“Other things would have had to be spared as well,” said Mrs. Fennell, in her taunting voice. “I should have known what was my own and what was not, and my children would have been in no false position,” said Mr. Brownlow, with energy: “but now--” Here he stopped short, and his looks alarmed his companion, unsympathetic as she was. She loved to have this means of taunting and keeping down his pride, as she said; but her grandchildren’s advantage was to a certain extent her own, and the thought of injury to them was alarming, and turned her thoughts into another channel. She took fright at the idea of Phœbe Thomson when she saw Mr. Brownlow’s face. It was the first time it had ever occurred to her as possible that he, a gentleman, a lawyer, and a clever man, might possibly have after all to give up to Phœbe Thomson should that poor and despised woman ever turn up. “But she couldn’t take the law of you?” Mrs. Fennell said, with a gasp. “She wouldn’t know any thing about it. I may talk disagreeable by times, and I own that we never were fond of each other, you and I, John Brownlow; but I’m not the woman that would ever let on to her, to harm my poor Bessie’s children--not I--not if she was to come back this very day.” It is useless to deny that Mr. Brownlow’s face at that moment looked as if he would have liked to strangle the old woman; but he only made an indignant movement, and looked at her with rage and indignation, which did her no harm. And, poor man, in his excitement perhaps it was not quite true what he himself said-- “If she should come back this very day, it would be your duty to send her to me instantly, that I might give up her mother’s trust into her hands,” he said. “You may be sure I will never permit poor Bessie’s children to enjoy what belongs to another.” And then he made a pause and his voice changed. “After all, I suppose you know just as little of her as I do. Did you ever see her?” he said. “Well, no; I can’t say I ever did,” said Mrs. Fennell, cowed for the moment. “Nor Nancy?” said Mr. Brownlow; “you two would be safe guides certainly. And you know of nobody else who left the Isle of Man and married--no relation of Fennell’s or of yours?” “Nobody I know of,” said the old woman after a pause. “There might be dozens; but us and the Thomsons and all belonging to us, we’ve been out of the Isle of Man for nigh upon fifty years.”