“Oh, don’t you think he’s changed?” said Mrs. Heep. “There I must ’umbly beg leave to differ from you. Don’t you see a thinness in him?”

“Not more than usual,” I replied.

“ Don’t you though!” said Mrs. Heep. “But you don’t take notice of him with a mother’s eye!”

His mother’s eye was an evil eye to the rest of the world, I thought as it met mine, howsoever affectionate to him; and I believe she and her son were devoted to one another. It passed me, and went on to Agnes.