‘Why, he had courted me!’ was the good-tempered answer.  ’You don’t know much if you don’t know that.  Then my good man came along and I liked him better, and Jim went into service and married Oxfordshire way.  But when he came to Bristol after his journey in foreign parts, ’twas natural he should come to see me; and my husband, who was always easy, would keep him a day or two—­more’s the pity, for in twenty-four hours the child he had with him began to sicken, and died.  And never was man in such a taking, though he swore the child was not his, but one he had adopted to serve a gentleman in trouble; and because his wife had none.  Any way, it was buried along with my lodger, and nothing would serve but he must adopt the child she had left.  It seemed ordained-like, they being of an age, and all.  And I had two children to care for, and was looking for another that never came; and the mother had left no more than buried her with a little help.  So he took it with him, and we heard from him once or twice, how it fared, and that his wife took to it, and the like; and then—­well, writing’s a burden.  But,’ with renewed interest, ’she’s a well-grown girl by now, I guess?’

‘Yes,’ the attorney answered absently, ‘she—­she’s a well-grown girl.’

‘And is poor Jim’s wife alive?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah,’ the good woman answered, looking thoughtfully into the street.’  If she were not—­I’d think about taking to the girl myself.  It’s lonely at times without chick or child.  And there’s the shop to tend.  She could help with that.’

The attorney winced.  He was looking ill; wretchedly ill.  But he had his back to the light, and she remarked nothing save that he seemed to be a sombre sort of body and poor company.  ‘What was the Frenchman’s name?’ he asked after a pause.

‘Parry,’ said she.  And then, sharply, ‘Don’t they call her by it?’

‘It has an English sound,’ he said doubtfully, evading her question.

‘That is the way he called it.  But it was spelled Pare, just Pare.’

‘Ah,’ said Mr. Fishwick.  ‘That explains it.’  He wondered miserably why he had asked what did not in the least matter; since, if she were not a Soane, it mattered not who she was.  After an interval he recovered himself with a sigh.  ‘Well, thank you,’ he continued, ’I am much obliged to you.  And now—­for the moment—­good-morning, ma’am.  I must wish you good-morning,’ he repeated, hurriedly; and took up his snuff.

‘But that is not all?’ the good woman exclaimed in astonishment.  ’At any rate you’ll leave your name?’

Mr. Fishwick pursed up his lips and stared at her gloomily.  ‘Name?’ he said at last.  ’Yes, ma’am, certainly.  Brown.  Mr. Peter Brown, the—­the Poultry—­’

‘The Poultry!’ she cried, gaping at him helplessly.

’Yes, the Poultry, London.  Mr. Peter Brown, the Poultry, London.  And now I have other business and shall—­shall return another day.  I must wish you good-morning, ma’am, Good-morning.’  And thrusting his face into his hat, Mr. Fishwick bundled precipitately into the street, and with singular recklessness made haste to plunge into the thickest of the traffic, leaving the good woman in a state of amazement.