Little Dorrit Vol.1 f.022 recto

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13

“Why, the fact is,” said Mr Meagles, “Mrs Meagles and myself are, [????] you see, practical people.”

“That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the [????] agreeable and interesting conversations we have had together, [???] walking up and down on these [????] stones,” said the other, with a smile half smile [????? ??????] breaking through the gravity of his dark face.

“Practical people. So one day, [???????] five or six [????????] years ago now, when we took Pet to church at the Foundling—you have heard of the Foundling Hospital in London? Similar to the Institution for the Found Children in Paris?”

“I have [??????????] seen it [???????].”

“Well! One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the music—[???] because, as practical people, it is the business of our lives to show her everything that we think [??????] can please her [??????????]—Mother ([??????] my usual name for Mrs Meagles) began to cry so, [???????] that it was necessary to take her out. “What’s the matter, Mother?” said I, when we had brought her a little round: “you are frightening Pet, my dear.” “Yes, I know that, Father,” says Mother, “but I think it’s through my loving her so much, that it ever came into my head.” “That ever what came into your head, Mother?” “O dear, dear!” cried Mother, breaking out again, “when I saw all those children ranged tier above tier, and appealing from the father none of them has ever known on earth, to the great Father of us all in Heaven, I thought, does any wretched mother ever come here, and look among those young faces, wondering which is the poor child she brought into this forlorn world, never through all its life to know her love, her kiss, her face, her voice, even her name!” Now that was practical in Mother, and I told her so. I said, “Mother, that’s what I call practical in you, my dear.”“

The other, not unmoved, assented.

“So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that I think you’ll approve of. Let us take one of those same little children to be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So if we should find her temper a little defective, or any of her ways a little wide of ours, we shall know what we have to take into account. We shall know what an immense deduction must be made from all the influences and experiences that have formed us—no parents, no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And that’s the way we came by Tattycoram.”

“And the name itself—”

“By George!” said Mr Meagles, “I was forgetting the name itself. Why, she was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle—an arbitrary name, of course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, and then into Tatty, because, as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be a new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don’t you see? As to Beadle, that I needn’t say was wholly out of the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks our English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it is a beadle. You haven’t seen a beadle lately?”

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