restrain her tears, and between laughing, crying, and repeating in
astonished snatches the words of explanation which fell from
Joseph's lips, she made such an unwonted commotion in the
ordinarily silent house, that soon the tap of a stick could have
been heard by ears less preoccupied coming down the stairs and
along the passage, and the door was pushed open to admit the little
upright figure of the mistress of the house.

"Hoity toity! art thou bereft of thy senses, child? What in
fortune's name means all this?

"Boy, who art thou? and what dost thou here? A brother, forsooth!
Come with some news, perchance? Well, well, well; how goes it in
the city? Are any left alive? They say at the rate we are going
now, it will take but a month more to destroy the city even as
Sodom was destroyed!"

"O madam," cried Dorcas dashing away her tears, and turning an
eager face towards the witch-like old woman, who in her silk gown,
hooped and looped up, her fine lace cap and mittens, and her ebony
stick with its ivory head, looked the impersonation of a fairy
godmother, "this is my brother Joseph, and he comes with welcome
tidings. My brother Reuben is not dead, albeit he has in truth been
smitten by the plague. Joseph found him yesterday in the pest house
just beyond Clerkenwell; and he is in a fair way to recover, if his
mind can but be set at rest.

"Oh what news this will be for our parents!--for the girls!--for
Gertrude! Oh how we have mourned and wept together; and now we
shall rejoice with full hearts!"

"Has Mistress Gertrude mourned for him too?" asked Joseph eagerly.
"Marry that is good hearing, for I have wondered all this while
whether I should obtain the grace from her for which I have come."

"And what is that, young man?" asked Lady Scrope, tapping her cane
upon the ground as much as to say that in her own house she was not
going to take a secondary place, and that conversation was to be
addressed to her. Joseph turned to her at once and answered:

"Verily, good madam, my aunt has sent me hither to fetch Mistress
Gertrude forthwith to his side. She says that he calls ceaselessly
upon her, and that unless he can see her beside him he may yet die
of the disappointment and trouble, albeit the plague is stayed in
his case, and it is but the fever of weakness that is upon him. She
thinks it will not hurt her to come, if so be that it is as we
hope, and that she has in her heart for him the same love as he has
for