and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a
swamped life of it. But, easy and strong
custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in
him than any stimulating sense of desert or
disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he
no more thought of emerging from his state
of lion's jackal, than any real jackal may be
supposed to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was
rich; had married a florid widow with property
and three boys, who had nothing particularly
shining about them but the straight hair of their
dumpling heads.

These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver,
exuding patronage of the most offensive quality
from every pore, had walked before him like three
sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had
offered as pupils to Lucie's husband: delicately
saying, "Halloa! here are three lumps of
bread-and-cheese towards your matrimonial
picnic, Darnay!" The polite rejection of the three
lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated
Mr. Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards
turned to account in the training of the
young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of
the pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He
was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs.
Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts
Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to "catch"
him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond arts in
himself, madam, which had rendered him "not
to be caught." Some of his King's Bench
familiars, who were occasionally parties to the
full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for
the latter by saying that he had told it so often,
that he believed it himself—which is surely such
an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad
offence, as to justify any such offender's being
carried off to some suitably retired spot, and
there hanged out of the way.

These were among the echoes to which Lucie,
sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing,
listened in the echoing corner, until her
little daughter was six years old. How near to
her heart the echoes of her child's tread came,
and those of her own dear father's, always active
and self-possessed, and those of her dear
husband's, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo
of their united home, directed by herself with such
a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant
than any waste, was music to her. Nor,
how there were echoes all about her, sweet in
her ears, of the many times her father had told
her that he found her more devoted to him
married (if that could be) than single, and of the
many times her husband had said to her that no
cares and duties seemed to divide her love for
him or her help to him, and asked her "What is
the magic secret, my darling, of your being
everything to all of us, as if there were only one of
us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to have
too much to do?"

But, there were other echoes, from a distance,
that rumbled menacingly in the comer all
through this space of time. And it was now,
about little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they
began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm
in France with a dreadful sea rising.

On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven
hundred and eighty-nine, Mr. Lorry came in
late, from Tellson's, and sat himself down by
Lucie and her husband in the dark window. It
was a hot, wild night, and they were all three
reminded of the old Sunday night when they
had looked at the lightning from the same place.

"I began to think," said Mr. Lorry, pushing
his brown wig back, "that I should have to pass
the night at Tellson's. We have been so full of
business all day, that we have not known what
to do first, or which way to turn. There is such
an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a
run of confidence upon us! Our customers over
there, seem not to be able to confide their
property to us fast enough. There is positively a
mania among some of them for sending it to
England."

"That has a bad look," said Darnay.

"A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes,
but we don't know what reason there is in it.
People are so unreasonable! Some of us at
Tellson's are getting old, and we really can't be
troubled out of the ordinary course without due
occasion."

"Still," said Darnay, "you know how gloomy
and threatening the sky is."

"I know that, to be sure," assented Mr.
Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet
temper was soured, and that he grumbled, "but
I am determined to be peevish after my long
day's botheration. Where is Manette?"

"Here he is!" said the Doctor, entering the
dark room at the moment.

"I am quite glad you are at home; for these
hurries and forebodings by which I have been
surrounded all day long, have made me nervous
without reason. You are not going out, I
hope?"

"No; I am going to play backgammon with
you, if you like," said the Doctor.

"I don't think I do like, if I may speak my
mind. I am not fit to be pitted against you
tonight. Is the tea-board still there, Lucie? I
can't see."

"Of course, it has been kept for you."

"Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is
safe in bed?"

"And sleeping soundly."

"That's right; all safe and well! I don't
know why anything should be otherwise than
safe and well here, thank God; but I have been
so put out all day, and I am not as young as I
was! My tea, my dear? Thank ye. Now, come
and take your place in the circle, and let us
sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you
have your theory."

"Not a theory; it was a fancy."

"A fancy, then, my wise pet," said Mr.
Lorry, patting her hand. "They are very
numerous and very loud, though, are they not?
Only hear them!"

Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to
force their way into anybody's life, footsteps
not easily made clean again if once stained red,
the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off,