rying down the passage leading to the yard, he
found Lydyard, to whom he recounted his ill-success.

"I shall not, however, abandon my design," he said. "These failures are
only incentives to further exertion."

"In the meantime, you must pay your wager to Sedley," laughed Lydyard,
"and as the house is really infected with the plague, it behoves you to
call at the first apothecary's shop we find open, and get your apparel
fumigated. You must not neglect due precautions."

"True," replied Wyvil, "and as I feel too restless to go home at
present, suppose we amuse ourselves by calling on some astrologer, to
see whether the stars are favourable to my pursuit of this girl."

"A good idea," replied Lydyard. "There are plenty of the 'Sons of
Urania,' as they term themselves, hereabouts.

"A mere juggler will not serve my turn," returned Wyvil.

"William Lilly, the almanack-maker, who predicted the plague, and, if
old Rowley is to be believed, has great skill in the occult sciences,
lives somewhere in Friday-street, not a stone's throw from this place.
Let us go and find him out."

"Agreed," replied Lydyard.

V.

THE POMANDER-BOX.

Any doubts entertained by Leonard Holt as to the manner in which his
rival entered the house, were removed by discovering the open window in
the passage and the rope-ladder hanging to the yard-wall. Taking the
ladder away, and making all as secure as he could, he next seized his
cudgel, and proceeded to Blaize's room, with the intention of inflicting
upon him the punishment he had threatened: for he naturally enough
attributed to the porter's carelessness all the mischief that had just
occurred. Not meeting with him, however, and concluding he was in the
kitchen, he descended thither, and found him in such a pitiable plight,
that his wrath was instantly changed to compassion.

Stretched upon the hearth before a blazing sea-coal fire, which seemed
large enough to roast him, with his head resting upon the lap of
Patience, the pretty kitchen-maid, and his left hand upon his heart, the
porter loudly complained of a fixed and burning pain in that region;
while his mother, who was kneeling beside him, having just poured a
basin of scalding posset-drink down his throat, entreated him to let her
examine his side to see whether he had any pestilential mark upon it,
but he vehemently resisted her efforts.

"Do you feel any swelling, myn lief zoon?" asked old Josyna, trying to
remove his hand.