see, till the plague comes and frees us, and that won't be long, as men say."

Some gentle words of kindness melted this rough mood. Ralph Tennison turned away his head, and faltered in his speech; for what he said was true-they were stationary between famine and the plague, all the more liable to the attack of the one, because they were weakened by the other.

The wives came to the doors, one by one, as they perceived Edith. She inquired after the health of their families-the inquiry meant something in those days—and gave them money. They received it in eager joy and gratitude. A little longer she remained with them; and giving them gentle counsel, and one kind word of warning more solemn than that, went on her further way.

The next name on her list was that of Robert Turner, an old man with a large family of daughters, who had earned his bread by working for a famous and fashionable manufacturer of furniture, patronized by the luxurious courtiers of Charles. The door was jealously closed when she reached the house. Edith knocked gently. The eldest of the daughters, a faded, thin, pale woman, growing old, cautiously opened it, and, holding it ajar, stood, as it seemed, guarding the entrance.

"Are you all well, Dorothy? We have newly come home again, and I called to see you," said Edith, with some shyness.

66

"I thank you, Mistress Edith, we are well," said Dorothy, gravely; "and even right glad we were, for all so sad as the cause is, to see your good father in his own place once more."

"But they tell me this great pestilence is bringing trouble on you, Dorothy," began Edith, with embarrass

ment.

"And if it bring trouble, Mistress Edith, we must e'en seek strength to bear it," said the woman, with a spasmodic motion of the head. "I know not that we have been heard to complain.”

"Nay, nay, I meant not so," said Edith; "it was, I heard-and pray you think I only speak of it in all kindness-I heard that because the great masters and the court were flying from town, there was like to be lack of labor, and perchance want; and so I came to say, Dorothy, that if you wanted aught, or your father, or your sisters, that I have wherewith to help you; and that was all."

"And truly I crave your pardon, Mistress Edith," said Dorothy, her features moving hysterically, "if I did speak in haste, not thinking what I said-for it is a sad time--ay, doubtless, a time of great fear, and trouble, and darkness; and it is true that Master Featherstone has gone away, and there is no more work for us; and our Phoebe, who was in the great house, up by Westminster, has come home to us this morning, because her lady hath fled into Kent, and could not take all her women with her; and without doubt it is a hard time. I will think upon your kindness, Mistress Edith, and heartily thank you, that had the thought of coming to us, who deserved not any remembrance at your hands: but now, I thank Providence, we need not any thing. God forgive me! I meant of silver or goldfor we have yet enough of that; and truly for such things as health and safety, they are not to be got in mortal gift."

D*

"But you have not heard of the distemper coming hither, Dorothy?" asked Edith.

"The Almighty knows; who can answer for it, whether it will come or stay."

"Dorothy!" cried a sharp voice in the passage behind her, shrill and broken with excitement and fear, "look to Phoebe. Lord have mercy! what is coming upon us?"

"It is naught," said Dorothy, with forced composure, looking fixedly in Edith's face. "She is grieved for the loss of her mistress, foolish girl, and hath made her head ache with weeping. I thank you heartily, Mistress Edith, and bid you good-morrow.”

The door was closed; with a thrill of fear, which she could not suppress, Edith went on.

The day was considerably advanced before she returned home. She had met with much poverty, but no traces of the pestilence, and had been followed by many thanks and blessings from miserable households to whom her gifts imparted some new hope. She found her father busied with plans for his especial work, and beside him lay another letter from Master Godliman, intimating that his gift should be renewed from time to time. All that these men could do of Christian zeal and liberality, patience and fortitude, were at work to mitigate the severity of the judgment, and they did much; but what was it all before the mighty advancing tide of God's wrath and vengeance?

CHAPTER VI.

"The tokened pestilence

Where death is sure."

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

THE next day-this time with a little less excitement, a quieter knowledge of what was likely to be required of her, Edith Field again went forth to her labor. In so little time as the one previous day, Dame Rogers had bewailed herself into familiarity with the danger to which the young lady was exposed, and roused to the honor of having so beneficent a visitor issuing from her humble nouse, by an application from Alice Saffron, pleading to be received as Mistress Edith's attendant in her missions of charity, Dame Rogers withdrew her interdict, and falteringly bade Mercy go. So, in despite of Edith's reluctance, Mercy Rogers accompanied her on the second day.

Master Field was preaching again in the pulpit of another over-burdened brother, whose eager people craved the word more constantly than one man's strength could administer it. He had been already called to visit many families, still free of the infection but trembling for it, who begged his instructions and sympathy and prayers. The Puritan's hands were full.

Edith and Mercy had gone far and seen many people-much poverty, misery, hopelessness-but nothing yet happily of the plague. Listless want and indolence ripe for it and waiting, some overborne with unmanly terror, some profanely bold, some subdued, penitent, and humble, while every where there was the same fear, every where a deadly certainty of its coming. Much, too, they heard of this stern measure for shutting up infected houses, which the people, in the selfishness of their terror, considered only as a means of safety for themselves and applauded highly, and many stories, often grotesquely horrible, of those frightful details of the pestilence, which the vulgar mind of the time delighted to dwell on.

They had reached the bounds of the city in their visitation; they were returning at last by the high road. A short time before they reached the house of the Turners, at which Edith had called the previous day, they met a singular group, about whose rear, as they proceeded with some pomp toward London, a little crowd eager and yet afraid, tremulously hovered. The two principal persons wore the garb of respectable citizens; grave, thoughtful, important men. A slight red rod was in the hand of each; and there was a subdued solemnity and pomp about their mien, the importance of office in its first novelty overcoming the fear of the terrible occasion which brought them hither.

"Who are they, Mercy ?" asked Edith, anxiously, as she with difficulty kept her young companion from the crowd.

"Oh! heaven save us the examiners the exam