“Give me my kerchief, lace scarf, and green silk hood, and my petticoat with the border newly purfled.  Hark!  ’Tis the bell for prayers.  Be quick with my pantofles:—­not those, wench—­the yellow silk with silver spangles.  Now my rings and crystal bracelets.  I would not miss early matins to-day for the best jewel on an alderman’s thumb.”

“Anon, lady,” replied her waiting-woman, with a sort of pert affectation of meekness.  But what should cause Kate to be so wonderfully attentive to her devotions was a matter on which Janet could have no suspicions, or at least would not dare to show them if she had.

Kate, being now attired, tripped forth, accompanied by her maid.  As she passed the half-closed door of the counting-house, Timothy, with one of his most leaden looks, full of unmeaning, stood edgeways in the opening, his lower side in advance, with the long arm ready for action.

“Fair mistress, Master Kelly would fain have a token to-day.  He hath sent you a rare device!”

“And what the better shall I be of his mummeries?” hastily replied the lady.  Timothy drew from his large leathern purse a curiously-twisted ribband.

“He twined this knot for your comfort.  Throw it over your left shoulder, and it shall write the first letter of your gallant’s name.  A cypher of rare workmanship.”

Kate, apparently in anger, snatched the magic ribband, and, peradventure it might be from none other design than to rid herself of the mystical love-knot, but she tossed it from her with an air of great contumely, when, by some disagreeable and untoward accident, it chanced to fly over the self-same shoulder to which Timothy had referred.  He made no reply, but followed the token with his little grey eyes, apparently without any sort of aim or concernment.  Kate’s eyes followed too; but verily it were a marvellous thing to behold how the ribband shaped itself as it fell, and yet to see how she stamped and stormed.  Quick as the burst of her proud temper she kicked aside the bauble, but not until the curl of the letter had been sufficiently manifest.  Timothy drew back into his den, leaving the fair maid to the indulgence of her humours.  But in the end Kate’s wrath was not over-difficult to assuage.  With an air somewhat dubious and disturbed she hastily thrust the token behind her stomacher and departed.

The merchant’s house being nigh unto the market cross, Kate’s prettily-spangled feet were soon safely conducted over the low stepping-stones placed at convenient distances for the transit of foot-passengers through the unpaved streets.  Near a sort of style, guarding the entrance to the churchyard, rose an immense pile of buildings, cumbrous and uncouth.  These were built something in the fashion of an inverted pyramid; to wit, the smaller area occupying the basement, and the larger spreading out into the topmost story.  As she turned the corner of this vast hive of habitation—­for