He found the place easily enough. It was still a circulating-library and reading-room, and as he lingered before the gaily decorated window, Eustace Thorburn could fancy that nameless stranger, who dated his letters from the George, peering between the lithographs and sheets of music in the hope of seeing Celia Mayfield’s fair young face. “Why could not an honest man have fallen in love with her?” he asked himself, savagely. “Why must it needs be a villain who was first to discover the charm of her innocent beauty?” He went into the shop. There was a girl sitting behind the counter, half hidden by a high desk, and busy with some shred of needlework. The young man pictured his mother sitting in the same spot, and all of a sudden the face and figure of the girl grew dim and blurred before his eyes. He was fain to look about him for a few moments, as if seeking some special object, before he could trust himself to speak. Then he asked for some stationery, and contrived to occupy the girl for a considerable time, while he selected what he wanted, and questioned her about the townsfolk. “Was there any person of the name of Kimber still living in Bayham?” he asked. The girl told him that there were several Kimbers: Mr. Kimber, the plumber, in New Street; Mr. Kimber, the house-agent, at the corner of the Parade; and Kimber and Willows, the drapers, in High Street. “The person I wish to find is, or was, a Miss Kimber--Sarah Kimber,” said Eustace; “and I believe her father was a draper.” “Ah!” exclaimed the damsel; “then that is the Miss Kimber who married Mr. Willows. Mr. Willows was head-assistant to old Mr. Kimber, who died five years ago. He left all his money and his business to Miss Kimber--being his only daughter, you see, sir; and as soon as she left off her mourning, she married Mr. Willows. He is a very handsome man, Mr. Willows, and nearly ten years younger than Miss Kimber that was, and they do say Mr. and Mrs. Willows do not live happily together.” Eustace went straight from the library to the establishment of Messrs. Kimber and Willows. It was a big, glaring shop, with a great deal of plate-glass and gilding, and a gaudy display of dresses and ribbons, bonnets and parasols. A smirking young man pounced immediately upon the stranger, asking what he might please to want; and by him Eustace was conducted to Mrs. Willows, who sat at a desk at the end of the shop, in a perfect bower of ribbons and millinery. She was attended by a bevy of damsels, who were busied in the construction of caps and bonnets, and whom she addressed with extreme acidity of tone and manner. She was not a pleasant-looking person; and if old Mr. Kimber’s money had changed into withered leaves on her inheritance of it, she could scarcely have seemed to have profited less by the dead man’s wealth, so pinched and hungry was her aspect.