 to you?«
    »Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had better tell
her my history. I wondered whether I might - I mean, whether you would like me
to tell her. I wondered,« said Little Dorrit, looking at him in a suppliant way,
and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked at her, »whether you would
advise me what I ought to do.«
    »Little Dorrit,« said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, between
those two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the varying tone
and connexion in which it was used; »do nothing. I will have some talk with my
old friend, Mrs. Affery. Do nothing, Little Dorrit - except refresh yourself
with such means as there are here. I entreat you to do that.«
    »Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor,« said Little Dorrit, as he softly put her
glass towards her, »nor thirsty. - I think Maggy might like something, perhaps.«
    »We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,« said
Clennam: »but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say.«
    »Yes. You will not be offended, sir?«
    »I promise that, unreservedly.«
    »It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don't think it
unreasonable or ungrateful in me,« said Little Dorrit, with returning and
increasing agitation.
    »No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not afraid that I
shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is.«
    »Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?«
    »Yes.«
    »You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying that
you are coming to-morrow?«
    »Oh, that was nothing! Yes.«
    »Can you guess,« said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in one
another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul looking
steadily out of her eyes, »what I am going to ask you not to do?«
    »I think I can. But I may be wrong.«
    »No, you are not wrong,« said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. »If we should
want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me ask you for
it.«
    »I will, -
