The day was lovely, the sky of the deepest blue; the sun seemed to be brightening every corner of the whole town, and making the flowers blink and brighten, and the sparrows that haunted the eaves to be in a state of the greatest excitement. King's Castor had never looked more quaintly picturesque and homelike, more the beau-ideal of an old English country town, from the coaching inn with yellow post-chaise outside, and the blue-jacketed postboy with his unnecessarily knotted whip, down to the vegetable stall at the corner of the market, where old Mrs Dims sat on an ancient rush-bottomed chair, with her feet in a brown earthenware bread-pancheon to keep them dry. Mrs Pinet's flower-pots were so red that they seemed like the blossoms of her plants growing unnaturally beneath the leaves, and her window, and every one else's panes, shone and glittered with the true country brilliancy in the morning sun. Even the grass looked green growing between the cobble-stones--those pebbles that gave the town the aspect that, being essentially pastoral, the inhabitants had decided, out of compliment to their farm neighbours, to pave it with sheep's kidneys. But there was one blot upon it--one ugly scar, where the yellow deal boards had been newly nailed up, and the walls and window-frames were blackened with smoke; and it was when passing these ruins of her home that Millicent Hallam first shuddered, and then drew herself up to walk firmly by. "Ah!" said Gorringe, making his shears click, "you wouldn't feel happy if you didn't know what was going on, would you, neighbour?" "Eh? Know? Of course not. If it hadn't been for me looking after the bank, where would you have all been, eh?" Gemp spoke savagely, and pointed at the tailor as if he were going to bore a hole in his chest. "Well, p'r'aps you did some good there, Master Gemp; but if you'd take my advice, you'd go home and keep yoursen quiet. I wouldn't get excited about nothing, if I was you." "Humph! No, you wouldn't, Master Gorringe; but some folk is different to others," said Gemp, talking away from the doorway, with his head outside, as he peered down the street. "Hey! look at 'em now!--the curiosity of these women folk! Here's owd Mother Pinet with her neck stretched out o' window, and Barton at the shop, and Cross at the `Chequers,' and Dawson the carrier, all got their heads out, staring after that woman. Now, where's she going, I wonder?" Old Gemp stumped back into the shop, shaving away at his cheek. "She can't be going over to Lindum to see Hallam, because she went yesterday." The tailor's shears clicked as a corner was taken out of a piece of cloth. "She ain't going up to the doctor's, because he drove by half-an-hour ago with the owd lady." Another click. "Can't be going for a walk. Wouldn't go for a walk at a time like this. I've often wondered why folk do go for walks, Master Gorringe. I never did." _Click_!