Oliver walked along the High Street afterwards, without happening to meet any save the most casual acquaintances. He passed the Polleys’ shop door, having a glimpse of Mrs. Polley with the purplish flush on her face to which she was liable, fixed in her cheeks, and a certain hard, set turn of the head and jerking activity of movement, as she served her customers. He knew that she would stand and do her work there, though the force she put on herself might involve the danger of her falling behind the counter. But he could not go in then, or for some time to come—not till the sough of the scandal in the family had so far died out, and the bitter mortification its head was experiencing, had partly worn off. Sympathy and condolence were not to be thought of here. They would be a positive insult. But there was nothing to hinder Oliver from repairing to the Dadds’, forgetful of the coolness between him and Jack, or rather spurred on by it to the quicker exercise of old friendship. Oliver found the shop much as it had been described by Sally Pope, forsaken by customers, abandoned to the disheartened journeymen and shop-boys, with the goods either unexposed for sale or lying about in a state of confusion and disorder, which marked the absence or indifference of the masters. For both the Dadds had taken pride in their well-filled, well-kept shop. Friarton was somewhat given to panics in case of dangerous infectious diseases. The undaunted Sister who had brought light above the horizon had not stayed long enough to convert the town to her view of illness. Oliver had barely time to enquire for the patient, when old Dadd hurried out from the back shop and accosted him. It was a relief to distinguish the voice of an old friend who had come voluntarily into the shop and was standing quietly leaning against the counter, instead of fleeing from the place, as if it were a pest-house. It almost exhilarated the stout-hearted old man, who was keeping up bravely, to crack one of his old jokes.