quiet reality. When at last Fanny sat down to eat and drink,
she threw the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much
as her father had been last night.

'If you despise me,' she said, bursting into vehement tears, 'because I
am a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one?

It was your doing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground before
this Mrs Merdle, and let her say what she liked and do what she liked,
and hold us all in contempt, and tell me so to my face. Because I am a
dancer!'

'O Fanny!'

'And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much as she
likes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in the law, and
the docks, and different things. Why, it was your doing, Amy. You might
at least approve of his being defended.'

All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the
corner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment
while he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody
had said something.

'And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to show
himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him
with impunity. If you don't feel for yourself because you go out to
work, you might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he
has undergone so long.'

Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply.

The remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said
nothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire.
Uncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on
again.

Fanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her
passion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in
the world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her crying became
remorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her sister. Little
Dorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but she answered that
she would, she must! Thereupon she said again, and again, 'I beg your
pardon, Amy,' and 'Forgive me, Amy,' almost as passionately as she had
said what she regretted.

'But indeed, indeed, Amy,' she resumed when they were seated in sisterly
accord side by side, 'I hope and I think you would have seen this
differently, if you had known a little more of Society.'

'Perhaps I might, Fanny,' said the mild Little Dorrit.

'You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there