Mrs General gravely inclined her head. 'I cannot, therefore, put a price
upon services which it is a pleasure to me to render if I can render
them spontaneously, but which I could not render in mere return for any
consideration. Neither do I know how, or where, to find a case parallel
to my own. It is peculiar.' No doubt. But how then (Mr Dorrit not unnaturally hinted) could the
subject be approached. 'I cannot object,' said Mrs General--'though even
that is disagreeable to me--to Mr Dorrit's inquiring, in confidence of
my friends here, what amount they have been accustomed, at quarterly
intervals, to pay to my credit at my bankers'.' Mr Dorrit bowed his acknowledgements.
'Permit me to add,' said Mrs General, 'that beyond this, I can never
resume the topic. Also that I can accept no second or inferior position.
If the honour were proposed to me of becoming known to Mr Dorrit's
family--I think two daughters were mentioned?--'
'Two daughters.' 'I could only accept it on terms of perfect equality, as a companion,
protector, Mentor, and friend.' Mr Dorrit, in spite of his sense of his importance, felt as if it would
be quite a kindness in her to accept it on any conditions. He almost
said as much. 'I think,' repeated Mrs General, 'two daughters were mentioned?' 'Two daughters,' said Mr Dorrit again. 'It would therefore,' said Mrs General, 'be necessary to add a third
more to the payment (whatever its amount may prove to be), which my
friends here have been accustomed to make to my bankers'.
' Mr Dorrit lost no time in referring the delicate question to the
county-widower, and finding that he had been accustomed to pay three
hundred pounds a-year to the credit of Mrs General, arrived, without any
severe strain on his arithmetic, at the conclusion that he himself must
pay four. Mrs General being an article of that lustrous surface which
suggests that it is worth any money, he made a formal proposal to be
allowed to have the honour and pleasure of regarding her as a member of
his family. Mrs General conceded that high privilege, and here she was.
In person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do with
it, was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, rustling, gravely
voluminous; always upright behind the proprieties. She might have
been taken--had been taken--to the top of the Alps and the bottom of
Herculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing
a pin. If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as
though from living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather
because she was a chalky creation altogether, than because she mended
her complexion with violet powder, or had turned grey. If her eyes had
no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If
she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name
or any other inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who
had never lighted well.