nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared
to have innately derived from it that ability to
make much of little means, which is one of its most
useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple
as the furniture was, it was set off by so many
little adornments, of no value but for their taste
and fancy, that its effect was delightful. The
disposition of everything in the rooms, from the
largest object to the least; the arrangement of
colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained
by thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear
eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant
in themselves, and so expressive of their originator,
that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him,
the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him,
with something of that peculiar expression which
he knew so well by this time, whether he approved?

There were three rooms on a floor, and, the
doors by which they communicated being put
open that the air might pass freely through
them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that
fanciful resemblance which he detected all around
him, walked from one to another. The first was
the best room, and in it were Lucie's birds, and
flowers, and books, and desk, and work-table, and
box of water-colours; the second was the Doctor's
consulting-room, used also as the dining-
room; the third, changingly speckled by the
rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the
Doctor's bedroom—and there, in a corner, stood
the disused shoemaker's bench and tray of
tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of
the dismal house by the wine-shop, in the suburb
of Saint Antoine in Paris.

"I wonder," said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his
looking about, "that he keeps that reminder of
his sufferings by him!"

"And why wonder at that?" was the abrupt
inquiry that made him start.

It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red
woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he
had first made at the Royal George Hotel at
Dover, and had since improved.

"I should have thought——" Mr. Lorry
began.

"Pooh! You'd have thought!" said Miss
Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off.

"How do you do?" inquired that lady then
—sharply, and yet as if to express that she bore
him no malice.

"I am pretty well, I thank you," answered
Mr. Lorry, with meekness, "how are you?"

"Nothing to boast of," said Miss Pross.

"Indeed?"

"Ah! indeed!" said Miss Pross. "I am
very much put out about my Ladybird."

''Indeed?"

"For gracious sake say something else besides
'indeed,' or you'll fidget me to death," said Miss
Pross: whose character (dissociated from stature)
was shortness.

"Really, then?" said Mr. Lorry as an amendment.

"Really, is bad enough," returned Miss Pross,
"but better. Yes, I am very much put out."

"May I ask the cause?"

"I don't want dozens of people who are not
at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking
after her," said Miss Pross.

"Do dozens come for that purpose?"

"Hundreds," said Miss Pross.

It was characteristic of this lady (as of some
other people before her time and since) that
whenever her original proposition was questioned,
she exaggerated it.

"Dear me!" said Mr. Lorry, as the safest
remark he could think of.

"I have lived with the darling—or the darling
has lived with me, and paid me for it; which
she certainly should never have done, you may
take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to
keep either myself or her for nothing—since she
was ten years old. And it's really very hard,"
said Miss Pross.

Not seeing with precision what was very hard,
Mr. Lorry shook his head; using that important
part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that
would fit anything.

"All sorts of people who are not in the least
degree worthy of the pet, are always turning up,"
said Miss Pross. "When you began it——"

"I began it, Miss Pross?"

"Didn't you? Who brought her father to
life?"

"Oh! If that was beginning it——" said Mr.
Lorry.

"It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say,
when you began it, it was hard enough; not
that I have any fault to find with Doctor
Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a
daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it
was not to be expected that anybody should be,
under any circumstances. But it really is
doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and
multitudes of people turning up after him (I could
have forgiven him), to take Ladybird's affections
away from me."

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous,
but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath
the surface of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish
creatures—found only among women—who
will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves
willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it,
to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments
that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to
bright hopes that never shone upon their own
sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to
know that there is nothing in it better than the
faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so
free from any mercenary taint, he had such an
exalted respect for it, that, in the retributive
arrangements made by his own mind—we all
make such arrangements, more or less—he
stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower
Angels than many ladies immeasurably better
got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances
at Tellson's.

"There never was, nor will be, but one man
worthy of Ladybird," said Miss Pross; "and
that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn't made
a mistake in life."

Here again: Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss
Pross's personal history, had established the fact