to what is monstrous, to what is-ha-immoral, | out, accompanied by Miss Fanny, who did not to what is-hum-parricidal. No, Mr. Clen- consider it spirited on her part to take leave of nam, I beg, Sir. Don't ask me to desist; there Clennam with any less opposing demonstration is a-hum-a general principle involved here, than a stare, importing that she had always which rises even above considerations of-ha- known him for one of the large body of conhospitality. I object to the assertion made by spirators. my son. I-ha-I personally repel it." "Why, what is it to you, father?" returned the son, over his shoulder. "What is it to me, Sir? I have a-hum-a spirit, Sir, that will not endure it. I-ha"-he took out his pocket handkerchief again and dabbed his face-"I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me suppose the case that I myself may at a certain time-ha-or times, have made a-hum-an appeal, and a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent appeal, to some individual for a small temporary accommodation. Let me suppose that that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was not extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to be excused. Am I to be told—ha—by my own son, that I therefore received treatment not due to a gentleman, and that I-hum-I submitted to it?" His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any account be calmed. He said his Spirit was up, and wouldn't endure this. Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son, on his own hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put upon him by his own blood? "You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this injury of your own accord," said the young gentleman, morosely. "What I have made up my mind about has nothing to do with you. What I said had nothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on other people's hats?" "I reply it has every thing to do with me," returned the Father. "I point out to you, Sir, with indignation, that-hum-the-ha-delicacy and peculiarity of your father's position should strike you dumb, Sir, if nothing else should, in laying down such-ha-such unnatural principles. Besides, if you are not filial, Sir, if you discard that duty, are you at leasthum-not a Christian? Are you-ha-an Atheist? And is it Christian, let me ask you, to stigmatize and denounce an individual for begging to be excused this time, when the same individual may-ha-respond with the required accommodation next time? Is it the part of a Christian not to-hum-not to try him again?" He had worked himself into quite a religious glow and fervor. I "I see precious well," said Mr. Tip, rising, "that I shall get no sensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I can do is to cut. Good-night, Amy. Don't be vexed. am very sorry it happens here, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can't altogether part with my Spirit, even for your sake, old girl.” With those words he put on his hat and went VOL. XIII.-No. 76.-M M When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined to sink into despondency again, and would have done so but that a gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten. He presented himself as a deputation to escort the Father to the Chair; it being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled Collegians in the enjoyment of a little Harmony. "Such, you see, Mr. Clennam," said the Father, "are the incongruities of my position here. But a public duty—no man, I am sure, would more readily recognize." Clennam besought him not to delay a moment. "Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr. Clennam to stay longer, I can leave the honors of our apology for an establishment with confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something toward erasing from Mr. Clennam's mind the-ha-untoward and unpleasant circumstance which has occurred since tea-time. Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and therefore required no erasure. "My dear Sir," said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a grasp of Clennam's hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his note and inclosure that afternoon, "Heaven ever bless you!" So, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he could speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy, she counted as nobody, and she was by. CHAPTER XXXII.-MORE FORTUNE-TELLING. MAGGY sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opake frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side of the room. What with her flapper cap, and what with her unserviceable eye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat was opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement of the yard had much diminished' since the taking of the Chair; the tide of Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few who had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled about, and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife, and the depressed unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was the quietest time the College knew, saving the night-hours when the Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery denoted the successful termination of a morsel of Harmony, or the responsive acceptance by the united children of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their Father. Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in the hunting-field, or with the rein-deer, or on the mountain, or among the heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got him hard and fast. As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently put his hand upon her work, and said, "Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it down." She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then nervously clasping together, but he took one of them reassuringly. "How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit !" 66 "I have been busy, Sir." "But I heard only to-day," said Clennam, by mere accident, of your having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me then?" "I-I don't know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You generally are now, are you not ?" He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes that drooped the moment they were raised to his-he saw them almost with as much concern as tenderness. "My child, your manner is so changed!" The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her hand and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head bent and her whole form trembling. "My own dear Little Dorrit," said Clennam, compassionately. She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at least a minute, but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while before he spoke again. "I can not bear," he said then, "to see you "Hush!" said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand. "Forgetfulness in you, and so much, would be new indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, any thing but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don't you?" "I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my mistaken brother was here. But you will consider his bringingup in this place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow! I know." In raising her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, "You have not been ill, Mr. Clennam ?" "No." "Nor tried? Nor hurt ?" she asked him, anxiously. It fell to Clennam now to be not quite certain how to answer. He said in reply: "To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over. Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me better?" He never thought that she saw in him what no one else would see. He never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers. "But it brings me to something that I wish to say," he continued, "and therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess, then, that forgetting how grave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had gone by me with the many years of monotony and little happiness that made up my long life far away, without marking it—that forgetting all this, I fancied I loved some one." "Do I know her, Sir?" asked Little Dorrit. "No, my dear child." "Is it not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?" "Flora. No, no. Did you think—” "I never thought quite so," said Little Dorrit, weep, but I hope this is a relief to an over-more to herself than him. "I did wonder at it charged heart." "Yes it is, Sir. Nothing but that.” "Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just now. It is of no moment! not the least. I am only unfortunate to have come in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of them. One of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad consent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment's heart-ache, Little Dorrit!" She had taken courage now and answered, far more in her usual manner, "You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you-" a little." "Well!" said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an older man, who had done with that tender part of life, "I found out my mistake, and I thought about it a little-in short, a good deal-and got wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years, and considered what I am, and looked back, and |looked forward, and found that I should soon bo gray, found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the top, and was descending quickly." If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart in speaking thus! LITTLE DORRIT. While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing ten," said Maggy, "catching the poor thing up and serving her. "I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection with me, was gone, and would never shine again." in that way. Whoever said the Princess had a I beg your pardon. I thought you did." Oh! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful, bleed-one says to her, no I don't; and so, the t'other ing breast of his Little Dorrit! "Well! all that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years that there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the amount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?" one says to her, yes, you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard and there it is. And she wouldn't go into the Hospital, and so she died. You know, Little Mother. Tell him that. For it was a reg'lar good secret, that was!" cried Maggy, hugging herself. Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was struck by seeing her so timid and red. But when she told him that it was only a Fairy Tale she had one day made "Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but it must make me, who am so grate-up for Maggy, and that there was nothing in it ful to you, the same." He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have so freely thrown herself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his breast with the dying cry, "I love him!" and the remotest suspicion of the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little creature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home, a slender child in body, a strong heroine in soul, and the light of her domestic story made all else dark to him. "For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for your helpful friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted, and any little constraint that you might feel with another may vanish before me. Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me." "I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better here," said Little Dorrit, faintly. "So you said that day, upon the bridge. I thought of it much afterward. Have you no secret you could intrust to me, with hope and comfort, if you would?” which she wouldn't be ashamed to tell again to any body else, even if she could remember it, he left the subject where it was: not to distress her bashfulness. However, he returned to his own subject, by first entreating her to see him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it than he was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never forgot it; he touched upon his second and more delicate point: the suspicion he had formed. "Little Dorrit," he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear him, "another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have tried for opportunities. Don't mind me, who, for the matter of years, might be your father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an old man. I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and that nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you discharge here. If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have implored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision for you in a more suitable place. But you may have an "Secret? No; I have no secret," said Little interest-I will not say, now, though even that Dorrit, in some trouble. They had been speaking in low voices, more because it was natural to what they said, to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from Maggy at her work. All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and this time spoke: "I say! Little Mother!" "Yes, Maggy." "If you ain't got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about the Princess. She had a secret, you know.” "The Princess had a secret?" said Clennam, in some surprise. "What Princess was that, Maggy?" might be may have at another time-an interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your affection here." She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head. "It may be, dear Little Dorrit." "No. No. No." She shook her head after each slow repetition of the word with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long afterward; the time came when he remembered it well, long afterward, within those prison walls; within that very room. "But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Intrust the truth to me, point out "Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of the object of such an interest to me, and I will try, with all the zeal, and honor, and loving At first, Clennam supposed him to be intoxifriendship and respect that I feel for you, good cated. But he soon perceived that though he Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, service." the staple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any grain or berry. "Oh thank you, thank you! But, oh no, oh no, oh no!" She said this, looking at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same resigned accents as before. "How d'ye do, Miss Dorrit?" said Pancks. "I thought you wouldn't mind my running round and looking in for a moment. Mr. Clennam I "I press for no confidence now: I only ask heard was here, from Mr. Dorrit. How are you to repose unhesitating trust in me." "Can I do less than that, when you are so good!" "Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness or anxiety concealed from me?" "Almost none-none." "And you have none now?" She shook her head. But she was very pale. "When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back as they will, for they do every night, even when I have not seen you to this sad place, I may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit's mind." She seemed to catch at these words-that he remembered, too, long afterward-and said, more brightly, "Yes, Mr. Clennam; yes, you may!" The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound was heard upon it, as if a little steamengine with more steam than it knew what to do with were working toward the room. As it approached, which it did very rapidly, it labored with increased energy, and, after knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and snorting in at the keyhole. you, Sir ?" Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay. "Gay!" said Pancks. "I'm in wonderful feather, Sir. I can't stop a minute, or I shall be missed, and I don't want 'em to miss me. Eh, Miss Dorrit ?" He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and looking at her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark species of cockatoo. "I haven't been here half an hour. I knew Mr. Dorrit was in the chair, and I said, 'I'll go and support him!' I ought to be down in Bleeding Heart Yard by nights; but I can worry them to-morrow. Eh, Miss Dorrit ?" His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to sparkle as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state that one might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a knuckle to any part of his figure. 'Capital company here," said Pancks. "Eh, Miss Dorrit ?" She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He laughed, with a nod at Clennam. "Don't mind him, Miss Dorrit. He's one of us. We agreed that you shouldn't take on to mind me before people, but we didn't mean Mr. Clennam. He's one of us. He's in it. Ain't you, Mr. Clennam? Eh, Miss Dorrit ?" Before Maggy could open the door, Mr. Pancks, without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition, stood looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit over her shoulder. He had a lighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco smoke. "Pancks the gipsy," he observed, out of that they exchanged quick looks. breath, "fortune-telling." He stood dingily smiling and breathing hard at them with a most curious air. As if, instead of being his proprietor's grubber, he were the triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the turnkeys, and all the Collegians. In his great self-satisfaction he put his cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull at it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he underwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking. But even in the midst of that paroxysm he still essayed to repeat his favorite introduction of himself, "Pa-ancks the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling." "I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em," said Pancks. "I've been singing, I've been taking a part in white sand and gray sand. I don't know any thing about it. Never mind. I'll take any part in any thing. It's all the same, if you're loud enough." The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to Clennam. Little Dorrit, with amazement, saw this, and observed "I was making a remark," said Pancks, "but I declare I forget what it was. Oh, I know! Capital company here. I've been treating 'em all round. Eh, Miss Dorrit ?" "Very generous of you," she returned, noticing another of the quick looks between the two. "Not at all," said Pancks. "Don't mention it. I'm coming into my property, that's the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think I'll give 'em a treat here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in stacks. Pipes in faggots. Tobacco in hayloads. Roast beef and plum pudding for every one. Quart of double stout a head. Pint of wine too if they like it, and the authorities give permission. Eh, Miss Dorrit ?" She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by Clennam's growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him after every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr. Pancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without forming any word. "And oh, by-the-by!" said Pancks, "you were to live to know what was behind us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you shall, my darling. Eh, Miss Dorrit?" He had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional black prongs from that now flew up all over his head, like the myriads of points that break out in the last change of a great fire-work, was a wonderful mystery. "But I shall be missed," he now came back to that; "and I don't want 'em to miss me. Mr. Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you should find me stick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, Sir, if you'll step out a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good-night. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good fortune." He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs. Arthur followed him with such a hurried step that he had very nearly tumbled over him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard. "What is it, for Heaven's sake!" Arthur demanded, when they burst out there both together. "Stop a moment, Sir. Mr. Rugg. Let me introduce him." With those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco, which man, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have been akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared with the rampancy of Mr. Pancks. "Mr. Clennam, Mr. Rugg," said Pancks. "Stop a moment. Come to the pump." They adjourned to the pump. Mr. Pancks, instantly putting his head under the spout, requested Mr. Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle. Mr. Rugg complying to the letter, Mr. Pancks came forth snorting and blowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief. "I am the clearer for that," he gasped to Clennam, standing astonished. "But, upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair, knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress, knowing what we know, is enough to—give me a back, Mr. Rugg -a little higher, Sir-that'll do!" Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening, did Mr. Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr. Rugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts. Alighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the buttonhole, led him behind the pump, and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers. Mr. Rugg also pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers. "Stay!" said Clennam in a whisper. "You have made a discovery." Mr. Pancks answered with an unction which there is no language to convey, "We rather think so." "Thank God!" said Clennam to himself. "Now, show me." "You are to understand," snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers, and speaking in short High Pressure blasts of sentences-"Where's the Pedigree? Where's Schedule number four, Mr. Rugg? Oh! all right! Here we are. You are to understand that we are now virtually complete. We shan't be legally for a day or two. Call it, at the outside, a week. We've been at it, night and day, for I don't know how long! Mr. Rugg, you know how long? Never mind. Don't say. You'll only confuse me. You shall tell her, Mr. Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where's that rough total, Mr. Rugg? Oh! Here we are! There, Sir! That's what you'll have to break to her. That man's your Father of the Marshalsea!" Come when the heart beats high and warm, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; Of agony, are thine."-HALLECK. I OFTEN sit here, in an arm-chair, by my open window, protected from the scorching rays of the sun by a noble elm, and ponder over the past six months of my life, and wonder if it can be a reality, or only some strange dream. My only companions are a cigar-which I suffer to go out very often-and a ponderous volume which lies open upon my lap, but, somehow, I do not read. If I am aroused suddenly from my reverie, I find that my head has been resting on one hand, while the other holds my cigar, with half an inch of ashes. The fire is all dead, like my spirit. And why is my spirit dead? Read on. Sometimes I am convinced that the history of this half year, which I am about to write, is real; but very often my recollections are so strangely confused and intermingled, that I hardly know whether to believe them or not. There is one melancholy proof of its reality. As I sit here, a brilliant portrait hangs opposite me upon my library wall. When I gaze at this picture I often feel my eyes filling with tears, so that I can not see until I wipe them away. As I sit looking at her face now, I am convinced that what I am going to write is a true history. In my better moments I can readily realize the truth of what the noble poet has written: "Tis better to have loved and lost. Than never to have loved at all;" for whether this story be a true one, or only a dream, I feel that I am a better man than I was three short months ago. It has not been a great while since I made |