very same
     people, would not have dreamed of taking him for themselves or their
     daughters. Then he goes into the country besides, to think about making
     sketches; and in all places where there are visitors, he has a large
     acquaintance and is very well known. Besides all this, he has a friend
     who is much in his society both at home and away from home, though he
     treats this friend very coolly and is very uncertain in his behaviour
     to him. I am quite sure (because she has told me so), that she does not
     like this friend. He is so revolting to me, too, that his being away
     from here, at present, is quite a relief to my mind. How much more to
     hers!

     But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved
     to tell you so much while I am afraid it may make you a little
     uncomfortable without occasion, is this. She is so true and so devoted,
     and knows so completely that all her love and duty are his for ever,
     that you may be certain she will love him, admire him, praise him, and
     conceal all his faults, until she dies. I believe she conceals them, and
     always will conceal them, even from herself. She has given him a heart
     that can never be taken back; and however much he may try it, he will
     never wear out its affection. You know the truth of this, as you know
     everything, far far better than I; but I cannot help telling you what a
     nature she shows, and that you can never think too well of her.

     I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are such
     friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she speaks to
     me by my name--I mean, not my Christian name, but the name you gave me.
     When she began to call me Amy, I told her my short story, and that you
     had always called me Little Dorrit. I told her that the name was much
     dearer to me than any other, and so she calls me Little Dorrit too.

     Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may not
     know that she has a baby son. He was born only two days ago, and just a
     week after they came. It has made them very happy. However, I must tell
     you, as I am to tell you all, that I fancy they are under a constraint
     with Mr Gowan, and that they feel as if his mocking way with them was
     sometimes a slight given to their love for her. It was but yesterday,
     when I was there, that I saw Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and
     go out, as if he was afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented
     himself by that means. Yet I am sure they are both so considerate,
     good-humoured, and reasonable, that he might spare them. It is hard in
     him not to think of them a little more.

     I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over. It looked at
     first as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so much,
     that I was half inclined not to send it. But when I thought it over a
     little, I felt more hopeful for your knowing at once that I had only
     been watchful for you, and had only noticed what I think I have noticed,
     because I was quickened by your interest in it. Indeed, you may be sure
     that is the truth.

     And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and have
     little left to say.

     We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day. You can hardly
     think how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with me. She has
     a lover, who has followed her, first all the way from Switzerland, and
     then all the way from Venice, and who has just confided to me that he
     means to follow her everywhere. I was much confused by his speaking to
     me about it, but he would. I did not know what to say, but at last I
     told him that I thought he had better not. For Fanny (but I did not tell
             him this) is much too spirited and clever to suit him. Still, he said he
     would, all the same. I have no lover, of course.

     If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will
     perhaps say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without telling me
     something about her travels, and surely it is time she did. I think it
     is indeed, but I don't know what to tell you. Since we left Venice we
     have been in a great many wonderful places, Genoa and Florence among
     them, and have seen so many wonderful sights, that I am almost giddy
     when I think what a crowd they make. But you can tell me so much more
     about them than I can tell you, that why should I tire you with my
     accounts and descriptions?

     Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar
     difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a coward
     now. One of my frequent thoughts is this:--Old as these cities are,
     their age itself is hardly so curious, to my reflections, as that they
     should have been in their places all through those days when I did not
     even know of the existence of more than two or three of them, and when
     I scarcely knew of anything outside our old walls. There is something
     melancholy in it, and I don't know why. When we went to see the famous
     leaning tower at Pisa, it was a bright sunny day, and it and the
     buildings near it looked so old, and the earth and the sky looked so
     young, and its shadow on the ground was so soft and retired! I could not
     at first think how beautiful it was, or how curious, but I thought, 'O
     how many times when the shadow of the wall was falling on our room, and
     when that weary tread of feet was going up and down the yard--O how many
     times this place was just as quiet and lovely as it is to-day!' It quite
     overpowered me. My heart was so full that tears burst out of my eyes,
     though I did what I could to restrain them. And I have the same feeling
     often--often.

     Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear to
     myself to have dreamed more than before, I have always dreamed of myself
     as very young indeed! I am not very old, you may say. No, but that is
     not what I mean. I have always dreamed of myself as a child learning
     to do needlework. I have often dreamed of myself as back there, seeing
     faces in the yard little known, and which I should have thought I had
     quite forgotten; but, as often as not, I have been abroad here--in
     Switzerland, or France, or Italy--somewhere where we have been--yet
     always as that little child. I have dreamed of going down to Mrs
     General, with the patches on my clothes in which I can first remember
     myself. I have over and over again dreamed of taking my place at dinner
     at Venice when we have had a large company, in the mourning for my poor
     mother which I wore when I was eight years old, and wore long after it
     was threadbare and would mend no more. It has been a great distress to
     me to think how irreconcilable the company would consider it with my
     father's wealth, and how I should displease and disgrace him and Fanny
     and Edward by so plainly disclosing what they wished to keep secret. But
     I have not grown out of the little child in thinking of it; and at the
     self-same moment I have dreamed that I have sat with the heart-ache at
     table, calculating the expenses of the dinner, and quite distracting
     myself with thinking how they were ever to be made good. I have never
     dreamed of the change in our fortunes itself; I have never dreamed of
     your coming back with me that memorable morning to break it; I have
     never even dreamed of you.

     Dear Mr Clennam, it is possible that I have thought of you--and
     others--so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander round
     you by night. For I must now confess to you that I suffer from
     home-sickness--that I long so ardently and earnestly for home, as
     sometimes, when no one sees me, to pine for it. I cannot bear to turn my
     face further away from it. My heart is a little lightened when we turn
     towards it, even for a few miles, and with the knowledge that we are
     soon to turn away again. So dearly do I love the scene of my poverty and
     your kindness. O so dearly, O so dearly!

     Heaven knows when your poor child will see England again. We are all
     fond of the life here (except me), and there are no plans for our
     return. My dear father talks of a visit to London late in this next
     spring, on some affairs connected with the property, but I have no hope
     that he will bring me with him.

     I have tried to get on a little better under Mrs General's instruction,
     and I hope I am not quite so dull as I used to be. I have begun to speak
     and understand, almost easily, the hard languages I told you about. I
     did not remember, at the moment when I wrote last, that you knew them
     both; but I remembered it afterwards, and it helped me on. God bless
     you, dear Mr Clennam. Do not forget

     Your ever grateful and affectionate

     LITTLE DORRIT.

     P.S.--Particularly remember that Minnie Gowan deserves the best
     remembrance in which you can hold her. You cannot think too generously
     or too highly of her. I forgot Mr Pancks last time. Please, if you
     should see him, give him your Little Dorrit's kind regard. He was very
     good to Little D.

 Amy tries to recap some stuff to Arthur. We actually know most of what she's about to tell him, but this is the narrative's handy way of giving Arthur information about people that he is otherwise not really in touch with. The Dorrits and the Gowans are in Rome. Amy can tell that Pet is super lonely and that their house is not a home. Also, Gowan totally sucks and is a nasty, obnoxious jerk. Oh, and his painting of Dorrit is so awful that Amy is "not quite convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him doing it" . Ha! That's quite a slam from uber-nice Amy! Everything else about Gowan is also crappy. He is still doing that thing where everyone thinks he married way beneath him. Also, he's still hanging out with a gross French guy , who is way creepy. Oh, and - big news - Pet had a baby boy. Aw! And her parents are here. This is nice for her but creates tons of extra stress because they don't get along with Gowan. Amy isn't going to tell Arthur about any sights they've been seeing, since he's seen them already and probably knows more about them than she does. And in any case, she mostly only has one thought about everything she sees, which is, "man, I can't believe we were stuck in prison all that time while all these beautiful things were out here!" Sad. Amy tells Arthur that she constantly dreams about herself as a child dressed in Marshalsea rags - but transplanted into this new life. Even in the dreams she's all embarrassed about what she looks like as she comes to be with her family. Finally, Amy is very homesick and sad to be away from England.

