"A Tale of Two Cities"
by Charles Dickens

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     The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings.

     "The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few," said Doctor Manette. "It comes slowly."

     "It comes surely," said Carton.

 

     They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do.

     There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there.

     "A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!" said Darnay, when they had listened for a while.

 
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