frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, and spoke in whispers.
She could never deliver me; I imagined that she always brought
me back after showing me such things. But then, blessed with the
relief of tears, I fell upon my knees and blessed her.”
“I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you
bless me as fervently tomorrow?”
“Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have
tonight for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking
God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest,
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never rose near the happiness that I have known with you, and
that we have before us.”
He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and
humbly thanked Heaven for having bestowed her on him. By-andby, they went into the house.
There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there
was even to be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The
marriage was to make no change in their place of residence; they
had been able to extend it, by taking to themselves the upper
rooms formerly belonging to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and
they desired nothing more.
Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They
were only three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He
regretted that Charles was not there; was more than half disposed
to object to the loving little plot that kept him away; and drank to
him affectionately.
So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they
separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning,
Lucie came downstairs again, and stole into his room; not free
from unshaped fears, beforehand.
All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he
lay asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow,
and his hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless
candle in the shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put
her lips to his; then, leaned over him, and looked at him.
Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn;
but, he covered up their tracks with a determination so strong,
that he held the mastery of them even in his sleep. A more
remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with
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an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all the wide
dominions of sleep, that night.
She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a
prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to
be, and as his sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand,
and kissed his lips once more, and went away. So, the sunrise
came, and the shadows of the leaves of the plane-tree moved upon
his face, as softly as her lips had moved in praying for him.
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A Tale of Two Cities
Chapter XXIV
NINE DAYS
T he marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were
ready outside the closed door of the Doctor’s room, where
he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to
go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross—to
whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement to
the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but for the
yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have
been the bridegroom.
“And so,” said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the
bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point
of her quiet, pretty dress; “and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie,
that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless
me! How li"};
