d that papa gave all we had to Mr. Merdle
and it is swept away with the rest. My great fortune now is poverty,
because it is all you will take. Oh, my dearest and best, are you quite
sure you will not share my fortune with me now?"

He had locked her in his arms, and his tears were falling on her cheek
as she said joyfully:

"I never was rich before, or proud, or happy. I would rather pass my
life here in prison with you, and work daily for my bread, than to have
the greatest fortune that ever was told and be the greatest lady that
ever was honored!"

But Arthur's prison life was to be short. For Mr. Meagles and Doyce
burst upon them with all the other good news at once. Arthur was free,
the firm had been reestablished with him at its head, and to-morrow the
debtors' prison would be only a memory.

Next morning, before they left the Marshalsea for ever, Little Dorrit
handed Arthur a folded paper, and asked him to please her by putting it
into the fire with his own hand.

"Is it a charm?" he asked.

"It is anything you like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss
him. "Only say 'I love you' as you do it!"

He said it, and the paper burned away. And so the will that had been the
cause of so much pain and wrong was turned to ashes. Little Dorrit kept
the promise she had made, and Arthur never learned of the sin of which
the woman he had always called his mother had been guilty.

Then, when all good-bys had been said, they walked together to the very
same church where Little Dorrit had slept on the cushions the night she
had been locked out of the Marshalsea, and there she and Arthur were
married. Doyce gave the bride away.

And among the many who came to witness the wedding were not only Pancks,
and Maggie, the half-witted woman, but even a group of Little Dorrit's
old turnkey friends from the prison--among whom was the disconsolate
Chivery, who had so long solaced himself by composing epitaphs for his
own tombstone, and who went home to meditate over his last inscription:

_________________________________________________
| |
| STRANGER! Respect the Tomb of |
| JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR |
| Who Died at an Advanced Age not Necessary to |
| Mention. He Encountered His Rival and |
| Felt Inclined |
| _To Have a Round with Him_;