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so sharp just now，but you'd hardly believe the worry one has to put upwith-fellows coming along selling this，that and the other-vacuum cleaners，stockings，lavender bags and such-like foolery-and all so plausible andcivil spoken.Got your name，too，pat they have.It's Mrs Fowler this，thatand the other." Seizing adroitly on the name，Poirot said: "Well，Mrs Fowler，I hope you're going to do what I ask." "Idon't know，I'm sure."The five pounds hung alluringly before MrsFowler's eyes."I knew Mrs Ascher，of course，but as to writing anything."
Hastily Poirot reassured her.No labour on her part was required.He wouldelicit the facts from her and the interview would be written up. Thus encouraged，Mrs Fowler plunged willingly into reminiscence，conjecture and hearsay. Kept herself to herself，Mrs Ascher had.Not what you'd call reallyfriendly，but there，she'd had a lot of trouble，poor soul，everyone knewthat.And by rights Franz Ascher ought to have been locked up years ago.Not

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Fanny was disposed to think the influence of London very much at war with all respectable attachments. She saw the proof of it in Miss Crawford, as well as in her cousins; _her_ attachment to Edmund had been respectable, the most respectable part of her character; her friendship for herself had at least been blameless. Where was either sentiment now? It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had some reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so

dwelt on. It was weeks since she had heard anything of Miss Crawford or of her other connexions in town, except through Mansfield, and she was beginning to suppose that she might never know whether Mr. Crawford had gone into Norfolk again or not till they met, and might never hear from his sister any more this spring, when the following letter was received to revive old and create some new sensations--

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support yours. It is your disposition to be easily dejected and to fancy difficulties greater than they are. His cheerfulness will counteract this. He sees difficulties nowhere: and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike, Fanny, does not in the smallest degree make against the probability of your happiness together: do not imagine it. I am myself convinced that it is rather a favourable circumstance. I am perfectly persuaded that the tempers had better be unlike: I mean unlike in the flow of the spirits, in the manners,
in the inclination for much or little company, in the propensity to talk or to be silent, to be grave or to be gay. Some opposition here is, I am thoroughly convinced, friendly to matrimonial happiness. I exclude extremes, of course; and a very close resemblance in all those points would be the likeliest way to produce an extreme. A counteraction, gentle and continual, is the best safeguard of manners and conduct."

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"I should be very happy, aunt; but Brighton is almost by Beachey Head; and if I could get so far, I could not expect to be welcome in such a smart place as that-- poor scrubby midshipman as I am." ¡¡¡¡ Mrs. Norris was beginning an eager assurance of the affability he might depend on, when she was stopped by Sir Thomas's saying with authority, "I do not advise your going to Brighton, William, as I trust you may soon have more convenient opportunities of meeting; but my daughters would be happy to see their cousins anywhere; and you will find Mr. Rushworth most sincerely disposed to regard all the connexions of our family as his own." ¡¡

¡¡ "I would rather find him private secretary to the First Lord than anything else," was William's only answer, in an undervoice, not meant to reach far, and the subject dropped.

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Thursday, predestined to hope and enjoyment, came; and opened with more kindness to Fanny than such self-willed, unmanageable days often volunteer, for soon after breakfast a very friendly note was brought from Mr. Crawford to William, stating that as he found himself obliged to go to London on the morrow for a few days, he could not help trying to procure a companion; and therefore hoped that if William could make up his mind to leave Mansfield half a day earlier than had been proposed, he would accept a place in his carriage. Mr.

Crawford meant to be in town by his uncle's accustomary late dinner-hour, and William was invited to dine with him at the Admiral's. The proposal was a very pleasant one to William himself, who enjoyed the idea of travelling post with four horses, and such a good-humoured

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half-hour in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny's on the sweets of so protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk for warmth. ¡¡¡

¡ "This is pretty, very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were thus sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in another three

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return of the others, and the arrival of dinner. It was late before the Miss Bertrams and the two gentlemen came in, and their ramble did not appear to have been more than partially agreeable, or at all productive of anything useful with regard to the object of the day. By their own accounts they had been all walking after each other, and the junction which had taken place at last seemed, to Fanny's observation, to have been as much too late for re-establishing harmony, as it confessedly had been for determining on any alteration. She felt,
as she looked at Julia and Mr. Rushworth, that hers was not the only dissatisfied bosom amongst them: there was gloom on the face of each. Mr. Crawford and Miss Bertram were much more gay, and she thought that he was taking particular pains, during dinner, to do away any little resentment of the other two, and restore general good-humour

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connexion that might possibly assist her. A large and still increasing family, an husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to supply their wants, made her eager to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram in a letter which spoke so much contrition and despondence, such a superfluity of children, and such a want of almost everything else,
as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation. She was preparing for her ninth lying-in; and after bewailing the circumstance, and imploring their countenance as sponsors to the expected child, she could not conceal how important she felt they might be to the future maintenance of the eight already in being. Her eldest was a boy of ten years old, a fine spirited

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You are a good man and a true friend," said Carton, in an altered voice. "Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, however." ¡¡¡¡Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. ¡¡
¡¡"To return to to poor Darnay," said Carton. "Don't tell Her of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence." ¡¡¡¡Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, and evidently understood it.

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A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be." ¡¡¡¡"But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!" ¡¡¡¡He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work. ¡¡¡¡"You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend!" ¡¡¡¡Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked,
and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity- as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind.

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And once again listen, Jacques!" said the kneeling Number Three: his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something- that was neither food nor drink; "the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, and struck him blows. You hear?" ¡¡¡¡"I hear, messieurs." ¡¡¡¡"Go on then," said Defarge. ¡¡¡¡"Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain," resumed the countryman, "

that he is brought down into our country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenants- serfs- what you will- he will be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from

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¡¡¡¡"O! most unhappily, I am!" ¡¡¡¡The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: "Answer the questions put to you, and make no remark upon them." ¡¡¡¡"Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passage across the Channel?" ¡¡¡¡"Yes, sir." ¡¡¡¡"Recall it." ¡¡¡¡In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: ¡¡¡¡"When the gentleman
¡¡¡¡"Do you mean the prisoner?" inquired the Judge, knitting his brows. ¡¡¡¡"Yes, my Lord." ¡¡¡¡"Then say the prisoner." ¡¡¡¡"When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father," turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, "was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck

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¡¡¡¡'It's a mort of water,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'fur to come across, and on'y stay a matter of fower weeks. But water ('specially when 'tis salt) comes nat'ral to me; and friends is dear, and I am heer. - Which is verse,' said Mr. Peggotty, surprised to find it out, 'though I hadn't such intentions.' ¡¡¡¡'Are you going back those many thousand miles, so soon?' asked Agnes. ¡¡¡¡'Yes, ma'am,' he returned. 'I giv the promise to Em'ly, afore I come away. You see, I doen't grow younger as the years comes round, and if I hadn't sailed as 'twas, most like I shouldn't never have done 't.
And it's allus been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas'r Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too old.' ¡¡¡¡He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he might see us better. ¡¡¡¡'And now tell us,' said I, 'everything relating to your fortunes.' ¡¡¡¡'Our fortuns, Mas'r Davy,' he rejoined, 'is soon told. We haven't fared nohows, but fared to thrive. We've allus thrived. We've worked as we ought to 't, and maybe

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The remembrance of her pretty joy when I said yes, brings tears into my eyes. The next time I sat down to write, and regularly afterwards, she sat in her old place, with a spare bundle of pens at her side. Her triumph in this connexion with my work, and her delight when I wanted a new pen - which I very often feigned to do - suggested to me a new way of pleasing my child-wife. I occasionally made a pretence of wanting a page or two of manuscript copied. Then Dora was in her glory. The preparations she made for this great work,
the aprons she put on, the bibs she borrowed from the kitchen to keep off the ink, the time she took, the innumerable stoppages she made to have a laugh with Jip as if he understood it all, her conviction that her work was incomplete unless she signed her name at the end, and the way in which she would bring it to me, like a school-copy, and then, when I praised it, clasp me round the neck, are touching recollections to me, simple as they might appear to other men.

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junior. ¡¡¡¡'Was it? I believe you are right,' said Tiffey, - 'more than a mile off - not far from the church - lying partly on the roadside, and partly on the path, upon his face. Whether he fell out in a fit, or got out, feeling ill before the fit came on - or even whether he was quite dead then, though there is no doubt he was quite insensible - no one appears to know. If he breathed, certainly he never spoke. Medical assistance was got as soon as possible, but it was quite useless.'

¡¡¡¡I cannot describe the state of mind into which I was thrown by this intelligence. The shock of such an event happening so suddenly, and happening to one with whom I had been in any respect at variance - the appalling vacancy in the room he had occupied so lately, where his chair and table seemed to wait for him, and his handwriting of yesterday was like a ghost - the in- definable impossibility of separating him from the place, and feeling, when the door opened, as if he might come in

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'My good Mr. Copperfield!' said Tiffey, laying his hand upon my arm, and shutting up both his eyes as he shook his head: 'if you had been in the Commons as long as I have, you would know that there is no subject on which men are so inconsistent, and so little to be trusted.' ¡¡¡¡'Why, bless my soul, he made that very remark!' I replied persistently. ¡¡¡¡'I should call that almost final,' observed Tiffey. 'My opinion is - no will.' ¡¡¡¡It appeared a wonderful thing to me, but it turned out that there was no will. He had never so much as thought of making one,
so far as his papers afforded any evidence; for there was no kind of hint, sketch, or memorandum, of any testamentary intention whatever. What was scarcely less astonishing to me, was, that his affairs were in a most disordered state. It was extremely difficult, I heard, to make out what he owed, or what he had paid, or of what he died possessed. It was considered likely that for years he could have had no clear opinion on these subjects himself. By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, and had reduced

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appertaining to her office (the salary excepted) until Peggotty should cease to present herself. Mrs. Crupp, after holding divers conversations respecting Peggotty, in a very high-pitched voice, on the staircase - with some invisible Familiar it would appear, for corporeally speaking she was quite alone at those times - addressed a letter to me, developing her views. Beginning it with that statement of universal application, which fitted every occurrence of her life, namely, that she was a mother herself, she went on to inform me that she had once seen very different days, but that at all periods of her existence she had had a constitutional objection to spies,
intruders, and informers. She named no names, she said; let them the cap fitted, wear it; but spies, intruders, and informers, especially in widders' weeds (this clause was underlined), she had ever accustomed herself to look down upon. If a gentleman was the victim of spies, intruders, and informers (but still naming no names), that was his own pleasure. He had a right to please himself; so let him do. All that she, Mrs. Crupp, stipulated for, was, that she should not be 'brought in contract' with such

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甄一然和惠文都不知道他说什么，奇怪地望着。
　　常发又喊：“说呀！谁批准狗日的们投降的？”
　　甄一然笑了：“常发，日本鬼子投降了，抗日战争胜利了，这不是好事吗？”
　　“不好！”常发吼喊，“我还没有打够呢！让狗日的们投降，你们答应，老子还不答应呢！”
　　甄一然说：“我们八年抗战，不就是为了今天吗？再说，日本帝国主义投降了，还有其他的反动派嘛！”
　　“不干！冤有头，债有主，老子先找小鬼子说话！”常发转身向外冲去。
　惠文望着甄一然：“我总觉得他心里好像还藏着什么事！”
　　“太敏感了吧？常发是个能把事藏在心里的人吗？”
　　“梅子！”惠文突然说，“他会不会是在想梅子了？你忘了，当初说过，抗战胜利以后就和梅子结婚的！”
　　常发坐在草丛里昂首望天，脸上竟然挂着两滴男儿泪，自言自语：“梅子，小鬼子他妈的投降了，连给你报仇的机会都不给我留，这帮没人性的王八蛋，处处和老子过不去！这口气不能就这么咽了，就算所有的人都能咽，我老常也不能咽，等着吧，我不杀几个鬼子为你出出气，就不算是你男人！”
　　甄一然快步走来：“常发！交给你一项光荣的任务！”
　　“鬼子都他妈投降了，还有啥任务？”常发望向别处。
　　甄一然问：“忘了我和你说过的话了吗？”