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"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 suppose--you go so far as to suppose,

sometimes?"

"Now and then," said Miss Pross.

"Do you suppose," Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in

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

has any theory of his own, preserved through all those years,

relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to

the name of his oppressor?"

"I don't suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me."

"And that is--?"

"That she thinks he has."

"Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions; because I

am a mere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business."

"Dull?" Miss Pross inquired, with placidity.