te
sure you will not share my fortune with me now?'

Locked in his arms, held to his heart, with his manly tears upon her own
cheek, she drew the slight hand round his neck, and clasped it in its
fellow-hand.

'Never to part, my dearest Arthur; never any more, until the last!

I never was rich before, I never was proud before, I never was happy
before, I am rich in being taken by you, I am proud in having been
resigned by you, I am happy in being with you in this prison, as I
should be happy in coming back to it with you, if it should be the will
of GOD, and comforting and serving you with all my love and truth. I am
yours anywhere, everywhere! I love you dearly! I would rather pass my
life here with you, and go out daily, working for our bread, than I
would have the greatest fortune that ever was told, and be the greatest
lady that ever was honoured. O, if poor papa may only know how blest at
last my heart is, in this room where he suffered for so many years!'

Maggy had of course been staring from the first, and had of course been
crying her eyes out long before this. Maggy was now so overjoyed that,
after hugging her little mother with all her might, she went down-stairs
like a clog-hornpipe to find somebody or other to whom to impart her
gladness. Whom should Maggy meet but Flora and Mr F.'s Aunt opportunely
coming in? And whom else, as a consequence of that meeting, should
Little Dorrit find waiting for herself, when, a good two or three hours
afterwards, she went out?

Flora's eyes were a little red, and she seemed rather out of spirits.
Mr F.'s Aunt was so stiffened that she had the appearance of being past
bending by any means short of powerful mechanical pressure. Her bonnet
was cocked up behind in a terrific manner; and her stony reticule was as
rigid as if it had been petrified by the Gorgon's head, and had got it
at that moment inside. With these imposing attributes, Mr F.'s Aunt,
publicly seated on the steps of the Marshal's official residence, had
been for the two or three hours in question a great boon to the younger
inhabitants of the Borough, whose sallies of humour she had considerably
flushed herself by resenting at the point of her umbrella, from time to
time.

'Painfully aware, Miss Dorrit, I am sure,' said Flora, 'that to propose
an adjournment to any place to one so far removed by fortune and so
courted and caressed by the best society must ever appear intruding
even if not a pie-shop far b