picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss

Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until,

having got past the two tall candles, he saw standing to receive

him by the table between them and the fire, a young lady of not

more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still holding her straw

travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a

short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue

eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and a forehead with

a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was),

of lifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite

one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed

attention, though it included all the four expressionsas his eyes

rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him,

of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that

very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the

sea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the

surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which,

a hospital procession of Negro cupids, several headless and all

cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black

divinities of the feminine genderand he made his formal bow to

Miss Manette.

“Pray take a seat,