He recovered himself so quickly, however, that
Mr. Lorry had doubts of his business eye. The
arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more
steady than he was, when he stopped under it to
remark to them that he was not yet proof against
slight surprises (if he ever would be), and that
the rain had startled him.

Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with
another fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no
Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged
in, but he made only Two.

The night was so very sultry, that although
they sat with doors and windows open, they were
overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was
done with, they all moved to one of the windows,
and looked out into the heavy twilight.
Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside
her; Carton leaned against a window. The
curtains were long and white, and some of
the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner,
caught them up to the ceiling, and waved them
like spectral wings.

"The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy,
and few," said Doctor Manette. "It comes
slowly."

"It comes surely," said Carton.

They spoke low, as people watching and
waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room,
watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.

There was a great hurry in the streets, of
people speeding away to get shelter before
the storm broke; the wonderful corner for
echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps
coming and going, yet not a footstep was
there.

"A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!"
said Darnay, when they had listened for
a while.

"Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?" asked
Lucie. "Sometimes, I have sat here of an evening,
until I have fancied—but even the shade of a
foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when
all is so black and solemn——"

"Let us shudder too. We may know what
it is?"

"It will seem nothing to you. Such whims
are only impressive as we originate them, I
think; they are not to be communicated. I have
sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening,
until I have made the echoes out to be the
echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by-
and-by into our lives."

"There is a great crowd coming one day into
our lives, if that be so," Sydney Carton struck
in, in his moody way.

The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of
them became more and more rapid. The corner
echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet;
some, as it seemed, under the windows; some,
as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some
going, some breaking off, some stopping
altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one
within sight.

"Are all these footsteps destined to come to
all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them
among us?"

"I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it
was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When
I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone,
and then I have imagined them the footsteps of
the people who are to come into my life, and my
father's."

"I take them into mine!" said Carton. "I
ask no questions and make no stipulations.
There is a great crowd bearing down upon us,
Miss Manette, and I see them!——by the
Lightning." He added the last words, after
there had been a vivid flash which had shown
him lounging in the window.

''And I hear them!" he added again, after a
peal of thunder. "Here they come, fast, fierce,
and furious!"

It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified,
and it stopped him, for no voice could be
heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder
and lightning broke with that sweep of water,
and there was not a moment's interval in crash,
and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at
midnight.

The great bell of Saint Paul's was striking
One in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted
by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, set
forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell.
There were solitary patches of road on the way
between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry,
mindful of footpads, always retained Jerry for
this service: though it was usually performed
a good two hours earlier.

"What a night it has been! Almost a night,
Jerry," said Mr. Lorry, "to bring the dead out
of their graves."

"I never see the night myself, master—nor
yet I don't expect to it—what would do that,"
answered Jerry.

"Good night, Mr. Carton," said the man of
business. "Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we
ever see such a night again, together!"

Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of
people with its rush and roar, bearing down
upon them, too.

                 AUSTRIA.

THE empire which we harmoniously style
Austria (falsely, leading the world to suppose
that the name is derived from something
connected with the south wind, Auster), is called
by its aboriginal savages and savagesses Oestreich,
the Realm of the East, pronouncing the initial
oe in a way scarcely practicable by British
mouths, and giving the final ch a guttural sound
which may be imitated approximatively when
you are in the full enjoyment of a bad sore-
throat. The French, who transmogrify all
proper names, have come nearer than ourselves
to the typical Oestreich; their version is l'Autriche,
which is so far a happy one, because it
leads itself aptly to a jingling description (in
French) of the characters of the principal
European nations. Thus: l'Angleterre, Reine des
Mers (England, Queen of the Seas); la France
danse (France dances); la Prusse ruse (Prussia
is deep and cunning); and so on, till we