it, but that the moment
she saw it she dropped her work, and cried, 'Mr Clennam! What's the
matter?'

'Nothing, nothing. That is, no misfortune has happened. I have come
to tell you something, but it is a piece of great good-fortune.'
'Good-fortune?'

'Wonderful fortune!'

They stood in a window, and her eyes, full of light, were fixed upon his
face. He put an arm about her, seeing her likely to sink down. She put
a hand upon that arm, partly to rest upon it, and partly so to preserve
their relative positions as that her intent look at him should be shaken
by no change of attitude in either of them. Her lips seemed to repeat
'Wonderful fortune?' He repeated it again, aloud.

'Dear Little Dorrit! Your father.'

The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights and shoots
of expression passed all over it. They were all expressions of pain. Her
breath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast. He would have clasped
the little figure closer, but he saw that the eyes appealed to him not
to be moved.

'Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we must
go to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be free within
a few days. Your father will be free within a few hours. Remember we
must go to him from here, to tell him of it!'

That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again.

'This is not all the good-fortune. This is not all the wonderful
good-fortune, my dear Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?'

Her lips shaped 'Yes.'

'Your father will be no beggar when he is free. He will want for
nothing. Shall I tell you more? Remember! He knows nothing of it; we
must go to him, from here, to tell him of it!'

She seemed to entreat him for a little time. He held her in his arm,
and, after a pause, bent down his ear to listen.

'Did you ask me to go on?'

'Yes.'

'He will be a rich man. He is a rich man. A great sum of money
is waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all
henceforth very wealthy. Bravest and best of children, I thank Heaven
that you are rewarded!'

As he kissed her, she turned her head towards his shoulder, and raised
her arm towards his neck; cried out 'Father! Father! Father!' and
swooned away.

Upon which Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about her on
a sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of conversation
in a manner so confounding, that whether she pressed the Marshalsea to
take