ift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes,

and good sense; were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking

about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with

something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by

this time, whether he approved?

There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which

they communicated being put open that the air might pass freely

through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful

resemblance which he detected all around him, walked from one

to another. The first was the best room, and in it were Lucie’s

birds, and flowers, and books, and desk, and worktable, and box of

water-colours; the second was the Doctor’s consulting-room, used

also as the dining-room; the third, changingly speckled by the

rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the Doctor’s bedroom, and

there in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker’s bench and tray of

tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by

the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris.

“I wonder,” said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, “that

he keeps that reminder of his sufferings about him!”

“And why wonder at that?” was the abrupt inquiry that made

him start.

It proceeded fr