"Well, he was, after a long absence, here a while since as if expressly to see her.

But after spending half an hour he went away without it." Mr.Longdon's watch continued.

"He spent the half-hour with her mother instead ?" "Oh 'instead'-- it was hardly that.

He at all events dropped his idea." "And what had it been, his idea ?" "You speak as if he had as many as I!" Mitchy replied.

"In a manner indeed he has," he continued as if for himself.