Hotel at Dover, and had since improved.

“I should have thought” Mr. Lorry began.

“Pooh! You’d have thought!” said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry

left off.

“How do you do?” inquired that lady thensharply, and yet as

if to express that she bore him no malice.

“I am pretty well, I thank you,” answered Mr. Lorry, with

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

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 darlingor the darling