playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have
retired to her own chamber and cried. The
Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at
them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt
Lucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much
spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would
have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry
was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in
his little wig, and thanking his bachelor stars
for having lighted him in his declining years to
a Home. But, no Hundreds of people came to
see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for
the fulfilment of Miss Pross's prediction.

Dinner time, and still no Hundreds of people.
In the arrangements of the little household,
Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions,
and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her
dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well
cooked and so well served, and so neat in their
contrivances, half English and half French, that
nothing could be better. Miss Pross's friendship
being of the thoroughly practical kind, she
had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in
search of impoverished French, who, tempted by
shillings and half-crowns, would impart culinary
mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and
daughters of Gaul, she had acquired such
wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed
the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a
Sorceress, or Cinderella's Godmother: who would
send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two
from the garden, and change them into anything
she pleased.

On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's
table, but on other days persisted in taking her
meals, at unknown periods, either in the lower
regions, or in her own room on the second floor
—a blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird
ever gained admittance. On this occasion
Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant
face and pleasant efforts to please her, unbent
exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too.

It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner,
Lucie proposed that the wine should be carried
out under the plane-tree, and they should sit
there in the air. As everything turned upon her
and revolved about her, they went out under the
plane-tree, and she carried the wine down for
the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had
installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry's
cup-bearer; and while they sat under the plane-
tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished.
Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at
them as they talked, and the plane-tree whispered
to them in its own way above their heads.

Still, the Hundreds of people did not present
themselves, Mr. Darnay presented himself
while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but
he was only One.

Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so
did Lucie. But, Miss Pross suddenly became
afflicted with a twitching in the head and body,
and retired into the house. She was not
unfrequently the victim of this disorder, and she
called it, in familiar conversation, "a fit of the
jerks."

The Doctor was in his best condition, and
looked specially young. The resemblance
between him and Lucie was very strong at such
times, and, as they sat side by side, she leaning
on his shoulder, and he resting his arm on the
back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace
the likeness.

He had been talking, all day, on many subjects
and with unusual vivacity. "Pray, Doctor
Manette," said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under
the plane-tree—and he said it in the natural
pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to
be the old buildings of London—"have you
seen much of the Tower?"

"Lucie and I have been there; but only
casually. We have seen enough of it, to know
that it teems with interest; little more."

"I have been there, as you remember," said
Darnay, with a smile, though reddening a little
angrily,"in another character, and not in a
character that gives facilities for seeing much of it.
They told me a curious thing when I was there."

"What was that?" Lucie asked.

"In making some alterations, the workmen
came upon an old dungeon, which had been, for
many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone
of its inner wall was covered with inscriptions
which had been carved by prisoners—dates,
names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner
stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner who
seemed to have gone to execution, had cut, as
his last work, three letters. They were done
with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly,
with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read
as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefully examined,
the last letter was found to be G. There
was no record or legend of any prisoner with
those initials, and many fruitless guesses were
made what the name could have been. At
length, it was suggested that the letters were
not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The
floor was examined very carefully under the
inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or
tile, or some fragment of paving, were found the
ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a
small leathern case or bag. What the unknown
prisoner had written will never be read, but he
had written something, and hidden it away to
keep it from the gaoler."

"My father!" exclaimed Lucie, "you are
ill!"

He had suddenly started up, with his hand to
his head. His manner and his look quite terrified
them all.

"No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops
of rain falling, and they made me start. We had
better go in."

He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain
was really falling in large drops, and he showed
the back of his hand with rain-drops on it.
But, he said not a single word in reference to the
discovery that had been told of, and, as they
went into the house, the business eye of Mr.
Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on
his face, as it turned towards Charles Darnay, the
same singular look that had been upon it when
it turned towards him in the passages of the
Court House.