"Nay, then," he said, "an thou mock me with uncouth phrases, Mary, I'd best be going."

"Perhaps you'd better, Guy."

With a reproachful glance, but holding his head proudly, the young man mounted his horse.

"He hath a n.o.ble air on horseback," Phoebe said to herself, and she smiled.

The young man saw the smile and took courage.

He urged his horse forward to her side.

"Mary!" he exclaimed, tenderly.

"Fare thee well!" she replied, coolly, and turned her back.

He bit his lip, clinched his hand, and without another word, struck fiercely with his spurs. With a snort of pain, the horse bounded forward, and Phoebe found herself alone in the grove.

She gazed wistfully after the horseman and clasped her hands in silence for a few moments. Then, at thought of the letter she knew he was soon to write--the letter she had often seen in the carved box--she smiled again and, patting her skirts, stepped forth merrily from the edge of the grove.

"After all, 'twill teach the silly lad better manners!" she said.

Scarcely had she reached the highway again when she heard a man's voice calling in hearty tones.

"Well met, Mistress Mary! I looked well to find you near--for I take it 'twas Sir Guy pa.s.sed me a minute gone, spurring as 'twere a shame to see."

She looked up and saw a stout, middle-aged countryman on horseback, holding a folded paper in his hand.

"Oh, 'tis thou, Gregory!" she said, coolly. "Mend thy manners, man, and keep thy place."

The man grinned.

"For my place, Mistress Mary," he said, "I doubt you know not where your place be."

She looked up with a frown of angry surprise.

"Up here behind me on young Bess," he grinned. "See, here's your father's letter, mistress."

She took the paper with one hand while with the other she patted the soft nose of the mare, who was bending her head around to find her mistress.

"Good Bess--good old mare!" she said, gently, gazing pensively at the letter.

How well she knew every wrinkle in that paper, every curve in the clumsy superscription. Full well she knew its contents, too; for had she not read this very note to Copernicus Droop at the North Pole? However, partly that he might not be set to asking questions, partly in curiosity, she unfolded the paper.

"DEAR POLL"--it began--"I'm starting behind the grays for London on my way to be knighted by her Majesty. I send this ahead by Gregory on Bess, she being fast enow for my purpose, which is to get thee out of the clutches of that unG.o.dly aunt of thine. I know her tricks, and I learn how she hath suffered that d.a.m.ned milk-and-water popinjay to come courting my Poll. So see you follow Gregory, mistress, and without wait or parley come with him to the Peac.o.c.k Inn, where I lie to-night.

"The grays are in fine fettle, and thy black mare grows too fat for want of exercise. Thy mother-in-law commands thy instant return with Gregory, having much business forward with preparing gowns and fal lals against our presentation to her Majesty.--Thy father, Isaac Burton, of Burton Hall.

"Thy mother thinks thou wilt make better speed if I make thee to know that the players thou wottest of are to stop at the Peac.o.c.k Inn and will be giving some sport there."

"The players!" she exclaimed, eagerly. "Be these the Lord Chamberlain's men?" she asked. "Is there not among them one Will Shakespeare, Gregory?

What play give they to-night?"

"All one to me, mistress," said Gregory, slowly dismounting. "There be players at the Peac.o.c.k, for the kitchen wench told me of them as I stopped there for a pint; but be they the Lord Chamberlain's or the Queen's, I cannot tell."

"Do they play at the Sh.o.r.editch Theatre or at the inn, good Gregory?"

"I' faith I know not, mistress," he replied, bracing his brawny right hand, palm up, at his knee.

Mechanically she put one foot into his palm and sprang lightly upon the pillion behind the groom's saddle.

As they turned and started at a jog trot northward, she remembered her sister and her new-found aunt.

"Hold--hold, Gregory!" she cried. "What of Rebecca? What of my aunt--my gowns?"

"I am to send an ostler from the Peac.o.c.k for your nurse and clothing, mistress," said Gregory. "My orders was not to wait for aught, but bring you back instant quickly wheresoever I found you." After a pause he went on with a grin: "I doubt I came late, hows'ever. Sir Guy hath had his say, I'm thinkin'!" and he chuckled audibly.

"Now you mind your own business, Gregory!" said Phoebe, sharply.

His face fell, and during the rest of their ride he maintained a rigid silence.

The next morning found Phoebe sitting in her room in the Peac.o.c.k Inn, silently meditating in an effort to establish order in the chaos of her mind. Her hands lay pa.s.sively in her lap, and between her fingers was an open sheet of paper whose crisp folds showed it to be a letter.

Daily contact with the people, customs, dress, and tongue of Elizabethan England was fast giving to her memories of the nineteenth century the dim seeming of a dream. As she came successively into contact with each new-old acquaintance, he took his place in her heart and mind full grown--completely equipped with all the a.s.sociations, loves, and antipathies of long familiarity.

Gregory had brought her to the inn the night before, and here she had received the boisterous welcome of old Isaac Burton and the cooler greeting of his dame, her step-mother. They took their places in her heart, and she was not surprised to find it by no means a high one. The old lady was overbearing and far from loving toward Mistress Mary, as Phoebe began to call herself. As for Isaac Burton, he seemed quite subject to his wife's will, and Phoebe found herself greatly estranged from him.

That first afternoon, however, had transported her into a paradise the joys of which even Dame Burton could not spoil.

Sitting in one of the exterior galleries overlooking the courtyard of the inn, Phoebe had witnessed a play given on a rough staging erected in the open air.

The play was "The Merchant of Venice," and who can tell the thrills that tingled through Phoebe's frame as, with dry lips and a beating heart, she gazed down upon Shylock. Behind that great false beard was the face of England's mightiest poet. That wig concealed the n.o.ble forehead so revered by high and low in the home she had left behind.

She was Phoebe Wise, and only Phoebe, that afternoon, enjoying to the full the privilege which chance had thrown in her way. And now, the morning after, she went over it all again in memory. She rehea.r.s.ed mentally every gesture and intonation of the poet-actor, upon whom alone she had riveted her attention throughout the play, following him in thought, even when he was not on the stage.

Sitting there in her room, she smiled as she remembered with what a start of surprise she had recognized one among the groundlings in front of the stage after the performance. It was Sir Guy, very plainly dressed and gazing fixedly upon her. Doubtless he had been there during the entire play, waiting in vain for one sign of recognition. But Shylock had held her spellbound, and even for her lover she had been blind.

She felt a little touch of pity and compunction as she remembered these things, and suddenly she lifted to her lips the letter she was holding.

"Poor boy!" she murmured. Then, shaking her head with a smile: "I wonder how his letter found my room!" she said.

She rose, and, going to the window where the light was stronger, flattened out the missive and read it again:

"MY DEAR, DEAR MARY--dear to me ever, e'en in thy displeasure--have I fallen, then, so low in thy sight! May I not be forgiven, sweet girl, or shall I ever stand as I have this day, gazing upward in vain for the dear glance my fault hath forfeited?