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 himselfwhich 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

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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 corner 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

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the sky is.”

“I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to