 Dean,« I cried, »do sit still, another half hour! You've
done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like; and you
must finish in the same style. I am interested in every character you have
mentioned, more or less.«
    »The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.«
    »No matter - I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two
is early enough for a person who lies till ten.«
    »You shouldn't lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning gone long
before that time. A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten
o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.«
    »Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend
lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate
cold, at least.«
    »I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years;
during that space, Mrs. Earnshaw -«
    »No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of
mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the
rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of
one ear would put you seriously out of temper?«
    »A terribly lazy mood, I should say.«
    »On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present, and,
therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions acquire
over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in
a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not
entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on. They do live more in earnest,
more in themselves, and less in surface change, and frivolous external things. I
could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever
in any love of a year's standing - one state resembles setting a hungry man down
to a single dish on which he may concentrate his entire appetite, and do it
justice - the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks; he can
perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom
in his regard and remembrance.«
    »Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else
