bell and mournful cry gave ample notice of
their approach.

Last thing of all, after the boys had partaken of an ample supper,
and had shed a few natural tears at the thought that it might be
the last meal ever eaten beneath the roof of the old home, the
father knelt down and commended them solemnly to the care of Him in
whose hands alone lay the issues of life and death. Then he blessed
the boys individually, charged them to take every reasonable care,
and finally escorted them down to the door, which he carefully
opened, and after ascertaining that the road was quite clear, he
walked with them as far as the end of the bridge, and dismissed
them on their way with another blessing.

Much sobered by the scenes through which they had passed, yet not a
little elated by the quick and successful issue to their demand,
the boys looked each other in the face by the light of the great
yellow moon, and nipped each other by the hand to make sure it was
not all a dream.

How strange the sleeping city looked beneath that pale white light!
The boys had hardly ever been abroad after nightfall, and never
during this sad strange time, when even by day all was so different
from what they had been used to see. Now it did indeed look like a
city of the dead, for not even an idle roisterer, or a drunkard
stumbling homewards with uncertain gait, was to be seen. The
watchmen, sleeping or trying to sleep within the porches or upon
the doorsteps of certain houses, were the only living beings to be
seen; and even they were few and far between in this locality, for
almost every house was shut up and empty, the inhabitants of many
having fled before the distemper became so bad, and others having
all died off, leaving the houses utterly vacant.

"Let us go and see the house where Janet and Rebecca and Mistress
Gertrude dwell," said Benjamin, as they watched their father's
figure vanish in the distance, and felt themselves quite alone in
the world; "perchance one of them may be waking, and may look forth
from the window if we throw up a pebble. I would fain say a
farewell word to them ere we go forth, for who knows whether we may
see them again?"

"Ay, verily, we may be dead or else they," said Joseph, but in the
tone of one who has grown used to the thought. "This way then; the
house lies hard by, next door to my Lady Scrope's. Who would have
thought that that cross old madwoman would have turned so kindly
disposed towards the poor and sic