These were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, which I suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to get a look into the Little Gentleman's room.
I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should trouble myself about these matters.

You tell me, with some show of reason, that all I shall find in the young girl's--book will be some outlines of angels with immense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and caricatures, among which I shall probably have the pleasure of seeing my own features figuring.

Very likely.

But I'll tell you what I think I shall find.

If this child has idealized the strange little bit of humanity over which she seems to have spread her wings like a brooding dove,--if, in one of those wild vagaries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as the sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish that brushes their outspread tentacles, depend upon it, I shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of hers,--if I can ever get a look at it,--fairly, of course, for I would not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity.
Then, if I can get into this Little Gentleman's room under any fair pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy myself in five minutes that he is just like other people, and that there is no particular mystery about him.
The night after my visit to the young man John, I made all these and many more reflections.