Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Mostly, Prunes and Prism

Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well
together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young
friend, and Mrs General's very dear young friend tried hard to
receive it. Hard as she had tried in her laborious life to attain
many ends, she had never tried harder than she did now, to be
varnished by Mrs General. It made her anxious and ill at ease to
be operated upon by that smoothing hand, it is true; but she
submitted herself to the family want in its greatness as she had
submitted herself to the family want in its littleness, and yielded
to her own inclinations in this thing no more than she had yielded
to her hunger itself, in the days when she had saved her dinner
that her father might have his supper.

One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more
sustaining to her, and made her more grateful than to a less
devoted and affectionate spirit, not habituated to her struggles
and sacrifices, might appear quite reasonable; and, indeed, it may
often be observed in life, that spirits like Little Dorrit do not
appear to reason half as carefully as the folks who get the better
of them. The continued kindness of her sister was this comfort to
Little Dorrit. It was nothing to her that the kindness took the
form of tolerant patronage; she was used to that. It was nothing
to her that it kept her in a tributary position, and showed her in
attendance on the flaming car in which Miss Fanny sat on an
elevated seat, exacting homage; she sought no better place. Always
admiring Fanny's beauty, and grace, and readiness, and not now
asking herself how much of her disposition to be strongly attached
to Fanny was due to her own heart, and how much to Fanny's, she
gave her all the sisterly fondness her great heart contained.

The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused
into the family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by
Fanny into society, left but a very small residue of any natural
deposit at the bottom of the mixture. This rendered confidences
with Fanny doubly precious to Little Dorrit, and heightened the
relief they afforded her.

'Amy,' said Fanny to her one night when they were alone, after a
day so tiring that Little Dorrit was quite worn out, though Fanny
would have taken another dip into society with the greatest
pleasure in life, 'I am going to put something into your little
head. You won't guess what it is, I suspect.'

'I don't think that's likely, dear,' said Little Dorrit.

'Come, I'll give you a clue, child,' said Fanny. 'Mrs General.'

Prunes and Prism, in a thousand combinations, having been wearily
in the ascendant all day--everything