less likely because I am going away), my advice
to you is, that you say at once, "Papa, I beg to object most strongly.
Fanny cautioned me about this, and she objected, and I object." I don't
mean to say that any objection from you, Amy, is likely to be of the
smallest effect, or that I think you likely to make it with any degree
of firmness. But there is a principle involved--a filial principle--and
I implore you not to submit to be mother-in-lawed by Mrs General,
without asserting it in making every one about you as uncomfortable as
possible. I don't expect you to stand by it--indeed, I know you won't,
Pa being concerned--but I wish to rouse you to a sense of duty. As to
any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can offer to such a
match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love. Whatever weight
I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly devoid of
attractions--used, as that position always shall be, to oppose that
woman--I will bring to bear, you May depend upon it, on the head and
false hair (for I am confident it's not all real, ugly as it is and
unlikely as it appears that any One in their Senses would go to the
expense of buying it) of Mrs General!' Little Dorrit received this
counsel without venturing to oppose it but without giving Fanny any
reason to believe that she intended to act upon it. Having now, as
it were, formally wound up her single life and arranged her worldly
affairs, Fanny proceeded with characteristic ardour to prepare for the
serious change in her condition.

The preparation consisted in the despatch of her maid to Paris under the
protection of the Courier, for the purchase of that outfit for a bride
on which it would be extremely low, in the present narrative, to bestow
an English name, but to which (on a vulgar principle it observes
of adhering to the language in which it professes to be written) it
declines to give a French one. The rich and beautiful wardrobe purchased
by these agents, in the course of a few weeks made its way through the
intervening country, bristling with custom-houses, garrisoned by an
immense army of shabby mendicants in uniform who incessantly repeated
the Beggar's Petition over it, as if every individual warrior among them
were the ancient Belisarius: and of whom there were so many Legions,
that unless the Courier had expended just one bushel and a half of
silver money relieving their distresses, they would have worn the
wardrobe out before it