“O madam,” cried Dorcas dashing away her tears, and turning an eager face towards the witch-like old woman, who in her silk gown, hooped and looped up, her fine lace cap and mittens, and her ebony stick with its ivory head, looked the impersonation of a fairy godmother, “this is my brother Joseph, and he comes with welcome tidings.  My brother Reuben is not dead, albeit he has in truth been smitten by the plague.  Joseph found him yesterday in the pest house just beyond Clerkenwell; and he is in a fair way to recover, if his mind can but be set at rest.

“Oh what news this will be for our parents!—­for the girls!—­for Gertrude!  Oh how we have mourned and wept together; and now we shall rejoice with full hearts!”

“Has Mistress Gertrude mourned for him too?” asked Joseph eagerly.  “Marry that is good hearing, for I have wondered all this while whether I should obtain the grace from her for which I have come.”

“And what is that, young man?” asked Lady Scrope, tapping her cane upon the ground as much as to say that in her own house she was not going to take a secondary place, and that conversation was to be addressed to her.  Joseph turned to her at once and answered: 

“Verily, good madam, my aunt has sent me hither to fetch Mistress Gertrude forthwith to his side.  She says that he calls ceaselessly upon her, and that unless he can see her beside him he may yet die of the disappointment and trouble, albeit the plague is stayed in his case, and it is but the fever of weakness that is upon him.  She thinks it will not hurt her to come, if so be that it is as we hope, and that she has in her heart for him the same love as he has for her.”

“Oh, she has! she has!” cried Dorcas, fired with sudden illumination of mind about many things that perplexed her before.  “Her heart is just breaking for him!

“Prithee, good madam, let me go and call her.  They say that she is of little use in the house now, being weak and weeping, and too sad at heart to work as heretofore.  They can well spare her on such an errand, and methinks it will save her life as well as his.  Let me but go and tell her the news.”

“Go, child, go.  Lovers be the biggest fools in all this world of fools!  And if the women be the bigger fools, ’tis but because they were meant to be fitting companions for the men!

“Go to, child!—­bring her here, and let us see what she says to this mad errand of this mad boy.

“And you, young sir, whilst your sister is gone, tell me all you saw and heard in the pest house!  Marry, I like your spirit in going thither!  It is the one place I long to see myself; only I am too old to go gadding hither and thither after fine sights!”

Joseph was quite willing to indulge the old lady’s morbid curiosity as to the sights he had seen yesterday and today, as he had journeyed back into the city in the guise of a market lad.  The things were terrible enough to satisfy even Lady Scrope, who seemed to rejoice in an uncanny fashion over the awful devastation going on all round.