"Master Brandon, your impudence in following us shall cost you dearly.
We do not desire your company, and will thank you to leave us to our
own affairs, as we wish you to attend exclusively to yours."

This from the girl who had given him so much within less than a week!
Poor Brandon!

Jane, who had called him up, and was the cause of his following them,
began to weep.

"Sir," said she, "forgive me; it was not my fault; she had just
said--" Slap! came Mary's hand on Jane's mouth; and Jane was marched
off, weeping bitterly.

The girls had started up toward East Cheap when they left Grouche's,
intending to go home by an upper route, and now they walked rapidly in
that direction. Brandon continued to follow them, notwithstanding what
Mary had said, and she thanked him and her God ever after that he did.

They had been walking not more than five minutes, when, just as the
girls turned a corner into a secluded little street, winding its way
among the fish warehouses, four horsemen passed Brandon in evident
pursuit of them. Brandon hurried forward, but before he reached the
corner heard screams of fright, and as he turned into the street
distinctly saw that two of the men had dismounted and were trying to
overtake the fleeing girls. Fright lent wings to their feet, and their
short skirts affording freedom to their limbs, they were giving the
pursuers a warm little race, screaming at every step to the full limit
of their voices. How they did run and scream! It was but a moment till
Brandon came up with the pursuers, who, all unconscious that they in