'There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind
thanking. I've daughters of my own. And though they weren't born in the
Marshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of
carrying on, of your father's breed. Stop a bit. I must put something
under the cushion for your head. Here's a burial volume, just the
thing! We have got Mrs Bangham in this book. But what makes these books
interesting to most people is--not who's in 'em, but who isn't--who's
coming, you know, and when. That's the interesting question.'
Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them
to their hour's repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit
was soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate,
untroubled by its mysterious blank leaves.
This was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and
exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and
the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which
Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy
morning.