Lady Scrope nodded her head and laughed her shrill witch-like laugh.

“He! he! he!  Offer honest work to a needy gallant!  May I be there to hear when thou dost.  Work, forsooth!—­a turn at the galleys would do most of them a power of good.  Well, well, well, young man, thou speakest sound sense.  Thou shouldst prosper in thy business.

“Now, girl, show me the rest of the house, for I must needs be getting home ere long.  I shall weary my old bones with all this gadding to and fro.”

Gertrude was willing enough to obey.  The house was hardly changed from the time she had left it, save that all which was faded and worn had been replaced and furbished anew, and the whole place made sweet and wholesome, and as clean and bright as hands could make it.  Gertrude would have preferred a plainer and simpler abode, more like that of her neighbours; but she had not had the heart to undo all her mother’s dainty handiwork, and Reuben had thought nothing too good for his bride.

Lady Scrope gibed and jeered a little, but not unkindly.  She knew all the family history by this time, and how that Gertrude was not responsible for the luxuries with which her life would be surrounded.

“Go to, child, go to; I am no judge over thee.  What matters it a few years earlier or later?  It began in Shakespeare’s time, as you may read if you will, and it grows worse every generation.  Soon the shopmen and traders will be the fine gentlemen of the land, and we may hope for the pickings and leavings of their tables.  What does it matter to me?  I shall not be troubled by it.  And if I be not troubled thereby, what matter if all the world goes mad?

“Now fare you well, young folks; and thou, good Master Builder, thank Heaven for a good and dutiful daughter, for they grow not on every hedge in these graceless days.

“See me to my coach, young man, if thou canst leave devouring thy wife with thine eyes for so much as a minute.

“Poor fools! poor fools! both of you.

“Give me a kiss, maiden—­nay, mistress I must call thee now.  Be a good child, and be not too meek.  Remember the fate of the hapless Griselda.”

Nodding her head and shaking her finger, Lady Scrope vanished down the stairs upon Reuben’s arm; and Gertrude, moved beyond her powers of self restraint by all she had gone through, flung herself into her father’s arms, and the two mingled together their tears of thankfulness and joy.

CHAPTER XVI.  A FLAMING CITY.

Many happy months passed away, and the great city began to forget the terrible calamity through which it had passed.  There was a little fear at first when the summer set in exceptionally hot and dry—­very much as it had done the preceding year; but the plague seemed to have wreaked its full vengeance upon the inhabitants, and there was no fresh outbreak, although isolated cases were reported, as was usual, from time to time, and sometimes a slight passing scare would upset the minds of men in a certain locality, to be shortly laid at rest when no further ill followed.