on,
Clennam said, 'Exactly. Well?'

'Well, sir,' proceeded Mrs Tickit, 'I was thinking of one thing and
thinking of another, just as you yourself might. Just as anybody might.'
'Precisely so,' said Clennam. 'Well?'

'And when I do think of one thing and do think of another,' pursued
Mrs Tickit, 'I hardly need to tell you, Mr Clennam, that I think of the
family. Because, dear me! a person's thoughts,' Mrs Tickit said this
with an argumentative and philosophic air, 'however they may stray, will
go more or less on what is uppermost in their minds. They will do it,
sir, and a person can't prevent them.'

Arthur subscribed to this discovery with a nod.

'You find it so yourself, sir, I'll be bold to say,' said Mrs Tickit,
'and we all find it so. It an't our stations in life that changes us, Mr
Clennam; thoughts is free!--As I was saying, I was thinking of one thing
and thinking of another, and thinking very much of the family. Not of
the family in the present times only, but in the past times too. For
when a person does begin thinking of one thing and thinking of another
in that manner, as it's getting dark, what I say is, that all times
seem to be present, and a person must get out of that state and consider
before they can say which is which.'

He nodded again; afraid to utter a word, lest it should present any new
opening to Mrs Tickit's conversational powers.

'In consequence of which,' said Mrs Tickit, 'when I quivered my eyes and
saw her actual form and figure looking in at the gate, I let them close
again without so much as starting, for that actual form and figure came
so pat to the time when it belonged to the house as much as mine or your
own, that I never thought at the moment of its having gone away. But,
sir, when I quivered my eyes again, and saw that it wasn't there, then
it all flooded upon me with a fright, and I jumped up.'

'You ran out directly?' said Clennam.

'I ran out,' assented Mrs Tickit, 'as fast as ever my feet would carry
me; and if you'll credit it, Mr Clennam, there wasn't in the whole
shining Heavens, no not so much as a finger of that young woman.'

Passing over the absence from the firmament of this novel constellation,
Arthur inquired of Mrs Tickit if she herself went beyond the gate?

'Went to and fro, and high and low,' said Mrs Tickit, 'and saw no sign
of her!'

He then asked Mrs Tickit how long a space of time she supposed there
might have been between the two sets of ocu