Book The First: Poverty Chapter 32 More Fortune-Telling

As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she
trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently
put his hand upon her work, and said, 'Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it
down.' She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then
nervously clasping together, but he took one of them. 'How seldom I have
seen you lately, Little Dorrit!'

'I have been busy, sir.' 'But I heard only to-day,' said Clennam, 'by mere accident, of your
having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me,
then?' 'I--I don't know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You
generally are now, are you not?'

He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes
that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with
as much concern as tenderness.

'My child, your manner is so changed!' The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her
hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head
bent and her whole form trembling.

'My own Little Dorrit,' said Clennam, compassionately.

She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at
least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while
before he spoke again. 'I cannot bear,' he said then, 'to see you weep; but I hope this is a
relief to an overcharged heart.' 'Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.'