Out of her sphere - University Library

CHECKMATE.
and professional now. It was in a bad
street, for one small house after another
had crept up to it, so that at last it looked
quite out of keeping with its surroundings.
In its day it had been a mansion of some
importance, and inhabited by people con-
nected with the local aristocracy. But
half its garden had been taken away,
and small streets had crept up to its rear,
so that from being one of the quietest
houses in the town, it was now one of the
noisiest.
It suited Mr. Thompson however. The
street being narrow and small, his house
shone out conspicuously — a leviathan
amongst its neighbours—it was impossible
to overlook it, and owing to the constant
stream of traffic passing by, equally im-
possible for a great many people not to be
aware that ' Lawyer' Thompson, as many of
the dwellers in St. Bede's were apt to term
its legal practitioners, lived there. Every