Five minutes elapsed, which.

I allowed for variation of clocks--five minutes more rendered me anxious and doubtful--and five minutes more would have made me impatient.
Laugh as thou wilt; but remember, Darsie, I was a lawyer, expecting his first client--a young man, how strictly bred up I need not remind you, expecting a private interview with a young and beautiful woman.

But ere the third term of five minutes had elapsed, the door-bell was heard to tinkle low and modestly, as if touched by some timid hand.
James Wilkinson, swift in nothing, is, as thou knowest, peculiarly slow in answering the door-bell; and I reckoned on five minutes good, ere his solemn step should have ascended the stair.

Time enough, thought I, for a peep through the blinds, and was hastening to the window accordingly.
But I reckoned without my host; for James, who had his own curiosity as well as I, was lying PERDU in the lobby, ready to open at the first tinkle; and there was, 'This way, ma'am--Yes, ma'am--The lady, Mr.
Alan,' before I could get to the chair in which I proposed to be discovered, seated in all legal dignity.

The consciousness of being half-caught in the act of peeping, joined to that native air of awkward bashfulness of which I am told the law will soon free me, kept me standing on the floor in some confusion; while the lady, disconcerted on her part, remained on the threshold of the room.