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
