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I'm reading a short story called 『つめたいよるに』. This girl was crying on the train
to work, so another passenger (the 少年 below) invited her for a coffee.

> 公衆電話からアルバイト先に電話をして、風邪をひいたので休ませていただきます、と言ったのを聞いていた **とみえて**
> 、私がテーブルにもどると、「じゃあ、きょうは一日ひまなんだ」 少年はぶっきらぼうに言った。

I've not encountered ～とみえる before, but even after looking up the meaning
(another variant of "seems, looks like", I think), I'm still not sure what
meaning it brings to this sentence.

Is ～とみえる related to ～に見える?
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2014-11-16T18:58:34.500
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2014-11-17T04:14:41.633
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grammar usage
Why is ～とみえる used here?
Yes, this 終止形+とみえる (or と見える) is another variant of ように見える ("it seems", "it
looks like"). It's a literary expression, so we don't usually use it in
conversations.

～と言ったのを聞いていたとみえる is "It seems he (=少年) heard I had said ～", where "～" here is
"風邪を引いたので休ませていただきます". He said "きょうは一日ひまなんだ", because he was listening to the
phone call (of "I") and knew "I" was going to take the day off that day.
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2014-11-16T21:29:50.947
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_"So you are free all day today?" When I was back to the table he said
bluntly, presumably hearing I talk to the phone that I caught a cold and was
going to take the day off ._

I think と-みえる/と-みえて is best alternated with ようだ/ようで or らしい/らしく, so in this
case:

  * 風邪をひいたので休ませていただきます、と言ったのを聞いていたようで、
  * 風邪をひいたので休ませていただきます、と言ったのを聞いていたらしく、

To the last question: Yes, both とみえる and に見える contains 見える "to seem, look
(like), be visible", an intransitive counterpart of the transitive 見る "to see,
look at", though as for とみえる/とみえて, I recommend you to memorize it as an idiom.
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