Where were they to go next?  Bessie recollected that her uncle Laurence lived in the vicinity of the minster, and that she had an errand to him from her grandfather.  She had undertaken it cheerfully, feeling that it would be a pleasure to see her kind uncle Laurence again.  There was a warmth of geniality about him that was absent from her uncle Frederick and her grandfather, and she had decided that if she was to have any friend amongst her kinsfolk, her uncle Laurence would be that friend.  She was sure that her father, whom she barely knew, had been most like him.

It was not far to Minster Court, and they directed their steps that way.  The streets of Norminster still preserve much of their picturesque antiquity, but they are dull, undeniably dull, except on the occasion of assizes, races, fairs, and the annual assembling of the yeomanry and militia.  Elections are no more the saturnalia they used to be in the good old times.  Bessie was reminded of Bayeux and its sultry drowsiness as they passed into the green purlieus of the minster and under a low-browed archway into a spacious paved court, where the sun slept on the red-brick backs of the old houses.  Mr. Laurence Fairfax’s door was in the most remote corner, up a semi-circular flight of steps, guarded on either side by an iron railing.

As the two ladies approached the steps a young countrywoman came down them, saying in a mingled strain of persuasion and threat, “Come, Master Justus:  if you don’t come along this minute, I’ll tell your granma.”  And a naughty invisible voice made an answer with lisping defiance, “Well, go, Sally, go.  Be quick! go before your shoes wear out.”

Mrs. Stokes, rounding her pretty eyes and pretty mouth, cried softly, “Oh, what a very rude little boy!” And the very rude little boy appeared in sight, hustled coaxingly behind by the stout respectable housekeeper of Mr. Laurence Fairfax.  When he saw the strange ladies he stood stock-still and gazed at them as bold as Hector, and they gazed at him again in mute amazement—­a cherub of four years old or thereabouts, with big blue eyes and yellow curls.  When he had satisfied himself with gazing, he descended the steps and set off suddenly at a run for the archway.  The housekeeper had a flushed, uneasy smile on her face as she recognized Mrs. Stokes—­a smile of amused consternation, which the little lady’s shocked grimace provoked.  Bessie herself laughed in looking at her again, and the housekeeper rallied her composure enough to say, “Oh, the self-will and naughtiness there is in boys, ma’am!  But you know it, having boys of your own!”

“Too well, Mrs. Burrage, too well!  Is Mr. Laurence Fairfax at home?”

“I am sorry to say that he is not, ma’am.  May I make bold to ask if the young lady is Miss Fairfax from Abbotsmead, that was expected?”