 to do with her, and for some years was
very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggy began to take
pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very industrious; and by
degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as she liked, and got enough to
do to support herself, and does support herself. And that,« said Little Dorrit,
clapping the two great hands together again, »is Maggy's history, as Maggy
knows!«
    Ah! But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness, though
he had never heard the words Little mother; though he had never seen the
fondling of the small spare hand; though he had had no sight for the tears now
standing in the colourless eyes; though he had had no hearing for the sob that
checked the clumsy laugh. The dirty gateway with the wind and rain whistling
through it, and the basket of muddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken
up, never seemed the common hole it really was, when he looked back to it by
these lights. Never, never!
    They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the
gateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they must stop at a
grocer's window, short of their destination, for her to show her learning. She
could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in the tickets of
prices, for the most part correctly. She also stumbled, with a large balance of
success against her failures, through various philanthropic recommendations to
Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black, Try our Orange-flavoured Pekoe,
challenging competition at the head of Flowery Teas; and various cautions to the
public against spurious establishments and adulterated articles. When he saw how
pleasure brought a rosy tint into Dorrit's face when Maggy made a hit, he felt
that he could have stood there making a library of the grocer's window until the
rain and wind were tired.
    The court-yard received them at last, and there he said good-bye to Little
Dorrit. Little as she had always looked, she looked less than ever when he saw
her going into the Marshalsea lodge passage, the little mother attended by her
big child.
    The cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, had
tamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came away.
 

                                   Chapter X

                  Containing the Whole Science of Government.

The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told)
