A woman hides
her secret in her heart till the right time comes for giving an
answer. But we shall see! we shall see!"

In this manner the spring and summer passed happily and quickly
away.

August had come and gone, and now the first days of September had
arrived. The heat still continued very great, and a parching east
wind had been blowing for many weeks, which had dried up the
woodwork of the houses till it was like tinder. Sometimes the
Master Builder, coming home from his work of repairing or altering
some house either great or small, would say:

"I would we could get rain. This long drought is something serious.
I never knew the houses so dry and parched as they are now. If a
fire were to break out, it would be no small matter to extinguish
it. The water supply is very low, and the whole city is like
tinder."

It was Saturday night. The sun had gone down like a great ball of
fire, and Gertrude had observed to her husband how it had dyed the
river a peculiarly blood-red hue. One of those wandering fortune
tellers, who had paraded the city so often during the early days of
the plague (till the poor wretches were themselves carried off in
great numbers by it), had passed down the street once or twice
during the day, and had been always chanting a rude song like a
dirge, in which many woes were said to be hanging over London town.

These prognostications had been frequent since the appearance in
the sky of another comet, which had been seen on all clear nights
of late. It had considerably alarmed the citizens, who remembered
the comet of the previous year, and the terrible visitation which
had followed. This one was not very like the former; it was far
more bright, and burning, and red, and its motion appeared more
rapid in the sky. The soothsayers and astrologers, of which there
were still plenty left, all averred that it bespoke some fresh
calamity hanging over the city, and for a while there was
considerable alarm in many minds, and some families actually left
London, fearful that the plague would again break out there; but by
this time the panic had well nigh died down. The comet ceased to be
seen in the sky, and even the mournful words of the fortune tellers
did not attract the notice they had done at first. The summer was
waning, and no sickness had appeared; and of any other kind of
calamity the people did not appear to dream.

The Master Builder had gone in as usual to the next house to have a
talk