happy than you can suppose.
It would break my heart to believe that you thought of me in any way
that would make me stranger to you than I was when you were so good to
me. What I have to pray and entreat of you is, that you will never think
of me as the daughter of a rich person; that you will never think of me
as dressing any better, or living any better, than when you first
knew me. That you will remember me only as the little shabby girl you
protected with so much tenderness, from whose threadbare dress you have
kept away the rain, and whose wet feet you have dried at your fire.
That you will think of me (when you think of me at all), and of my true
affection and devoted gratitude, always without change, as of your poor
child, LITTLE DORRIT.

P.S.--Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs
Gowan. Her words were, 'Very well and very happy.' And she looked most
beautiful.

CHAPTER 5. Something Wrong Somewhere

The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was
much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour
of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference
with Mrs General.

The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his
valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed about a
third of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his compliments to that
lady, and represent him as desiring the favour of an interview. It being
that period of the forenoon when the various members of the family had
coffee in their own chambers, some couple of hours before assembling at
breakfast in a faded hall which had once been sumptuous, but was now
the prey of watery vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was
accessible to the valet. That envoy found her on a little square of
carpet, so extremely diminutive in reference to the size of her stone
and marble floor that she looked as if she might have had it spread for
the trying on of a ready-made pair of shoes; or as if she had come into
possession of the enchanted piece of carpet, bought for forty purses by
one of the three princes in the Arabian Nights, and had that moment been
transported on it, at a wish, into a palatial saloon with which it had
no connection.

Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty
coffee-cup, that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's
apartment, and spare him the trouble of coming