home jarred upon him, 'let me ask you to
persuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no professions,
and say no more.'

'You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more.'

They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the
poor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters
usual to a poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short way, that
was pleasant to any of the five senses. Yet it was not a common passage
through common rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this
little, slender, careful creature on his arm. How young she seemed to
him, or how old he to her; or what a secret either to the other, in that
beginning of the destined interweaving of their stories, matters not
here. He thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes,
and shrinking through them now, familiar yet misplaced; he thought
of her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life, and of her
innocence; of her solicitude for others, and her few years, and her
childish aspect.

They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a
voice cried, 'Little mother, little mother!' Little Dorrit stopping and
looking back, an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them
(still crying 'little mother'), fell down, and scattered the contents of
a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.

'Oh, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit, 'what a clumsy child you are!'

Maggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began
to pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam
helped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud;
but they were all recovered, and deposited in the basket. Maggy then
smeared her muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam
as a type of purity, enabled him to see what she was like.

She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large
feet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and
almost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light,
and to stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive listening
expression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she
was not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not
exceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile;
a good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable
by being constantly there. A great