Then he dexterously leads the conversation into some other channel.

He will not harm the cause of poor Mr.Battlebury by persisting in speaking of him and his bouquets, when that persistence will evidently render the subject a little tedious.
Poor Mr.Hal Battlebury, who, could he only survey the Waring mansion from the lower floor to the roof, would behold his handsome flowers that came on Wednesday withering in cold ceremony upon the parlor-table--and in Amy Waring's bureau-drawer would see the little book she received from "her friend Lawrence Newt" treasured like a priceless pearl, with a pressed rose laid upon the leaf where her name and his are written--a rose which Lawrence Newt playfully stole one evening from one of the ceremonious bouquets pining under its polite reception, and said gayly, as he took leave, "Let this keep my memory fragrant till I return." But it was a singular fact that when one of those baskets without a card arrived at the house, it was not left in superb solitary state upon the centre-table in the parlor, but bloomed as long as care could coax it in the strict seclusion of Miss Waring's own chamber, and then some choicest flower was selected to be pressed and preserved somewhere in the depths of the bureau.
Could the bureau drawers give up their treasures, would any human being longer seem to be cold?
would any maiden young or old appear a voluntary spinster, or any unmarried octogenarian at heart a bachelor?
For many a long hour Lawrence Newt stood at the window of the loft in the rear of his office, and looked up at the window where he had seen Amy Waring that summer morning.

He was certainly quite as curious about that room as Hope about his early knowledge of her home.
"I'll just run round and settle this matter," said the merchant to himself.
But he did not stir.

His hands were in his pockets.

He was standing as firmly in one spot as if he had taken root.
"Yes--upon the whole, I'll just run round," thought Lawrence, without the remotest approach to motion of any kind.