Here stop is a corruption of step; but it usually conveys the added notion of continuance.
1855. He had ‘stopped off,’ he said, ‘to see a friend he had not seen for I do n’t know how long.’—Knick. Mag., xlvi. 604 (Dec.).
1858. I used very often, when coming home from my morning’s work at one of the public institutions of Paris, to stop in at the dear old church of St. Etienne du Mont.—Holmes, ‘The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,’ chap. xii.
