you about, what do you mean? Now, leave us!
    »Mrs. General,« said Mr. Dorrit, »I took the liberty -«
    »By no means,« Mrs. General interposed. »I was quite at your disposition. I
had had my coffee.«
    »I took the liberty,« said Mr. Dorrit again, with the magnificent placidity
of one who was above correction, »to solicit the favour of a little private
conversation with you, because I feel rather worried respecting my - ha - my
younger daughter. You will have observed a great difference of temperament,
madam, between my two daughters?«
    Said Mrs. General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never
without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), »There is a great
difference.«
    »May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?« said Mr. Dorrit, with a
deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.
    »Fanny,« returned Mrs. General, »has force of character and self-reliance.
Amy, none.«
    None? O Mrs. General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs. General,
ask the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who taught her
sister to dance. O Mrs. General, Mrs. General, ask me, her father, what I owe to
her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this slighted little creature,
from her childhood up!
    No such adjuration entered Mr. Dorrit's head. He looked at Mrs. General,
seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the proprieties, and
he said in a thoughtful manner, »True, madam.«
    »I would not,« said Mrs. General, »be understood to say, observe, that there
is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material there - perhaps, indeed, a
little too much.«
    »Will you be kind enough, madam,« said Mr. Dorrit, »to be - ha - more
explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having - hum - too much
material. What material?«
    »Fanny,« returned Mrs. General, »at present forms too many opinions. Perfect
breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.«
    Lest he himself should be found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr. Dorrit
hastened to reply, »Unquestionably, madam, you are right.« Mrs. General
returned, in her emotionless and expressionless manner, »I believe