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.

The two houses on the bridge, standing sociably side by side, were
pleasant and flourishing places of business. Benjamin was now
apprenticed to his brother Reuben, his old master the carpenter
having fallen a victim to the plague. Dorcas remained with Lady
Scrope, who was now reckoned as a kind friend and patroness to the
Harmers, father and son. Rebecca fulfilled her old functions of the
useful daughter at home, though it was thought she would not long
remain there, as she was being openly courted by a young mercer in
Southwark, who had bought a business left without head through the
ravages of the plague, and was rapidly working it up to something
considerable and successful.

The Master Builder, too, was getting on, although still doing a
very small trade compared to what he had done before. Many of his
patrons were dead, others had been scared away altogether from
London for the present, and with so many vacant houses to fill
nobody cared to think of building. Still he found employment of a
kind, and was never idle, although things were very different from
what they had been, and he thought rather of paying his way in a
quiet fashion than of building up a great fortune. He lived in the
old house with his daughter and son-in-law, and was happier than in
the old days, when his wife had always been trying to make him ape
the ways of the gentry, and his son had been wearying his life out
with ceaseless importunities for money, which would only be wasted
in drunkenness and rioting.

Now the days passed happily and peacefully. Gertrude was a loving
wife and a loving daughter. Her father's comfort and welfare were
studied equally with that of her husband. She did her utmost not to
permit him ever to feel lonely or neglected, and she considered his
needs as his own fine-lady wife had never thought of doing.

He had also his friends next door to visit, where he was always
welcome. There was now another door of communication opened between
the two houses, and almost every evening the Master Builder would
drop in for an hour to smoke a pipe with his friend and exchange
th