So saying, John Brown thrust his hands into his pockets, shrugged up his shoulders, and went off at a startling pace up the quiet street. It was a very quiet street in the outskirts of a very quiet little town. The back of the house which they had just left was on a line with the road--a blank wall, broken only by one long staircase-window. The front was to the garden, entering by a little side-gate, through which the indignant executor had just hurried, crunching the gravel under his rapid steps. A line of such houses, doleful and monotonous, with all the living part of them concealed in their gardens, formed one side of the street along which he passed so rapidly. The other side consisted of humbler habitations, meekly contented to look at their neighbours’ back-windows. When John Brown had shot far ahead of his late companions, who followed together, greatly interested in this new subject of talk, his rapid course was interrupted for a moment. Bessie Christian came running across the street from one of the little houses. She had no bonnet on, and her black dress made her blonde complexion and light hair look clearer and fairer than ever; and when the lawyer drew up all at once to hear what she had to say, partly from compassion, partly from curiosity, it did not fail to strike him how like a child she was, approaching him thus simply with her message. “Oh, Mr Brown,” cried Bessie, out of breath, “I want to speak to you. If you will ask Nancy, I am sure she can give you whatever information is to be had about--about aunt’s friends. She has been with aunt all her life. I thought I would tell you in case you might think, after what mamma said------” “I did not think anything about it,” said Mr Brown. “That we knew something, and would not tell you; but we don’t know anything,” said Bessie. “I never heard of Phœbe Thomson before.” Mr Brown shrugged up his shoulders higher than ever, and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “Thank you,” he said, a little ungraciously. “I should have spoken to Nancy, of course, in any case; but I’m sure its very kind of you to take the trouble--good-by.”