“You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?” asked

the gentleman of that name.

“Pooh!” rejoined Miss Pross; “you were a bachelor in your

cradle.”

“Well!” observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig,

“that seems probable, too.”

“And you were cut out for a bachelor,” pursued Miss Pross,

“before you were put in your cradle.”

“Then, I think,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was very unhandsomely

dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of

my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie,” drawing his arm

soothingly round her waist, “I hear them moving in the next room,

and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious

not to lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that

you wish to hear. You leave your good father, my dear, in hands as

earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every

conceivable care of; during the next fortnight, while you are in

Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson’s shall go to the wall

(comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight’s

end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your

other fortnight’s trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him

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to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear

Somebody’s step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear