as mysterious to herself she
began to be mysterious to others: and became as difficult to be made out
to anybody's satisfaction as she found the house and everything in it
difficult to make out to her own.

She had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam's tea, when the soft
knock came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit. Mistress
Affery looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely bonnet in the
hall, and at Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating her in
silence, as expecting some wonderful consequence to ensue which would
frighten her out of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces.

After tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur.
Mistress Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering,
'Affery, I am glad it's you. I want to ask you a question.' Affery
immediately replied, 'For goodness sake don't ask me nothing, Arthur! I
am frightened out of one half of my life, and dreamed out of the
other. Don't ask me nothing! I don't know which is which, or what is
what!'--and immediately started away from him, and came near him no
more.

Mistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient light for
needlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the inclination,
now sat every night in the dimness from which she had momentarily
emerged on the evening of Arthur Clennam's return, occupied with crowds
of wild speculations and suspicions respecting her mistress and her
husband and the noises in the house. When the ferocious devotional
exercises were engaged in, these speculations would distract Mistress
Affery's eyes towards the door, as if she expected some dark form to
appear at those propitious moments, and make the party one too many.

Otherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the attention of
the two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, except on certain
occasions, generally at about the quiet hour towards bed-time, when she
would suddenly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper with a face of
terror to Mr Flintwinch, reading the paper near Mrs Clennam's little
table: 'There, jeremiah! Now! What's that noise?'

Then the noise, if there were any, would have ceased, and Mr Flintwinch
would snarl, turning upon her as if she had cut him down that moment
against his will, 'Affery, old woman, you shall have a dose, old woman,
such a dose! You have been dreaming again!'

CHAPTER 16. Nobody's Weakness

The time being come