Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old

reputation, and its revival in the floating whispers of his story,

brought him. His scientific knowledge and his vigilance and skill

in conducting ingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into

moderate request, and he earned as much as he wanted.

These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge,

thoughts, and notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil

house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon.

“Doctor Manette at home?”

Expected home.

“Miss Lucie at home?”

Expected home.

“Miss Pross at home?”

Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to

anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the

fact.

“As I am at home myself,” said Mr. Lorry, “I’ll go upstairs.”

Although the Doctor’s daughter had known 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

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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 worktable, 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 about 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