with close attention describe this gentleman to me i surely ought to know one who knows me so well his sister painted as vividly as she could the features stature and dress oi her visitor but john either from having no knowledge of the original or from some in her description or from some abstraction of his thoughts as he walked to and fro pondering could not recognise the portrait she presented to him however it was agreed between that he should see the original when he next appeared this the sister applied herself with a less anxious breast to her domestic occupations and the grey haired man late junior of s devoted the first day of his unwonted liberty to working in the garden it was quite late at night and the brother was reading and son s i while the sister plied her needle when they were interrupted by a knocking at the door in the atmosphere of vague anxiety and dread that lowered about them in with their fugitive brother this sound unusual there became almost alarming the brother going to the door the sister sat and listened timidly some one spoke to him and he replied and seemed surprised and after a few words the two approached together said her brother lighting in their late visitor and speaking in a low voice mr � the gentleman so long in s house with james his sister started back as if a ghost had entered in the doorway stood the friend with the hair sprinkled with grey the ruddy face the broad clear brow and eyes whose secret she had kept so long john she said half breathless it is ttie gentleman x told you of to day the gentleman miss said the visitor coming in � for he had stopped a moment in the doorway is greatly relieved to hear you say that he has been ways and means all the way here of explaining himself and has been satisfied with none mr john i am not quite a stranger here you were stricken with astonishment when you saw me at your door just now i observe you are more astonished at present well that s reasonable enough imder existing circumstances if we were not such creatures of habit aa we are we shouldn t have reason to be astonished half so often by this time he had greeted with that agreeable mingling of cordiality and respect which she recollected so well and had sat down near her off his gloves and thrown them into his hat upon the table there s nothing astonishing he said in my having conceived a desire to see your sister mr john or in my having gratified it in my own way as to the regularity of my visits since which she may have mentioned to you there is nothing extraordinary in that they soon grew into a habit and we are creatures of habit � creatures of habit putting his hands into his pockets and leaning back in his chair he looked at the brother and sister as if it were interesting to him to see them together and went on to say with a kind of irritable it s this same habit that some of us who are capable of better vol ir y and son in s own pride and � tbat and others of us in � more of us in indifference � that us from day to day according to the temper of our clay like and leaves us as susceptible as images to new impressions and convictions you shall judge of its influence on me john for more years than i need name i had my small an exactly defined share in the management of s house and saw your brother who has proved himself a scoundrel your sister will forgive my being obliged to mention it extending and extending his influence the business and its owner were his and saw you toiling at your obscure desk every day and was quite content to be as little troubled as i might be out of my own strip of duty and to let everything about me go on day by day like a great machine � that was ite habit and mine � and to take it all for granted and consider it all right my wednesday nights came regularly round our parties came regularly off my was in good tune and there was nothing wrong in my world � or if anything not much � or little or much it was no affair of mine i can answer for your being more respected and beloved during all that time than anybody in the house sir said john good natured and easy enough i dare say returned the other a habit i had it suited the manager it suited the man he managed it suited me best of all i did what was allotted to me to do made no court to either of them and was glad to occupy a station in which none was required so i should have gone on till now but that my room had a thin wall you can tell your sister that it was divided from the manager s room by a they were adjoining rooms had been one perhaps originally and were separated as mr says said her brother looking back to him for the of his explanation i have whistled tunes gone accurately through the whole of s in b to let him know that i was within hearing said mr but he never me it happened seldom enough that i was within hearing of anything of a private nature certainly but when i was and couldn t otherwise avoid knowing something of it i walked out i walked out once john during a conversation between and son two brothers to which in the beginning young walter gay was a party but i overheard some of it 