"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and I know better. I distress you: I draw fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one?"

"If that will be a consolation to you, yes."

"Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?"

"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, " the secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it."

"Thank you! And again, God bless you!"

...

He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. "My last supplication of all is this; and with it I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know; but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do any thing. If my career were of that better kind that there was an opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you, ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn, - the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette! when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think, now and then, that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you."

The words are prophetic. Her husband, Darnay, having been summoned to Paris, and, on his arrival, arrested, thrown into prison, and condemned to death, is rescued by Carton, who greatly resembles him, and who takes his place, and dies in his stead, having faithfully promised one of the officers of the prison that he will protect him from punishment for his complicity in Darnay's escape by submitting to be guillotined without revealing the fraud. Darnay (called in Paris Evrémonde) is drugged, and rendered insensible, as he cannot otherwise be made a party to the escape; and he is then removed, dressed in Carton's clothes, to a carriage, the suspicions of the guard having been lulled by telling them that the prisoner's visitor has been overcome by parting from his friend.

The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the

table, and listened again until the clocks struck two.

Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and finally his own. A jailer, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, "Follow me, Evrémonde !" And he followed into a large, dark room at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he could but

dimly discern the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; but

these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground.

Along the Paris streets the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine.

As the sombre wheels . . . go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that, in many windows, there are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils.

Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so heedful of their looks, that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture to the pity of the people.

There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils; and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the same question; for it is always followed by a press of people toward the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is to know which is he he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down... He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him Here and there in the long street of St. Honoré, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound.

On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the spy and prison-sheep [Solomon Pross]. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he sacrificed me?" when his face clears as he looks into the third.

"Which is Evrémonde ?" says a man behind him.

"That. At the back there."

"With his hand in the girl's?"

"Yes."

The man cries, " Down, Evrémonde! To the guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evrémonde!"

"Hush, hush!" the spy entreats him timidly.

"And why not, citizen?"

"He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. Let him be at peace."

But the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, Evrémonde!" the face of Evrémonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evrémonde then sees the spy, and

looks attentively at him, and goes his way.

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing-on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away.

...

They said of him about the city, that night, that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.

"Its portrayal of the noble-natured castaway, Sydney Carton, makes it [A Tale of Two Cities] almost a peerless book in modern literature, and gives it a place among the highest examples of all literary art. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.' And yet Sydney Carton did more; for he gave his life, not for his friend, but to secure the woman he fondly loved a happy life with another man. ... The conception of this story and of this character is sublime, and shows in its author an ideal of magnanimity and of charity unsurpassed in the history of all literature. One slight, tender touch of the artist's hand is too exquisite to be passed by, . The man and the family whose happiness Sydney Carton dies to save are in hot flight from Paris as he goes to the guillotine. How was so noble a death to be worthily portrayed? The author effects this by introducing a poor little sweet natured, shrinking, but brave-hearted milliner-girl, who was to be put to death, she could not guess why, as many could not, then, who suffered death as she did. She was with Evrémonde in the prison of La Force, and, when they are ordered out to take their places in the tumbrils, she speaks to the supposed Evrémonde, who is going to death with her. Looking closely, she sees that it is not Evrémonde, but a man so like him, that one might be taken for the other. She divines his purpose, and keeps his secret, and begs that she may hold his brave hand' to the last. His heart goes out to her in that supreme moment of their lives: he sustains and comforts her; and at last she asks, 'Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?'-'Yes.' She kisses his lips, he kisses hers, and she mounts the scaffold. He follows her, murmuring to himself, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life.' The end comes, and the castaway dies, thinking, ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done: it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.' Beyond that, the sublimity of simple self-sacrifice, the enthusiasm of humanity, the purity of pathos, can never go. In all literature, in all history, there is not a grander, lovelier figure, than the self-wrecked, self-devoted Sydney Carton." RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

Cly, Roger. An Old Bailey spy, partner of Solomon Pross, and formerly servant to Charles Darnay. (Bk. II, ch. iii, xiv; Bk. III, ch. viii, xv.)

Cruncher, Jerry. An odd-job man at Tellson's Bank, in London, who is also a resurrection-man. His wife, a pious woman, is greatly distressed by her knowledge of the horrible nature of his nightly occupation; and, as her remonstrances prove to be unavailing, she resorts to prayers and supplications to Heaven to aid her in the reformation of her husband. This is very distasteful to Mr. Cruncher, so much so, indeed, that he sometimes resorts to violence to prevent it.

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a harlequin at home. At first he slept heavily, but by degrees began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he exclaimed in a voice of dire exasperation,

"Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!"

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was the person referred to.

"What!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. agin; are you?"

"You 're at it

After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at the