Dear Chris:

I and my co-authors are confused by the second report from the referee. The
comments in his first report helped us to improve the presentation of the
paper significantly, we really appreciate that. In the second report, he
completely mis-understood us. I trust that the referee did a careful job in
going through literatures to prove that the delayed filament eruption is
not a new result. Unfortunately, he only came out with the Svestka book
that was published over 30 years ago.  We studied the Svestka book
carefully, found that it has not relevance to our study.  The book talked
about a curved neutral line for a single event, while our event clearly has
two eruption cenetrs. We therefore request a review by a second refree. We
do not see that we can improve the paper further based on this report, can
you send the current version to the second referee? We give our response to
each of the comments below. In addition, I attach a TRACE 195A movie for
you and the new referee. Two eruption centers are evident.


"The term 'delayed filament eruption' is misleading for the 
presented observation. A flare starts at places A,B with ribbon 
motions (Fig. 2). A second single ribbon is traced in Fig. 2 (and not a 
pair as written in the abstract) at another site along a strongly 
curved neutral line, and later."

Reply:
The 2nd flare can be seen as another PAIR of ribbons, not a 
single one. Fig.2 only plots one because another one is 
not very clear, embedding in the already-brightened first flare ribbon. 
TRACE movie shows this pair.


"Such observations are not new (as several times claimed in the text). 
It is a piecewise filament eruption, propagating with its onset, along 
a (here curved) neutral line, compare, e.g. Svestka, Solar Flares. 
Reidel 1976, p. 46, Fig. 22. It seems to me that much related findings
are already described in the Chapter II.E of this old but still useful 
book. The absence of an observed filament between A and B  is  no 
problem (see also page 43 above Fig. 20a in Svestka)   the 
nicely correlated ribbon expansion reveals that there is a dynamic 
flare ongoing between A and B.  The ribbon evolution is influenced by 
flux concentrations which decelerate or stop the ribbon motion (see 
Svestka, same chapter). That seems to happen at 19:30 UT:  the radio 
data in Fig. 2 show a fine peak at 19:30 UT, directly in the time 
interval of Figs. 1 and 3. This remains completely  uncommented in the 
manuscript despite of rough coincidence with the kink in the 1a,1b 
positions.

We trust that the referee did a careful job in going through literatures to
prove that the delayed filament eruption is not a new result.
Unfortunately, he only came out with a book chapter that was published over 
30
years.  We studied the Svestka book carefully, found that it has not
relevance to our study. The book talked about a curved neutral line for a
single event, while our event clearly has two eruption centers. The
attached mpeg TRACE 195A movie demonstrates these two centers clearly, as
well as the eruption of filament is related to heating of a hot loop. All
Svestka discussed is the dynamics of separating ribbons along a curved 
neutral line.


"The whole discussion would be on a much safer ground if the ribbon 
evolution would be carefully compared with the magnetic flux 
distribution. I recomnmend the authors to do it    (MDI)."

Reply
This is not relavent to the main conclusion of the paper.


"I am surprised about an evident discrepancy in the Summary and 
Discussion. Here the authors suggest a magnetic connection AD and BC 
as a start configuration for the flare (if I understood correctly the 
third sentence before the end). On the other hand, they show in Fig. 2 
that A and B have associated ribbon motion. Moreover, the authors 
claim to have seen the flare core between A and B (Figs. 1 and 5). So: 
what is true? I can not see in the paper that the authors have much 
argument for the discussion with regard to the points C and D. The 
whole discussion of the loop brightening near the later destabilized 
filament F  and references to ongoing reconnection is vague, at least 
for the referee."

Reply:
The referee probably is unaware of the Moore's tether-cutting model, where 
the flare core may be later linked to moving ribbon. This is actually the 
NEW thing unmentioned by others, e.g., Svestka's previous obs."


"I believe it was a bad decision of the authors to skip the RHESSI 
imaging data (the old Fig. 2). May be its careful analysis helps to 
better understand the presented (and not yet properly explained) data."


Reply:
Because the referee had objection to the loop connection issue 
based on the Hessi image, thus what we did is what he wanted, i.e., 
to concentrate our discussion on event evolution. Because hessi 
entered into night at 19:20:30, we do not think that Hessi can provide more 
helpful information for this event.


"I suggest to show in Fig. 5 a reference field so that the reader can 
be convinced that the transversal field is really changing only in the 
box drawn in Fig. 1."

Reply:
This can be done easily and we have data to prove. However, because of the 
page limit, we want to wait for the second referee's comments to see if 
other more important things need to be added.