A heart that never hardens, and a temper that never…

In Book III, chapter 2 of Our Mutual Friend, old Riah and little Jenny Wren, the dolls’ dressmaker, call on Miss Abbey Potterson, landlady of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. They come for Lizzie Hexam, who has left London for the country and asked them to show Miss Abbey a paper, signed by Riderhood, that clears her dead father’s name. Miss Abbey, rather angrily, calls Lizzie “a very proud young woman”.

Riah answers tactfully; Jenny, flushed, strikes in with this portrait of her friend, who has been living with her: if that is pride, Lizzie is proud, “And if it’s not, she is NOT.” Far from offended, Miss Abbey smiles and tells the child she does right “to speak well of those who deserve well of you.”

Dickens published the novel in monthly parts in 1864 and 1865. In its postscript he tells how, after the Staplehurst railway accident of June 1865, he climbed back into the wrecked carriage to retrieve his manuscript. Jenny’s three clauses remain a much-quoted portrait of kindness.

Our Mutual Friend, Book III, chapter 2 (Jenny Wren about Lizzie Hexam), 1865

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