r
reflection, in her tearful unrest, than that he now saw everything
through their wealth, and through the care he always had upon him that
they should continue rich, and grow richer.

They sat in their equipage of state, with Mrs General on the box, for
three weeks longer, and then he started for Florence to join Fanny.
Little Dorrit would have been glad to bear him company so far, only for
the sake of her own love, and then to have turned back alone, thinking
of dear England. But, though the Courier had gone on with the Bride, the
Valet was next in the line; and the succession would not have come to
her, as long as any one could be got for money.

Mrs General took life easily--as easily, that is, as she could
take anything--when the Roman establishment remained in their sole
occupation; and Little Dorrit would often ride out in a hired carriage
that was left them, and alight alone and wander among the ruins of old
Rome. The ruins of the vast old Amphitheatre, of the old Temples, of the
old commemorative Arches, of the old trodden highways, of the old
tombs, besides being what they were, to her were ruins of the old
Marshalsea--ruins of her own old life--ruins of the faces and forms
that of old peopled it--ruins of its loves, hopes, cares, and joys. Two
ruined spheres of action and suffering were before the solitary girl
often sitting on some broken fragment; and in the lonely places, under
the blue sky, she saw them both together.

Up, then, would come Mrs General; taking all the colour out of
everything, as Nature and Art had taken it out of herself; writing
Prunes and Prism, in Mr Eustace's text, wherever she could lay a hand;
looking everywhere for Mr Eustace and company, and seeing nothing else;
scratching up the driest little bones of antiquity, and bolting them
whole without any human visitings--like a Ghoule in gloves.

CHAPTER 16. Getting on

The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, Cavendish
Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That great man was
not interested in them, but on the whole endured them. People must
continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not
be wanted. As nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to
be butlered. The Chief Butler, no doubt, reflected that the course of
nature required the wealthy population to be kept up, on his account.

He therefore condescended to look at the carriage from the Hall-door
without