“Why should Dorcas not come?” asked Mary quickly.  “My brother spoke of bringing all.”

“I was wondering if Lady Scrope would be willing to spare her,” was the reply.  “She is fond of Dorcas in her way, and is used to her.  She might not be willing she should go, and she is very determined when her mind is made up.”

“Yet I think she has a kind heart in spite of all her odd ways,” said Mary Harmer; “I scarce think she would keep the girl pining there alone.  But we shall see.  My wonder would rather be if Janet and Rebecca could get free from the other house where the children are kept.”

“Father said that that house was to be emptied soon.  The Lord Mayor is making many wise regulations for the support of those left destitute by the plague.  Large sums of money kept flowing in all the while the scourge lasted.  The king sent large contributions, and other wealthy men followed his example.  There be many widows left alone and desolate, and these are to have a sum of money and certain orphan children to care for.  All that will be settled speedily; for who knows when my Lady Scrope’s house may not be wanted by the tenant who ran away in such hot haste months ago?  It will need purifying, too, and directions will shortly be issued, I take it, for the right purification of infected houses.

“My sisters will soon get their burdens off their hands.  It is time they had a change; they were looking worn and tired even before I left the city.”

“They are coming! they are coming!  They are just here!” shouted Joseph and Benjamin in one breath, coming rushing down from a vantage post up to which they had climbed in one of the great elm trees.  “They must all be there—­every one of them!  It is like a caravan along the road; but I know it is they, for we saw father leading a horse, and mother was riding it—­with such a lot of bags and bundles!”

The next minute the caravan hove in sight through the windings of the lane, and three minutes later there was such a confusion of welcomes going on that nothing intelligible could be said on either side; nor was it until the whole party was assembled round the table in Mary Harmer’s pleasant kitchen, ready to do justice to the good cheer provided, that any kind of conversation could be attempted.

The sisters felt like prisoners released.  They laughed and cried as they danced about the garden in the twilight, stooping down to lay their faces against the cool, wet grass, and drinking in the scented air as though it were something to be tasted by palate and tongue.

“It is so beautiful! it is so wonderful!” they kept exclaiming one to the other, and the quaint, rambling cottage, with its bare floor, and simple, homely comforts, seemed every whit as charming.

Dorcas was there, as well as Janet and Rebecca; and the three sisters, together with Gertrude, were to share a pair of attics with a door of communication between them.