le see from one
year's end to another. Meat, eggs, butter, and much else were too cheap
to make it necessary.

So Alice and Rachel arranged their provisions thus: every two days they
sent for two pounds of mutton, which cost some days a farthing, and some
a halfpenny; twelve little loaves of bread, at 2 pence; a pint and a
half of claret, or a quart of ale, cost 2 pence more. The halfpenny,
which was at times to spare, they spent on four eggs, a few rashers of
bacon, or a roll of butter, the price of which was fourpence-halfpenny
the gallon. Sometimes it went for salt, an expensive article at that
time. Now and then they varied their diet from mutton to beef; but of
this they could get only half the quantity for their halfpenny. On
fish-days, then rigidly observed, of course they bought fish instead of
meat. For a fortnight they kept up this practice, which to them seemed
far more of a hardship than it would to us; they were accustomed to a
number of elaborate dishes, with rich sauces, in most of which wine was
used; and mere bread and meat, or even bread and butter, seemed very
poor, rough eating. Perhaps, if our ancestors had been content with
simpler cookery, their children in the present day would have had less
trouble with doctors' bills.

Roger Hall visited his sister, as he had said, on Saint Edmund's Day,
the sixteenth of November. He found her calm, and even cheerful, very
much pleased with her father's message and gift, and concerned that Mary
should follow her directions to make Mr Benden comfortable. That she
forgave him she never said in words, but all her actions said it
strongly. Roger had to curb his own feelings as he promised to take the
message to this effect which Alice sent to Mary. But Alice could pretty
well see through his face into his heart, and into Mary's too; and she
looked up with a smile as she added a few words:--

"Tell Mall," she said, "that if she love me, and would have me yet again
at home, methinks this were her wisest plan."

Roger nodded, and said no more.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

TABITHA'S BASKET.

Of all the persons concerned in our story at this juncture, the least
unhappy was Alice Benden in Canterbury Gaol, and the most miserable was
Edward Benden at Briton's Mead. His repentance was longer this time in
coming, but his suffering and restlessness certainly were not so. He
tried all sorts of ways to dispel them in vain. First, he attempted to
lose himself in