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Show CONDENSED CLASSICS I S LITTLE DORRIT t : & ? By CHARLES DICKENS X : Condensation by Charles E. L. Wingate xx. . k: was led to Invest his firm's money In the famous Mrs. Merdle's schemes. And then the bubble broke. Merdle committed suicide. The Dorrits' money was gone. Arthur's firm was ruined and Arthur himself was thrown into prison the same poor debtor's prison that had, for so long, been the home of Little Dorrit. The days dragged wearily on. At last Arthur, despondent and crushed, haggard from brooding and stricken with fever, one day saw, as in a vision, kneeling before him the figure of dear Little Dorrit. She had hastened to make happier the lot of the man who had helped her family in the same gloomy surroundings and whom she loved. She nursed him in 64 A FFERY- what eirl was that in my mother's room just 5- now?" "Oh, she? Little Dorrit? She's nothing; she's a whim of hers." And thus Mrs. Flintwinch, wife of the crafty, crablike walking footman of the household, introduced to Arthur Clennara the name of the poor little seamstress of the paralytic Mrs. Clen-nam. Clen-nam. He had noted her pale, transparent face, quick in expression though not beautiful in feature, except for its soft hazel eyes. A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a shabby dress it must needs have been very shabby to look at all so, being so neat were Little Lit-tle Dorrit as she sat at work. A strange presentiment came into Arthur's mind that, in some way, this gentle maiden was connected with his history. For 20 years young Clennam had lived in China with his father, only to return now, puzzled over a mysterious watch which that father, in the very Inst moments of his 'life, had triven his sickness. She offered him all her money to help him overcome his distress. dis-tress. And then, as he refused the money, he realized, for the first timo that she loved him and that he, too, loved her. A feeling of peace comes over his mind. The clouds begin to break. And strange to say it is a rascally adventurer, Rigaud, a murderous jailbird jail-bird with drooping nose and ascending mustache, who opens the rift still further fur-ther for the sunshine. He has discovered discov-ered Mrs. Clennam's secret, having stolen the strong box that Flintwinch had smuggled into Holland and -in which lay a page of the will of Arthur's Ar-thur's uncle, a page which Mrs. Clennam Clen-nam had concealed for years. Rigaud visited the strange old lady. Leaning over the sofa, poised on two legs of his chair and his left elbow, coarse, insolent, rapacious, cruel, he reveals to her his knowledge. Then, torn by the explosion of her passion, the old lady vehemently tells her own story. She had learned, after Mr. Clennam's Clen-nam's marrlape to her (a marriaee to his son, murmuring faintly and indistinctly in-distinctly at the time: "Your mother." Naturally Arthur had assumed that it was intended for Mrs. Clennam, whom he and the world supposed to be his mother. Inside the watch casing was an old silk paper with the initials D N F worked into it in beads. It was a message mes-sage but the young man could not fathom it and the old woman would not enlighten him." Was Little Dorrit, to whom the stony Mrs. Clennam paid such strange, unusual kindness, connected con-nected with the mystery? commanded by his overbearing uncle), that her husband had loved and gone through a sort of ceremony with a beautiful young singer whom Frederic Fred-eric Dorrit, a kind-hearted musician (the uncle of Little Dorrit), was befriending be-friending and giving an education. She, had obtained the first clue from those initials in her husband's watch which she found years ago, signifying "Do Not Forget." She accused both her husband and the woman, who put the initials there. Instantly Rigaud, seeking to blackmail black-mail the old lady, declared he had de- They grew to see more, of each other oth-er the girl and the young man and Arthur learned that the generous little lit-tle Amy Dorrit was supporting not only her poor old father, who had been condemned to a debtor's prison, but also her pretty, frivolous sister, Fanny, and her wild, lazy brother, Tip. Under the then existing English laws they were all allowed to live with their father in that dreary prison. Little wonder that Clennam often spoke kindly to her and that he helped the family. But love had not yet come to him though it had to Little Dorrit. He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw the quickening bosom, and yet the remotest suspicion of the truth never dawned upon his mind. It must be,, added here that Little Dorrit had innocently won the love of another man, the sentimental son of the prison turnkey, small of stature, stat-ure, with rather weak legs and very weak eyes, gentle but great of soul, poetical, faithful. If one were to doubt his devotion he need only read the inscription for his own tombstone, which the romantic youth had composed com-posed when Little Dorrit said "No" to him. It ran thus: posited with the niece, Little Amy Dorrit, then at the prison with Arthur, Ar-thur, a packet containing the suppressed sup-pressed section of the will with instructions in-structions to open It at a certain hour unless reclaimed by him. What would Mrs. Clennam pay him to reclaim it? To the astonishment of all, the paralytic par-alytic old lady rises to her feet and rushes from the house to the prison ; seeks Little Dorrit ; calls for the packet, pack-et, and then bids Amy read it, at the same time begging her to forgive the past. "I forgive you freely," cried the generous gen-erous girl. "God bless you!" was the fervent and broken response. And then came the good news that Arthur's firm had re-established itself and that he would be able now to leave the debtor's prison. So they were married but not before be-fore Little Dorrit had handed to Arthur Ar-thur a folded bit of legal paper asking ask-ing him not to open it but to burn it in her presence. "Is it a charm?" he asked, smilingly. smil-ingly. "And does the charm want any words to be said?" he added as he held the paper over the flames. "Yon can sav (if vmi don't mind 'I love you!'" answered LitHe Dorrit. So he said it and the paper burned away. With it died the secret of Arthur's birth, never to be known to him; with It, also, Little Dorrit had voluntarily volun-tarily destroyed the evidence of her own legacy. And they were married with the sun shining on them through the painted figure of Our Savior on the window. Then they went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed ; and, as they passed along in the sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager and the arrogant and the froward and the vain fretted, and chafed, and made their usual uproar. up-roar. opyriprht, 1919, by the Post Publishing Co. (The Boston Post). Copyright in the United Kingdom, the Dominions. Its Colonies Col-onies and dependencies, under the copyright copy-right act. by the Post Publishing Co., Boston, Mass., U. S. A. All rights reserved. Here Lie the Mortal Remains of JOHN CHD7ERY Never Anything Worth Mentioning Who Died of a Broken Heart Requesting Re-questing With His Last Breath That the Word AMY Might Be Inscribed Over His Ashes Which Was Done by His Afflicted Parents. But, at last, the tables turned for our little heroine. A queer, kind-hearted kind-hearted rent collector, Pancks a panting little steam-tug of a man, with his puffing and his pauses had learned to value the friendship of the motherless girl, and so, having accidentally acci-dentally discovered that her father was the probable heir to an enormous estate, had run down the clues until finally the great wealth was turned over to old Mr. Dorrit. Then away from the dreary prison hurried the entire family. Yet riches brought slight pleasure to Little Dorrit. The much-changed father became ashamed of his debtor life, and with the now richly dressed sister and the gambling brother, put on many airs. The father even employed em-ployed a chaperon named Mrs. General Gen-eral to teach Little Dorrit society manners. "Don't say 'father,'" declared this lady, "papa is a preferable word ; it gives a pretty form to the lips. 'Fa-flier' 'Fa-flier' is rail'.er vulgar, rv dear. You will find it serviceable in the formation forma-tion of a demeanor if you say to yourself, your-self, on entering a room filled with company, 'I'apa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism.' " At this juncture the wealthy .Mrs. Merdle took an active part in the Dorrits' lives. The chuckle-headed son of the Xerdles fell in love with Fanny, and after their marriage Mr. Dorrit put all his wealth into Mrs. Merdle's schemes for had not this wonderful Merdle, through various mysterious movements, made tremendous tremen-dous fortunes for himself and others? By a strange fatality Arthur, too, |