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1、A TALE OF TWO CITIES 2 18 CHAPTER XVIII Nine Days THE marriage day was shining brightly and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor s room where he was speaking with Charles Darnay They were ready to go to church the beautiful bride Mr Lorry and Miss Pross to whom the event through a g
2、radual process of reconcilement to the inevitable would have been one of absolute bliss but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom And so said Mr Lorry who could not sufficiently admire the bride and who had been moving round her to take in every
3、 point of her quiet pretty dress and so it was for this my sweet Lucie that I brought you across the Channel such a baby Lord bless me How little I thought what I was doing How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring on my friend Mr Charles You didn t mean it remarked the matter of fact Mis
4、s Pross and therefore how could you know it Nonsense Really Well but don t cry said the gentle Mr Lorry I am not crying said Miss Pross you are I my Pross By this time Mr Lorry dared to be pleasant with her on occasion You were just now I saw you do it and I don t wonder at it Such a present of plat
5、e as you have made em is enough to bring tears into anybody s eyes There s not a fork or a spoon in the collection said Miss Pross that I didn t cry over last night after the box came till I couldn t see it I am highly gratified said Mr Lorry though upon my honour I had no intention of rendering tho
6、se trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one Dear me This is an occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost Dear dear dear To think that there might have been a Mrs Lorry any time these fifty years almost Not at all From Miss Pross You think there never might have been a Mrs L
7、orry asked the gentleman of that name Pooh rejoined Miss Pross you were a bachelor in your cradle Well observed Mr Lorry beamingly adjusting his little wig that seems probable too And you were cut out for a bachelor pursued Miss Pross before you were put in your cradle Then I think said Mr Lorry tha
8、t I was very unhandsomely dealt with and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my pattern Enough Now my dear Lucie drawing his arm soothingly round her waist I hear them moving in the next room and Miss Pross and I as two formal folks of business are anxious not to lose the final oppo
9、rtunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear You leave your good father my dear in hands as earnest and as loving as your own he shall be taken every conceivable care of during the next fortnight while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts even Tellson s shall go to the wall comparativ
10、ely speaking before him And when at the fortnight s end he comes to join you and your beloved husband on your other fortnight s trip in Wales you shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame Now I hear Somebody s step coming to the door Let me kiss my dear girl
11、 with an old fashioned bachelor blessing before Somebody comes to claim his own For a moment he held the fair face from him to look at the well remembered expression on the forehead and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which if such
12、 things be old fashioned were as old as Adam The door of the Doctor s room opened and he came out with Charles Darnay He was so deadly pale which had not been the case when they went in together that no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face But in the composure of his manner he was unaltered
13、except that to the shrewd glance of Mr Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him like a cold wind He gave his arm to his daughter and took her downstairs to the chariot which Mr Lorry had hired in honour of the day The rest followed
14、 in another carriage and soon in a neighbouring church where no strange eyes looked on Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little group when it was done some diamonds very bright and sparkling glanced on the bride s hand
15、 which were newly released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr Lorry s pockets They returned home to breakfast and all went well and in due course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor shoemaker s white locks in the Paris garret were mingled with them again in the morning sunlight on the t
16、hreshold of the door at parting It was a hard parting though it was not for long But her father cheered her and said at last gently disengaging himself from her enfolding arms Take her Charles She is yours And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window and she was gone The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious and the preparations having been very simple and few the Doctor Mr Lorry and Miss Pross were left quite alone It was when they turned into the welcome shade of the