until his face fronted hers, and talked. His manner was florid,
almost bombastic. He had a fashion of working his face a good deal
when he talked. He conversed quite rapidly and fluently, but was wont
to interlard his conversation with what seemed majestically
reflective pauses, during which he leaned back in his chair and
tapped the arm slowly. In fact his flow of ideas failed him for a
moment, his mind being so constituted that they came in rapid and
temporary bursts, geyser fashion. He inquired when Mrs. Field
arrived, was kindly circumstantial as to her health, touched
decorously but not too mournfully upon the late Thomas Maxwell's
illness and decease. He alluded to the letter which he had written
her, mentioning as a singular coincidence that at the moment of her
entrance he was engaged in writing another to her, to inquire if the
former had been received.

He spoke in terms of congratulation of the property to which she had
fallen heir, and intimated that further discussion concerning it, as
a matter of business, had better be postponed until morning. Daniel
Tuxbury was very methodical in his care for himself, and was loath to
attend to any business after six o'clock.

Mrs. Field sat like a bolt of iron while the lawyer talked to her.
Unless a direct question demanded it, she never spoke herself. But he
did not seem to notice it; he had enough garnered-in complacency to
delight himself, as a bee with its own honey. He rarely realized it
when another person did not talk.

After one of his pauses, he sprang up with alacrity. "Mrs. Maxwell,
will you be so kind as to excuse me for a moment?" said he, and went
out of the office with a fussy hitch, as if he wore invisible