could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which
she had never slept in her life. Her original timidity had grown
with this concealment, and her light step and her little figure
shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them.

Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all
things else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her
father, and the prison, and the turbid living river that flowed
through it and flowed on.


This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now
going home upon a dull September evening, observed at a distance by
Arthur Clennam. This was the life, and this the history, of Little
Dorrit; turning at the end of London Bridge, recrossing it, going
back again, passing on to Saint George's Church, turning back
suddenly once more, and flitting in at the open outer gate and
little court-yard of the Marshalsea.




CHAPTER 8

The Lock


Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by
what place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose
face there was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still