very
dear; that there had been a great disturbance about her in the Barnacle family;
and that the Dowager Mrs. Gowan, nearly heart-broken, had resolutely set her
face against the marriage until overpowered by her maternal feelings. Mrs.
General likewise clearly understood that the attachment had occasioned much
family grief and dissension. Of honest Mr. Meagles no mention was made; except
that it was natural enough that a person of that sort should wish to raise his
daughter out of his own obscurity, and that no one could blame him for trying
his best to do so.
    Little Dorrit's interest in the fair subject of this easily accepted belief
was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate observation. She could see that
it had its part in throwing upon Mrs. Gowan the touch of shadow under which she
lived, and she even had an instinctive knowledge that there was not the least
truth in it. But, it had an influence in placing obstacles in the way of her
association with Mrs. Gowan, by making the Prunes and Prism school excessively
polite to her, but not very intimate with her; and Little Dorrit, as an enforced
sizar of that college, was obliged to submit herself humbly to its ordinances.
    Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already established
between the two, which would have carried them over greater difficulties, and
made a friendship out of a more restricted intercourse. As though accidents were
determined to be favourable to it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in
the aversion which each perceived that the other felt towards Blandois of Paris;
an aversion amounting to the repugnance and horror of a natural antipathy
towards an odious creature of the reptile kind.
    And there was a passive congeniality between them, besides this active one.
To both of them, Blandois behaved in exactly the same manner; and to both of
them his manner had uniformly something in it, which they both knew to be
different from his bearing towards others. The difference was too minute in its
expression to be perceived by others, but they knew it to be there. A mere trick
of his evil eyes, a mere turn of his smooth white hand, a mere hair's-breadth of
addition to the fall of his nose and the rise of the moustache in the most
frequent movement of his face, conveyed to both of them equally a swagger
personal to themselves. It was as if he had said, »I have a secret power in this
quarter. I know what I know.«
    This had never been felt by them both in so great a degree, and never by