Little Dorrit Vol.1 f.029 recto

The ???Miss Wade???The visitor stood looking at her with a strange, attentive smile ly attentive strange, attentive smile. It was wonderful
to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and the bodily struggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of old.

“I am ???? as old as she is younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it’s its me that looks after her, as if I was old, and it’s its she that’s [????] always petted and called Baby! [????????] I detest the name. I [?????????] hate [????], her! They make a fool of her, they spoil her. She thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more of me if than if I was a stock and a stone!” So she the girl went on.

“You must have patience.”

“I won’t have patience!”

“If they take much care of themselves, and forget forget little or none of or none of you, you must not mind it.”

"I will mind it.”

“Hush! Be more prudent. You forget your dependent position.”

“I don’t care for that. I’ll run away. I’ll do some mischief. I won’t bear it; I can’t bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!”

The observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the girl, as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch the dissection and exposition of an analogous case.

The girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and fulness of life, until by little and little her passionate exclamations trailed off into broken murmurs as if she were in pain. By corresponding degrees she sank into a chair, then upon her knees, then upon the ground beside the bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and wet hair in it, and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have nothing to take to her repentant breast.

“Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, I am mad. I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and sometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don’t and won’t. What have I said! I knew when I said it, it was all lies. They think I am being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want. They are nothing but good to me. I love them dearly; no people could ever be kinder to a thankless creature than they always are to me. Do, do go away, for I am afraid of you. I am afraid of myself when I feel my temper coming, and I am as much afraid of you. Go away from me, and let me pray and cry myself better!”

The day passed on; and again the wide stare stared itself out; and the hot night was on Marseilles; and through it the caravan of the morning, all dispersed, went their appointed ways. And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.