said so much.«
    Mr. Sparkler perceived, by a kind of inspiration, that the question implied
had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the fraternal railing, and neatly
said that he thought he would, with submission, take his leave. He did not go
without being congratulated by Amy, as well as she could discharge that office
in the flutter and distress of her spirits.
    When he was gone, she said, »O, Fanny, Fanny!« and turned to her sister in
the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there. Fanny laughed at
first; but soon laid her face against her sister's and cried too - a little. It
was the last time Fanny ever showed that there was any hidden, suppressed, or
conquered feeling in her on the matter. From that hour, the way she had chosen
lay before her, and she trod it with her own imperious self-willed step.
 

                                   Chapter XV

No Just Cause or Impediment Why These Two Persons Should Not Be Joined Together.

Mr. Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted
matrimonial overtures from Mr. Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her troth,
received the communication at once with great dignity and with a large display
of parental pride; his dignity dilating with the widened prospect of
advantageous ground from which to make acquaintances, and his parental pride
being developed by Miss Fanny's ready sympathy with that great object of his
existence. He gave her to understand that her noble ambition found harmonious
echoes in his heart; and bestowed his blessing on her, as a child brimful of
duty and good principle, self-devoted to the aggrandisement of the family name.
    To Mr. Sparkler, when Miss Fanny permitted him to appear, Mr. Dorrit said,
he would not disguise that the alliance Mr. Sparkler did him the honour to
propose was highly congenial to his feelings; both as being in unison with the
spontaneous affections of his daughter Fanny, and as opening a family connection
of a gratifying nature with Mr. Merdle, the master spirit of the age. Mrs.
Merdle also, as a leading lady rich in distinction, elegance, grace, and beauty,
he mentioned in very laudatory terms. He felt it his duty to remark (he was sure
a gentleman of Mr. Sparkler's fine sense would interpret him with all delicacy),
that he could not consider this proposal definitely determined on, until he
should have had the privilege of holding some correspondence with Mr. Merdle;
and of ascertaining it to be so far accordant with the