There may have been, in the presence of
those idle heaps of dust among the busiest stir of life, something to
increase his wavering; but there he walked, awakening the echoes as he
paced up and down, until the church clock, striking the quarters for
the second time since he had been there, roused him from his meditation.
Shaking off his incertitude as the air parted with the sound of the
bells, he walked rapidly to the house, and knocked at the door.
Mr Pecksniff was seated in the landlady's little room, and his visitor
found him reading--by an accident; he apologised for it--an excellent
theological work. There were cake and wine upon a little table--by
another accident, for which he also apologised. Indeed he said, he
had given his visitor up, and was about to partake of that simple
refreshment with his children, when he knocked at the door.
'Your daughters are well?' said old Martin, laying down his hat and
stick.
Mr Pecksniff endeavoured to conceal his agitation as a father when he
answered Yes, they were. They were good girls, he said, very good. He
would not venture to recommend Mr Chuzzlewit to take the easy-chair,
or to keep out of the draught from the door.
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