for; is it not?”

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“Surely, surely.”

“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, tonight,

‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or

respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in

no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be

remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight

heavy curses; would they not?”

“You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be.”

Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence

of a few moments, said:

“I should like to ask you:Does your childhood seem far off?

Do the days when you sat at your mother’s knee, seem days of very

long ago?”

Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered:

“Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I

draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and

nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings

and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many

remembrances that have long fallen asleep, of my pretty young

mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when

what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults