“Oh yes, I dare say I can find the child, if you would like to see him,” Miss Pynsent said; she had a fluttering wish to assent¹ to every suggestion made by her visitor, whom she regarded as a high and rather terrible personage. To look for the little boy she came out of her small parlour, which she had been ashamed to exhibit in so untidy a state, with paper ‘patterns’ lying about on the furniture and snippings of stuff scattered² over the carpet – she came out of this somewhat stuffy³ sanctuary⁴, dedicated⁵ at once to social intercourse⁶ and to the ingenious art to which her life had been devoted⁷, and, opening the house-door, turned her eyes up and down the little street. It would presently be tea-time, and she knew that at that solemn hour Hyacinth narrowed the circle of his wanderings. She was anxious and impatient, and in a fever of excitement and complacency, not wanting to keep Mrs Bowerbank waiting, though she sat there, heavily and consideringly, as if she meant to stay; and wondering not a little whether the object of her quest would have a dirty face. Mrs Bowerbank had intimated so definitely that she thought it remarkable⁸ on Miss Pynsent’s part to have taken care of him gratuitously⁹ for so many years, that the humble¹⁰ dressmaker, whose imagination took flights about every one but herself, and who had never been conscious of an exemplary benevolence¹¹, suddenly

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