rolling about
with a downcast and reserved face, turning something difficult in his
mind that was not in the scholastic syllabus. Putting this and that
together--combining under the head 'this,' present appearances and the
intimacy with Charley Hexam, and ranging under the head 'that' the
visit to his sister, the watchman reported to Miss Peecher his strong
suspicions that the sister was at the bottom of it.

'I wonder,' said Miss Peecher, as she sat making up her weekly report on
a half-holiday afternoon, 'what they call Hexam's sister?'

Mary Anne, at her needlework, attendant and attentive, held her arm up.

'Well, Mary Anne?'

'She is named Lizzie, ma'am.'

'She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne,' returned Miss
Peecher, in a tunefully instructive voice. 'Is Lizzie a Christian name,
Mary Anne?'

Mary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind, as being
under catechization, and replied: 'No, it is a corruption, Miss
Peecher.'

'Who gave her that name?' Miss Peecher was going on, from the mere force
of habit, when she checked herself; on Mary Anne's evincing theological
impatience to strike in with her godfathers and her godmothers, and
said: 'I mean of what name is it a corruption?'

'Elizabeth, or Eliza, Miss Peecher.'

'Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in the early Christian
Church must be considered very doubtful, very doubtful.' Miss Peecher
was exceedingly sage here. 'Speaking correctly, we say, then, that
Hexam's sister is called Lizzie; not that she is named so. Do we not,
Mary Anne?'

'We do, Miss Peecher.'

'And where,' pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her little transparent
fiction of conducting the examination in a semiofficial manner for Mary
Anne's benefit, not her own, 'where does this young woman, who is called
but not named Lizzie, live? Think, now, before answering.'

'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank, ma'am.'

'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss Peecher,
as if possessed beforehand of the book in which it was written. Exactly
so. And what occupation does this young woman pursue, Mary Anne? Take
time.'

'She has a place of trust at an outfitter's in the City, ma'am.'

'Oh!' said Miss Peecher, pondering on it; but smoothly added, in a
confirmatory tone, 'At an outfitter's in the City. Ye-es?'

'And Charley--' Mary Anne was proceeding, when Miss Peecher stared.

'I mean Hexam, Miss Peecher.'

'I should