was pressing. Her sister
Rachel, although the tears stood in her eyes, said nothing to
dissuade her.

Nor indeed was there much time for discussion then, for the Master
Builder looked in at that moment with a face full of concern. He
brought the news that fresh revelations were being hourly made as
to the terrible rapidity with which the plague was spreading in the
parishes without the walls; and he added that even the gay and
giddy Court had been at last alarmed, and that the King had been
heard to say he should quit Whitehall and retire with his Court and
his minions to Oxford in the course of a week or a fortnight,
unless matters became speedily much better.

"Ay, that is ever the way," said Harmer, sternly. "The reckless
monarch and his licentious Court draw down upon the city the wrath
of God in judgment of their wickedness, and those who have provoked
the judgment flee from the peril, leaving the poor of the city to
perish like sheep."

"Well, well, well; fine folks like change, and it is easy for them
to go elsewhere. I would do the same, perchance, were I so placed,"
said the Master Builder; "but we men of business must stick to our
work as long as it sticks to us.

"What about your mistress, Lady Scrope, Dorcas? Has she said aught
of leaving London? She is one who could easily fly. Not but what I
trust the distemper will be kept well out of the city by the care
taken."

"She has spoken no word of any such thing," answered Dorcas. "She
reads and hears all that is spoken about the plague, and makes my
blood run cold by the stories she tells of it in other lands, and
during other outbreaks which she can remember. Methinks sometimes
the very hair on my head is standing up in the affright her words
bring me. But she only laughs and mocks, and calls me a little
poltroon. I trow that she would never fly; it would not be like
her."

"Men and women do many things unlike themselves in stress of
particular and deadly peril," said the Master Builder. "Lady Scrope
would do well to consider leaving whilst the city has so good a
bill of health; it may be less easy by-and-by, should the distemper
spread."

"Thou canst speak to her of this thing, Reuben, when thou dost see
her on the morrow," observed his father. "Perchance she has not
considered the peril of being detained if she puts off flight too
long."

Reuben said he would name the matter to the lady; and when Dorcas
set forth upon the morrow for her daily