,
seeking a quiet corner. He found one in a square among some warehouses,
and standing, pulled out the copy he had made from the register. It was
neither on the first nor the second entry, however, that his eyes
dwelled, while the hand that held the paper shook as with the ague. It
was the third fascinated him:--

'_September 19th,_' it ran, '_at the Bee in Steep Street, Julia,
daughter of Anthony and Julia Soane of Estcombe, aged three, and buried
the 21st of the month_.'

Mr. Fishwick read it thrice, his lips quivering; then he slowly drew
from a separate pocket a little sheaf of papers, frayed at the corners,
and soiled with much and loving handling. He selected from these a slip;
it was one of those which Mr. Thomasson had surprised on the table in
the room at the Castle Inn. It was a copy of the attestation of birth
'of Julia, daughter of Anthony Soane, of Estcombe, England, and Julie
his wife'; the date, August, 1747; the place, Dunquerque.

The Attorney drew a long quivering breath, and put the papers up again,
the packet in the place from which he had taken it, the extract from the
Bristol register in another pocket. Then, after drawing one or two more
sighs as if his heart were going out of him, he looked dismally upwards
as in protest against heaven. At length he turned and went back to the
thoroughfare, and there, with a strangely humble air, asked a passer-by
the nearest way to Steep Street.

The man directed him; the place was near at hand. In two minutes Mr.
Fishwick found himself at the door of a small but decent grocer's shop,
over the portal of which a gilded bee seemed to prognosticate more
business than the fact performed. An elderly woman, stout and
comfortable-looking, was behind the counter. Eyeing the attorney as he
came forward, she asked him what she could do for him, and before he
could answer reached for the snuff canister.

He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah
mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there.

'Twenty-six years, sir,' she answered heartily, 'Old Style. For the New,
I don't hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am
sure it brought me no profit,' she continued, rubbing her nose. 'I have
buried a good husband and two children since they gave it us!'

'Still, I suppose people died Old Style?' the lawyer ventured.

'Well, well, may be.'

'There was a death in this house seventeen years gone this