for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and so ready,
and so interested.'

'My dear child--all you.'

'All me, uncle!'

'Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so
considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to
hide your attentions from me, that I--well, well, well! It's treasured
up, my darling, treasured up.'

'There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,' said Little
Dorrit, cheerfully.

'Well, well, well!' murmured the old man. 'Thank God!'

She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look
revived that former pain in her father's breast; in his poor weak
breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the
little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the
morning without a night only can clear away.

'I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,' said the old man, 'since
we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don't count Mrs General; I
don't care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But I know Fanny was
impatient of me. And I don't wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am
sensible that I must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as
well as I can. I know I am not fit company for our company. My brother
William,' said the old man admiringly, 'is fit company for monarchs;
but not so your uncle, my dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William
Dorrit, and he knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here's your father, Amy!
My dear William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see
you!'

(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in
the doorway.)

Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father's
neck, and kissed him again and again. Her father was a little impatient,
and a little querulous. 'I am glad to find you at last, Amy,' he said.
'Ha. Really I am glad to find--hum--any one to receive me at last.
I appear to have been--ha--so little expected, that upon my word
I began--ha hum--to think it might be right to offer an apology
for--ha--taking the liberty of coming back at all.'

'It was so late, my dear William,' said his brother, 'that we had given
you up for to-night.'

'I am stronger than you, dear Frederick,' returned his brother with an
elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; 'and I hope I can
travel without detriment at--ha--any hour I choose.'

'Surely, surely,' returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given