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express that she bore him no malice.

"I am pretty well, I thank you," answered Mr. Lorry, with 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 darling--or 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 nothing--since 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 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 trebly hard to have crowds
and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him),
to take Ladybird's affections away from me."

Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by
this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those
unselfish creatures--found only among women--who will, for pure love
and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they
have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that
they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never
shone upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to
know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of
the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had
such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements
made by his own mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--

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