 country I was informed by Mr.
Flintwinch?«
    »That is your present visitor.«
    »Really! Mr. Clennam?«
    »No other, Mr. Casby.«
    »Mr. Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met?«
    Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some
quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations in his
health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never been better, or
something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with the possessor of that
head as it shed its patriarchal light upon him.
    »We are older, Mr. Clennam,« said Christopher Casby.
    »We are - not younger,« said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that he
was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was nervous.
    »And your respected father,« said Mr. Casby, »is no more! I was grieved to
hear it, Mr. Clennam, I was grieved.«
    Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him.
    »There was a time,« said Mr. Casby, »when your parents and myself were not
on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among us. Your
respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I say her son, I
mean your worthy self, your worthy self.«
    His smooth face had a bloom upon it, like ripe wall-fruit. What with his
blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be delivering
sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his physiognomical
expression seemed to teem with benignity. Nobody could have said where the
wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was; but they all
seemed to be somewhere about him.
    »Those times, however,« pursued Mr. Casby, »are past and gone, past and
gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected mother
occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind with which she
bears her trials, bears her trials.«
    When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands crossed
before him, he did it with his head on one side, and a gentle smile, as if he
had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be put into words. As if
he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it, lest he should soar too high; and
his meekness therefore preferred to be unmeaning.
    »I have heard
