His wife

"Pet" Their daughter

"Tattycoram" Pet's maid

LITTLE DORRIT

I

HOW ARTHUR CAME HOME FROM CHINA

A long, long time ago there lived in London a young man named Clennam.
He was an orphan, and was brought up by a stern uncle, who crushed and
repressed his youth and finally forced him to marry a cold, unfeeling,
stubborn woman whom he did not in the least love.

Some time before this marriage, the nephew had met a beautiful young
woman, also an orphan, whom a rich man named Dorrit was educating to be
a singer, since she had a remarkable voice. Clennam had fallen in love
with her and had persuaded her to give him all her love in return. There
had even been a kind of ceremony of marriage between them.

But they were both very poor and could not really marry for fear of the
anger of Clennam's cruel uncle, who finally compelled his nephew to
marry the other woman, whom he had picked out for him. And the singer,
because she loved him and could not bear to see him made a beggar, gave
him up. So Clennam married one woman while loving another, and this, as
all wrong things must do, resulted in unhappiness for them both.

The singer had given him a little silk watch-paper worked in beads with
the initials D. N. F. These letters stood for the words, "Do Not
Forget."

The wife saw the paper with her husband's watch in his secret drawer and
wondered what it meant. One day she found an old letter, that had passed
between her husband and the singer, which explained the initials and
betrayed the secret of their love.

She was hard and unforgiving. Though she had never loved Clennam
herself, her anger was terrible. She went to the singer, and under
threat of for ever disgracing her in the eyes of the world, she made her
give up to her her baby boy, Arthur, to rear as her own. She promised,
in return, that the little Arthur should be provided for and should
never know the real history of his parentage. She also compelled her
husband and the singer to take an oath that neither would ever see or
communicate with the other again.

Mrs. Clennam, in taking this terrible revenge, cheated herself into
believing that she was only the instrument of God, carrying out His will
and punishment. But in reality she was satisfying the rage and hatred of
her own heart. Year by year she nursed this rage in the gloomy house in
w