word.'

'Oh yes!' Miss Fanny struck in. 'Natural, and right word, and once, and
all the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well
why you have been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan. You can't
blind me.'

'I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry.'

'Oh! angry!' returned that young lady with a flounce. 'I have no
patience' (which indeed was the truth). 'Pray, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit,
raising his eyebrows, 'what do you mean? Explain yourself.'

'Oh! Never mind, Pa,' replied Miss Fanny, 'it's no great matter.
Amy will understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before
yesterday, and she may as well admit that she did.'

'My child,' said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, 'has your
sister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?'

'However meek we are,' Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, 'we
don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains,
and sitting perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something
about them beforehand. It's not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs
Gowan is.'

'Whose friend?' inquired her father.

'Pa, I am sorry to say,' returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time
succeeded in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and
grievance, which she was often at great pains to do: 'that I believe her
to be a friend of that very objectionable and unpleasant person, who,
with a total absence of all delicacy, which our experience might have
led us to expect from him, insulted us and outraged our feelings in
so public and wilful a manner on an occasion to which it is understood
among us that we will not more pointedly allude.'

'Amy, my child,' said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a
dignified affection, 'is this the case?'

Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was.

'Yes it is!' cried Miss Fanny. 'Of course! I said so! And now, Pa, I do
declare once for all'--this young lady was in the habit of declaring the
same thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times in
a day--'that this is shameful! I do declare once for all that it ought
to be put a stop to. Is it not enough that we have gone through what
is only known to ourselves, but are we to have it thrown in our faces,
perseveringly and systematically, by the very person who should spare
our feelings most? Are we to be exposed to this unnatural conduct every
moment of our lives? Are we never to be permitted to forget? I say