“Well,” I replied; “perhaps it was a little dry.”

“Oh! and that’s a reason why you want relief and change⁠—excitement and all that?” said she. “Ah! very true! But isn’t it a little⁠—Eh?⁠—for him; I don’t mean you?”

A quick glance of her eye towards the spot where Steerforth was walking, with his mother leaning on his arm, showed me whom she meant; but beyond that, I was quite lost. And I looked so, I have no doubt.

“Don’t it⁠—I don’t say that it does , mind I want to know⁠—don’t it rather engross him? Don’t it make him, perhaps, a little more remiss than usual in his visits to his blindly-doting⁠—eh?” With another quick glance at them, and such a glance at me as seemed to look into my innermost thoughts.

“Miss Dartle,” I returned, “pray do not think⁠—”