`Really? Well; but don't cry,' said the gentle Mr. Lorry.

Nine Days

THE 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 little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring on my friend Mr. Charles!'

`You didn't mean it,' remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, `and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!'

`Really? Well; but don't cry,' said the gentle Mr. Lorry.

`I am not crying,' said Miss Pross; `you are.

`I, my Pross?' (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.)

`You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don't wonder at it. Such a present of plate as you have made `em, is enough to bring tears into anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a spoon in the collection,' said Miss Pross, `that I didn't cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn't see it.'

`I am highly gratified,' said Mr. Lorry, `though, upon my honour, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!'

`Not at all!' From Miss Pross.