“My heart misgives me sometimes that I was not always so tender a daughter to poor mother as I fain would have been.  May God pardon me in whatever way I may have erred!”

“The error was more hers than thine,” answered the father with a sigh; “and mine too, inasmuch as I checked her not early, as I perchance might have done.  She would have wed thee with some needy and perhaps evil-living gallant, who would have taken thee for thy fortune.  Thou hast done far better to choose such an honest, godly youth as Reuben.  He will make thee an excellent husband.”

“Ah, will he not!” said Gertrude, her face alight with tender love.  “Poor mother did not understand what she was doing in striving to banish him from the house.  But methinks, in the land of spirits all these things are seen aright; and that if it is permitted to the dead to know aught of what passes in the land they have left behind, she will be rejoicing with us today.”

“Heaven send it may be so!  My poor wife,” and the father heaved a great sigh of mixed feelings, “it is well she has not lived to see this end to her schemings to be rich.  At least she is spared the knowledge of her husband’s ruin.”

“Nay, call it not that, dear father.  Master Harmer says that things are beginning to look up again after the terrible visitation, and surely your affairs will look up likewise.”

“In a measure, yes,” he answered.  “I have at least sold the old house for a better sum than I expected; and the purchaser has bought all the rich furniture, save such things as I would not sell for the sake of your poor mother.  These I shall move shortly to your home, my child.  My good friend says that it is hard by his house, so the journey will not be a difficult one.”

“No, father,” answered Gertrude, with glowing cheeks.  “And who has bought the old Bridge house?”

“Nay, I have not even had the heart to ask.  My good friend has carried out the business for me from first to last.  He has been the truest friend man ever had.  I have had naught to do but to sign the papers and receive the purchase money.  No doubt the pang of seeing others living there will pass in time, but just now I care not even to think of it.”

Gertrude’s face was still glowing a rosy red, but she turned the conversation at once.

“And thou art getting together a little business again, father, on the Southwark side of the river?”

“Yes; that again is by the advice of our good neighbour.  He showed me that I could no longer afford the large buildings in the Chepe.  He heard of these small premises going a-begging for a purchaser, all connected with them having perished in the plague.  The small sum left to me of the purchase money of the house, after my debts were paid, sufficed to buy them; and now I have two steady workmen in my employ, instead of the scores I once had.  But God be thanked, we have never been idle all these weeks.  And it may be that by-and-by, as confidence returns, I may get something of a business together again.”