her Solomon was a

heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she

possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in

her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss

Pross’s fidelity of belief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for

this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lorry, and

had its weight in his good opinion of her.

“As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people

of business,” he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room

and had sat down there in friendly relations, “let me ask you

does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the

shoemaking time, yet?”

“Never.”

“And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?”

“Ah!” returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. “But I don’t say

he don’t refer to it within himself.”

“Do you believe that he thinks of it much?”

“I do,” said Miss Pross.

“Do you imagine” Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross

took him up short with:

“Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.”

“I stand corrected; do you supposeyou go so far as to

suppose, sometimes?”

“Now and then,” said Miss Pross.

“Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle

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in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “that Doctor Manette

has any theory of his