because that's an old habit, and one you may as well lay aside.«
    »I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so natural once,
that it seemed at the moment the right word.«
    »Oh yes!« Miss Fanny struck in. »Natural, and right word, and once, and all
the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well why you have
been taking such an interest in this Mrs. Gowan. You can't blind me.«
    »I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry.«
    »Oh! angry!« returned that young lady with a flounce. »I have no patience«
(which indeed was the truth).
    »Pray, Fanny,« said Mr. Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, »what do you mean?
Explain yourself.«
    »Oh! Never mind, Pa,« replied Miss Fanny, »it's no great matter. Amy will
understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs. Gowan before yesterday, and she
may as well admit that she did.«
    »My child,« said Mr. Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, »has your
sister - any - ha - authority for this curious statement?«
    »However meek we are,« Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, »we
don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains, and sitting
perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something about them
beforehand. It's not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs. Gowan is.«
    »Whose friend?« inquired her father.
    »Pa, I am sorry to say,« returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time succeeded
in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and grievance, which she was
often at great pains to do: »that I believe her to be a friend of that very
objectionable and unpleasant person, who, with a total absence of all delicacy,
which our experience might have led us to expect from him, insulted us and
outraged our feelings in so public and wilful a manner, on an occasion to which
it is understood among us that we will not more pointedly allude.«
    »Amy, my child,« said Mr. Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a
dignified affection, »is this the case?«
    Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was.
    »Yes it is!« cried Miss
