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Haggard anxiety and re all day, and resting very little indeed at night, t will not

ar, Clenna, as his spirits had already sunk and that the weight under which

he bent was bearing hiht he had risen from his bed of wretchedness at twelve or

one o'clock, and had sat at his atching the sickly la upward for the first wan trace of day, hours before it

was possible that the sky could show it to hiht came,

he could not even persuade hionised i to break his heart and die there,

which caused hi His dread and hatred of the

place became so intense that he felt it a labour to draw his breath in

it

The sensation of being stifled sometimes so overpowered hi his throat and gasping At the

sa to be beyond the blind

blank wall, o mad with the ardour of the

desire

Many other prisoners had had experience of this condition before him,

and its violence and continuity had worn thehts and a day exhausted it It cathening intervals A

desolate calm succeeded; and the middle of the week found him settled

down in the despondency of low, slow fever

With Cavalletto and Pancks away, he had no visitors to fear but Mr and

Mrs Plornish His anxiety, in reference to that worthy pair, was that

they should not coht to be left alone, and spared the being seen so subdued and

weak He wrote a note to Mrs Plornish representing himself as occupied

with his affairs, and bound by the necessity of devoting himself to

them, to remain for a tiht of her kind face As to Young John, who looked in daily at a

certain hour, when the turnkeys were relieved, to ask if he could do

anything for hi,

and to answer cheerfully in the negative The subject of their only

long conversation had never been revived between thees of unhappiness, however, it had never lost its hold on Clennam's

mind

The sixth day of the appointed as a h the prison's poverty, and shabbiness, and dirt, were

growing in the sultry at head and a weary heart,

Clenna to the fall of

rain on the yard pave of its softer fall upon the country

earth A blurred circle of yellow haze had risen up in the sky in lieu

of sun, and he had watched the patch it put upon his wall, like a bit of

the prison's raggedness He had heard the gates open; and the badly shod

feet that waited outside shuffle in; and the sweeping, and puin, which co So ill and

faint that he was obliged to rest

hith crept to his chair by the open

In it he sat dozing, while the old wo's work

Light of head ant of sleep and want of food (his appetite, and

even his sense of taste, having forsaken hiht, of going astray He had heard frags in the ind, which he knew had no existence

Now that he began to doze in exhaustion, he heard theain; and voices

see and drea tiht have been an hour and an hour a arden stole over hiently stirring their scents It required such a painful

effort to lift his head for the purpose of inquiring into this, or

inquiring into anything, that the impression appeared to have become

quite an old and importunate one when he looked round Beside the

tea-cup on his table he saw, then, a blooay: a wonderful

handful of the choicest andhad ever appeared so beautiful in his sight He took therance, and he lifted them to his hot head, and he put

them down and opened his parched hands to the of a fire It was not until he had delighted in

them for some time, that he wondered who had sent them; and opened his

door to ask the woman who must have put theone, and seeone; for

the tea she had left for him on the table was cold He tried to drink

some, but could not bear the odour of it: so he crept back to his chair

by the open , and put the flowers on the little round table of

old

When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left hiht-tunes was playing

in the wind, when the door of his rooht touch,

and, after a ure seemed to stand there, with

a black mantle on it It seeround, and then it seemed to be his Little Dorrit in her old, worn

dress It seemed to tremble, and to clasp its hands, and to smile, and

to burst into tears

He roused hi,

pitying, sorrowing, dear face, as in a ed he was; and

she came towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to keep him

in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with

her lips raised up to kiss hi on him as

the rain from Heaven had dropped upon the flowers, Little Dorrit, a

living presence, called him by his name

'O, my best friend! Dear Mr Clennam, don't let me see you weep! Unless

you ith pleasure to see me I hope you do Your own poor child

come back!' So faithful, tender, and unspoiled by Fortune In the sound

of her voice, in the light of her eyes, in the touch of her hands, so

Angelically co and true!

As he embraced her, she said to hi an arm softly round his neck, laid his head upon her boso her cheek upon that hand, nursed

hily, and GOD knows as innocently, as she had nursed her

father in that roo all the care

from others that she took of them

When he could speak, he said, 'Is it possible that you have come to me?

And in this dress?'

'I hoped you would like me better in this dress than any other I have

always kept it byI aht an old friend withcap which had been long

abandoned, with a basket on her ar

rapturously

'It was only yesterday evening that I came to London with my brother

I sent round to Mrs Plornish alht

hear of you and let you know I had come Then I heard that you were

here Did you happen to think of ht of ht of you so anxiously, and it

appeared so long to ht of you--' he hesitated what to call her She perceived

it in an instant

'You have not spoken to ht

naht of you, Little Dorrit, every day, every hour, every

minute, since I have been here'

'Have you? Have you?'

He saw the bright delight of her face, and the flush that kindled in

it, with a feeling of shame He, a broken, bankrupt, sick, dishonoured

prisoner

'I was here before the gates were opened, but I was afraid to coood, at first;

for the prison was so faht back

so many remembrances of my poor father, and of you too, that at first

it overpowered ate,

and he brought us in, and got john's room for us--my poor old rooht the flowers to the door,

but you didn't hear one away, and the ripening touch of the Italian sun was visible

upon her face But, otherwise, she was quite unchanged The same deep,

timid earnestness that he had always seen in her, and never without

e that se was in his perception, not in her

She took off her old bonnet, hung it in the old place, and noiselessly

began, with Maggy's help, to make his room as fresh and neat as it could

bewater When that

was done, the basket, which was filled with grapes and other fruit,

was unpacked, and all its contents were quietly put away When that was

done, a y to despatch soain; which soon came back replenished with new

stores, fro drink and jelly, and

a prospective supply of roast chicken and wine and water, were the first

extracts These various arrangements completed, she took out her old

needle-case to make hi in the rooh the else

noisy prison, he found hi at his side

To see the ain bent down over its task, and the nih she was not so absorbed in it,

but that her compassionate eyes were often raised to his face, and, when

they drooped again had tears in them--to be so consoled and coreat nature was turned to