Hotel at Dover, and had since improved.

“I should have thought” Mr. Lorry began.

“Pooh! You’d have thought!” said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry

left off.

“How do you do?” inquired that lady thensharply, and yet as

if to express that she bore him no malice.

“I am pretty well, I thank you,” answered Mr. Lorry, with

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

meekness; “how are you?”

“Nothing to boast of,” said Miss Pross.

“Indeed?”

“Ah! indeed!” said Miss Pross. “I am very much put out about

my Ladybird.”

“Indeed?”

“For gracious sake say something else besides ‘indeed,’ or you’ll

fidget me to death,” said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated

from stature) was shortness.

“Really, then?” said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment.

“Really, is bad enough,” returned Miss Pross, “but better. Yes, I

am very much put out.”

“May I ask the cause?”

“I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of

Ladybird, to come here looking after her,” said Miss Pross.

“Do dozens come for that purpose?”

“Hundreds,” said Miss Pross.

It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before

her time and since), that whenever her original proposition was

questioned, she exaggerated it.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think

of.

“I have lived with the darlingor the darling has lived with me,

and paid me for it; which she certainly should never have done,

you may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either

myself or her for nothingsince she was ten years old. And it’s

really very hard,” said Miss Pross.

Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook

his head; using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

cloak that would fit anything.

“All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of

the pet, are always turning up,” said Miss Pross. “When you began

it”

“I began it, Miss Pross?”

“Didn’t you? Who brought her father to life?”

“Oh! If that was beginning it” said Mr. Lorry.

“It wasn’t ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was

hard enough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette,

except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no

imputation on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody

should be, under any circumstances. But it really is doubly and