It comes over me now how I dropped on you." "What you told me," Vanderbank returned, "was excellent so far as it went; but it was only after all that, having caught my name, you had asked of our friend if I belonged to people you had known years before, and then, from what she had said, had--with what you were so good as to call great pleasure--made out that I did.

You came round to me on this, after dinner, and gave me a pleasure still greater.

But that only takes us part of the way." Mr.Longdon said nothing, but there was something appreciative in his conscious lapses; they were a tribute to his young friend's frequent felicity.

This personage indeed appeared more and more to take them for that--which was not without its effect on his spirits.
At last, with a flight of some freedom, he brought their pause to a close.

"You loved Lady Julia." Then as the attitude of his guest, who serenely met his eyes, was practically a contribution to the subject, he went on with a feeling that he had positively pleased.