These words overtook, rather than were addressed to, him as he hurried off indignant. John Brown was not supposed to be an observant person, but somehow he saw the genteel people of Carlingford about the streets that day in a surprisingly distinct manner--saw them eager to get a little occupation for themselves anyhow--saw them coming out for their walks, and their shopping, and their visits, persuading themselves by such means that they were busy people, virtuously employed, and making use of their life. What was Bessie doing? Mr Brown thought he would like to see her, and that he would not like to see her. It was painful to think of being anyhow connected with an arrangement which condemned to that continued labour such a young soft creature--a creature so like, and yet so unlike, those other smiling young women who were enjoying their youth. And just because it was painful Mr Brown could not take his thoughts off that subject. If Phœbe Thomson turned up he should certainly try to induce her to do something for the relations whom her mother had disappointed so cruelly. If Phœbe Thomson did not turn up--well, what then?--if she didn’t? Mr Brown could not tell: it would be his duty to do something. But, in the mean time, he did nothing except shake his fist at young Rider’s drag as it whirled the doctor past to his patients, and repeat the “shabby fellow!” of last night with an air of disgust. John Brown had become very popular just at that moment; all his friends invited him to dinner, and dropped in to hear about this story which had electrified Carlingford. And all over the town the unknown entity called Phœbe Thomson was discussed in every possible kind of hypothesis, and assumed a different character in the hands of every knot of gossips. Nobody thought of Bessie Christian; but more and more as nobody thought of her, that light little figure running across the quiet street, and wanting to speak to him, impressed itself like a picture upon the retentive but not very fertile imagination of Mrs Thomson’s executor. It troubled, and vexed, and irritated, and unsettled him. One little pair of willing hands--one little active cheerful soul--and all the burden of labour, and patience, and dread monotony of life that God had allotted to that pretty creature; how it could be, and nobody step in to prevent it, was a standing marvel to John Brown. CHAPTER IV.