apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal
manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
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A Tale of Two Cities
These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the
table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every
leaf; as if they were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and
no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were
dug out.
The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry,
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 that was not quite
one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed
attention, though it included all the four s—as 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 gender—and he made his formal bow to
Miss Manette.
“Pray take a seat, sir.” In a very clear and pleasant young voice;
a little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
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A Tale of Two Cities
“I kiss your hand, miss,” said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an
earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat.
“I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me
that some intelligence—or discovery—”
“The word is not material, miss; either word will do.”
“—respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I
never saw—so long dead—” Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and
cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of Negro
cupids. As if they had any help for anybody in their absurd
baskets!
“—rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to
communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be
despatched to Paris for the purpose.”
“Myself.”
“As I was prepared to hear, sir.”
She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those
days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much
older and wiser he was than she. He made her another bow.
“I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary,
by those who knew, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I
should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and have no
friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly if I might
be permitted to place myself, during the journey, under that
worthy gentleman’s protection. The gentleman had left London,
but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the favour of his
waiting for me here.”
“I was happy,” said Mr. Lorry, “to be entrusted with the charge.
I shall be more happy to execute it.”
“Sir, I thank you ind"};
