“Pshaw!” said John Brown. Mr Curtis was the other attorney in Carlingford, the one whom probably Mrs Christian had in her mind when she threatened him with her solicitor. He laughed to himself angrily as he went down-stairs. If he was to undertake this troublesome business, at least he was not going to be hampered by a parcel of furious women. When he had locked up everything and was leaving the house, Nancy threw open an upper window and threw a malediction after him. “You’ll never find her! It’ll go back to them as it belongs to,” shouted Nancy. He smiled to himself again as he turned away. Was it possible that John Brown began to think it might be as well if he never did find her? The prophecy certainly was not unpleasant to him, though poor Nancy meant it otherwise. Mr Brown hurried up the monotonous side of Grove Street, we are afraid not without a little private exhilaration in the thought that Phœbe Thomson was not unlike the proverbial needle in the bundle of hay. The chances were she was dead years ago; and though he would neither lose a minute in beginning, nor leave any means unused in pursuing the search for her, it was certain he would not be inconsolable if he never heard any more of Phœbe Thomson. Doubtless he would not have acknowledged as much in words, and did not even have any express confidences with himself on the subject, lest his own mind might have been shocked by the disclosure of its involuntary sentiment. Still he took an interest in Mrs Thomson’s bequest, greater than he took in the properties intrusted to him by his other clients. He could not help himself. He felt affectionately interested in that twenty thousand pounds.