e examined the post.

The letters were in pairs. They were M. B. and G. F.

Her feeling bubbled over in a little half-stifled laugh.

"Silly!" she exclaimed. Then to the boy: "Know you him who cut the
letters?" she asked, with affected indifference.

"Nay, mistress," he replied, falling again to his work, "but he be a
rare un wi' the bottle."

"The bottle!" Phoebe exclaimed, in amazement. Then quite sternly:
"Thou beliest him, knave! No more sober--" She checked herself, suddenly
conscious of her indiscretion.

"Why, how knowest his habits?" she asked, more quietly.

"A saw un, mistress, sitting in the kitchen wi' two bottles o' Spanish
wine. Ask the player else."

"The player! What player?"

"Him as was drinking wi' him. Each cracked his bottle, and 'twas nip and
tuck which should call first for the second."

So Guy had spent the evening--those hours when she was tenderly
dreaming of him with love renewed--drinking and carousing with some
dissolute actor!

Within her Phoebe Wise and Mary Burton struggled for mastery of her
opinion.

What more natural than that a poor lad, tired with waiting on his feet
for hours for one look from the mistress who disdained him, should seek
to forget his troubles quaffing good wine in the company of some witty
player? This was Mary's view.

What! To leave the presence of his sweetheart--the girl to whom he had
just written that penitent letter--to go fresh from the inspiration of
all that should uplift a lover, and befuddle his brains with "rum,"
gossiping with some coarse-grained barn-stormer! So Phoebe railed.

"Who was the player?" she asked, sharply.

"Him as wore the long white beard," said the boy. "The Jew, to wit. Eh,
but a got his cess, the runnion!"

"Shylock!" she cried, in spite of herself.

So this was the gossiping barn-stormer, the dissolute actor. Will
Shakespeare it was with whom her Guy had spent the evening! Phoebe
Wise could but capitulate, and Mary Burton took for a time triumphant
possession of the heart that was Guy Fenton's.

"Have the players left the Peacock?" she asked, eagerly.

"Nay, mistress, know you not that they play to-night at the home of Sir
William Percy?"

"Then they are here, at the inn, boy?"

"A saw him that played the Jew i' the garden not a half hour since. He's
wont to wander there and mutter the words of the play. I'll warrant him
there now, mistress."

Here, indeed, was good fortune! Shakespeare was in the garden