‘She means me,’ said Little Dorrit, rather confused; ‘she is very much attached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should have been; was she, Maggy?’
Maggy shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand, drank out of it, and said, ‘Gin.’ Then beat an imaginary child, and said, ‘Broom-handles and pokers.’
‘When Maggy was ten years old,’ said Little Dorrit, watching her face while she spoke, ‘she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any older ever since.’
‘Ten years old,’ said Maggy, nodding her head. ‘But what a nice hospital! So comfortable, wasn’t it? Oh so nice it was. Such a Ev’nly place!’
‘She had never been at peace before, sir,’ said Little Dorrit, turning towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, ‘and she always runs off upon that.’
‘Such beds there is there!’ cried Maggy. ‘Such lemonades! Such oranges! Such d’licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, AIN’T it a delightful place to go and stop at!’
‘So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,’ said Little Dorrit, in her former tone of telling a child’s story; the tone designed for Maggy’s ear, ‘and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came out. Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however long she lived—’
‘However long she lived,’ echoed Maggy.
‘—And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she began to laugh she couldn’t stop herself—which was a great pity—’
(Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.)