"Great sakes!" exclaimed Rebecca, as she received the unaccustomed greeting. "You do look fer all the world like one o' the Salem witches in Peter Parley's history, Phœbe."
With a light foot and a lighter heart for all its beating, Phœbe ran down the street unperceived from the house.
"Bishopsgate!" she sang under her breath. "The missive named Bishopsgate. He'll meet me within the grove outside the city wall."
Her feet seemed to know the way, which was not over long, and she arrived without mishap at the gate.
Here she was amazed to see two elderly men, evidently merchants, for they were dressed much like her uncle the goldsmith, approach two gayly dressed gentlemen and, stopping them on the street, proceed to measure their swords and the width of their extravagant ruffs with two yardsticks.
The four were so preoccupied with this ceremony that she slipped past them without attracting the disagreeable attention she might otherwise have received.
As she passed, the beruffled gentlemen were laughing, and she heard one of them say:
"God buy you, friends, our ruffs and bilbos have had careful measurement, I warrant you."
"Right careful, in sooth," said one of those with the yardsticks. "They come within a hair's breadth of her Majesty's prohibition."
Phœbe had scant time for wonder at this, for she saw in a grove not a hundred yards beyond the gate the trappings of a horse, and near by what seemed a human figure, motionless, under a tree.