Addie desired him to return to Paris, but there were chances under his hand that he felt he had just wit enough left not to relinquish.

He would have gone for a week to the sea--he would have gone to Brighton; but Mrs.Bracken had to be finished--Mrs.Bracken was so soon to sail.

He just managed to finish her in time--the day before the date fixed for his breaking ground on a greater business still, the circumvallation of Mrs.Dunn.

Mrs.Dunn duly waited on him, and he sat down before her, feeling, however, ere he rose, that he must take a long breath before the attack.

While asking himself that night, therefore, where he should best replenish his lungs he received from Addie, who had had from Mrs.Bracken a poor report of him, a communication which, besides being of sudden and startling interest, applied directly to his case.
His friend wrote to him under the lively emotion of having from one day to another become aware of a new relative, an ancient cousin, a sequestered gentlewoman, the sole survival of "the English branch of the family," still resident, at Flickerbridge, in the "old family home," and with whom, that he might immediately betake himself to so auspicious a quarter for change of air, she had already done what was proper to place him, as she said, in touch.