[Illustration: Arthur Clennam calling on Little Dorrit and her father at The Marshalsea _See page 269_] These strange actions puzzled Little Dorrit very much. But she was far from guessing the truth: that Pancks had for some time been interested (as had Arthur Clennam) in finding out how her father's affairs stood. He had discovered thus, accidentally, that old Mr. Dorrit was probably the heir at law to a great estate that had lain for years forgotten, unclaimed and growing larger all the time. The question now was to prove this, and this, Pancks, out of friendship for Little Dorrit, was busily trying to do. One day the rent-collector came to Arthur to tell him that he had succeeded. The proof was all found. Mr. Dorrit's right was clear; all he had to do was to sign his name to a paper, and the Marshalsea gates would open and he would be free and a rich man. Arthur found Little Dorrit and told her the glad tidings. They made her almost faint for joy, although all her rejoicing was for her father. Then he put her in a carriage and drove as fast as possible with her to the prison to carry her father the great news. Little Dorrit told the old man with her arms around his neck, and as she clasped him, thinking that she had never yet in her life known him as he had once been, before his prison years, she cried: "I shall see him as I never saw him yet--my dear love, with the dark cloud cleared away! I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him long ago! O my dear, my dear! O father, father! O thank God, thank God!" So "The Father of the Marshalsea" left the old prison, in which he had lived so long, and all the prisoners held a mass-meeting and gave him a farewell address and a dinner. On the last day, when they drove away from the iron gates, old Mr. Dorrit was in fine, new clothing, and Tip and Fanny were clad in the height of fashion. Poor Little Dorrit, in joy for her father and grief at parting from Arthur (for they were to go abroad at once), did not appear at the last moment, and Arthur, who had come to see them off, hastening to her room, found that she had fainted away. He carried her gently down to the carriage, and as he lifted her in, he saw she had put on the same thin little dress that she had worn on the day he had first seen her. So, amid cheers and good wishes, they drove away, and Arthur, as he walked back through the crowded streets, somehow felt very lonely. III WHAT RICHES BROUGHT TO THE DORRITS Great changes came to old Mr. Dorrit with his money. As they traveled slowly through Switzerland and into Italy, he put on greater dignity daily. He lived each day suspecting that every one was in some way trying to slight him and grew very much ashamed of his past years in the Marshalsea, and forbade all mention of them. He hired a great number of servants, and, to improve the manners of Fanny and Little Dorrit, he employed a woman named Mrs. General, who had many silly notions of society.