The days were weary and the evenings intolerably dull.

The visits to Mr Newcome were of course pleasant enough, but it was slow being cooped up an entire Sunday with two old people.

On the whole, life in London was becoming stupid.
One of the first symptoms of his altered frame of mind was the occasional neglect of his regular letter to Charlie.

That ever-faithful young man wrote as punctually as clockwork.

Every Thursday morning a letter lay on Tom's plate at breakfast-time, addressed in the well-known hand, and bearing the Randlebury post-mark.