Charles Dickens

“ Mother, my dear, you may get ready. We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three foreign languages beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a time) , and you must pull me through it, Mother, as well as you can. I require a deal of pulling through, Arthur,’ said Mr Meagles, shaking his head, ‘a deal of pulling through. I stick at everything beyond a noun-substantive—and I stick at him, if he’s at all a tight one.’
‘Now I think of it,’ returned Clennam, ‘there’s Cavalletto. He shall go with you, if you like. ”

“ Still bending his head and listening to the girl, he went on at her side, and Clennam followed them, resolved to play this unexpected play out, and see where they went.
He had hardly made the determination (though he was not long about it) , when he was again as suddenly brought up as he had been by the stoppage. They turned short into the Adelphi,—the girl evidently leading,—and went straight on, as if they were going to the Terrace which overhangs the river.
There is always, to this day, a sudden pause in that place to the roar of the great thoroughfare. ”

“ There was no one with Flora but Mr F.’s Aunt, which respectable gentlewoman, basking in a balmy atmosphere of tea and toast, was ensconced in an easy-chair by the fireside, with a little table at her elbow, and a clean white handkerchief spread over her lap on which two pieces of toast at that moment awaited consumption. ”

“ Immediately, he saw in advance—a few people intervening, but still so near to him that he could have touched them by stretching out his arm—Tattycoram and a strange man of a remarkable appearance: a swaggering man, with a high nose, and a black moustache as false in its colour as his eyes were false in their expression, who wore his heavy cloak with the air of a foreigner. His dress and general appearance were those of a man on travel, and he seemed to have very recently joined the girl. ”

“ The lounger had lounged out of view, and Miss Wade and Tattycoram were gone. More than ever bent on seeing what became of them, and on having some information to give his good friend, Mr Meagles, he went out at the further end of the terrace, looking cautiously about him. He rightly judged that, at first at all events, they would go in a contrary direction from their late companion. He soon saw them in a neighbouring bye-street, which was not a thoroughfare, evidently allowing time for the man to get well out of their way. ”

“ She is somebody’s child—anybody’s—nobody’s. Put her in a room in London here with any six people old enough to be her parents, and her parents may be there for anything she knows. They may be in any house she sees, they may be in any churchyard she passes, she may run against ’em in any street, she may make chance acquaintance of ’em at any time; and never know it. She knows nothing about ’em. She knows nothing about any relative whatever. Never did. Never will.’
‘Mr Casby could enlighten her, perhaps?’
‘May be,’ said Pancks. ”

“ Sometimes she’s proud and won’t touch it for a length of time; sometimes she’s so poor that she must have it. She writhes under her life. A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived. ”

“ He stopped at the corner, seeming to look back expectantly up the street as if he had made an appointment with some one to meet him there; but he kept a careful eye on the three. When they came together, the man took off his hat, and made Miss Wade a bow. The girl appeared to say a few words as though she presented him, or accounted for his being late, or early, or what not; and then fell a pace or so behind, by herself. Miss Wade and the man then began to walk up and down; the man having the appearance of being extremely courteous and complimentary in manner ”