Her uncle shook his head and said, ‘Since when, my dear; since when?’
‘I think,’ returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, ‘that you have been growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and so ready, and so interested.’
‘My dear child—all you.’
‘All me, uncle!’
‘Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so considerate of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to hide your attentions from me, that I—well, well, well! It’s treasured up, my darling, treasured up.’
‘There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle,’ said Little Dorrit, cheerfully.
‘Well, well, well!’ murmured the old man. ‘Thank God!’
She paused for an instant in her work to look at him, and her look revived that former pain in her father’s breast; in his poor weak breast, so full of contradictions, vacillations, inconsistencies, the little peevish perplexities of this ignorant life, mists which the morning without a night only can clear away.
‘I have been freer with you, you see, my dove,’ said the old man, ‘since we have been alone. I say, alone, for I don’t count Mrs General; I don’t care for her; she has nothing to do with me. But I know Fanny was impatient of me. And I don’t wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am sensible that I must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as well as I can. I know I am not fit company for our company. My brother William,’ said the old man admiringly, ‘is fit company for monarchs; but not so your uncle, my dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William Dorrit, and he knows it quite well. Ah! Why, here’s your father, Amy! My dear William, welcome back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see you!’
(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in the doorway.)