The Sign of the Red Cross | Page 6

she wanted could be attained; but on that point her
husband was inexorable. He loved the old bridge house. There he had
been born, and there he meant to die, and he had not the smnallest
intention of removing elsewhere to please even the wife to whom he
granted so many indulgences.
"You are a fool!" cried Madam, angrily; "you say those things only to
provoke me. I wish you had some right feeling and some conversation.
You are as dull as ditch water. You care for nothing. I don't believe it
would rouse you to hear that the plague was in the next street!"
"Well, we shall see," answered Gertrude, with a calmness that was at
least a little provoking, "for people say it is spreading very fast, and
may soon be here."
"What!" cried Madam, in a sudden panic; "who says that? What do you
mean, girl?"
"It was Reuben who told me," answered Gertrude, with a little blush
which she tried to conceal by turning her face towards the window.
But her ruse was in vain. Madam's hawk eye had caught the rising
colour, and her brow contracted sharply.
"Reuben! what Reuben? Have I not told you a hundred times that I
would have none of that sort of talk any more? Reuben, indeed! as
though you were boy and girl together! Pray tell me this, you forward
minx, does he dare to address you as Gertrude when he has the
insolence to speak to you in the streets, where alone I presume he can
do so?"
Gertrude's face was burning with indignation. She had to clasp her
hands tightly together to restrain the hot words which rose to her lips.

"We have been children together--and friends," she said, "the Harmers
and I. How should we forget that so quickly--even though you have
forgotten! My father does not mind."
Madam's face was as red as her daughter's. She was about to make
some violent retort, when the sound of a footstep on the stairs checked
the words upon her lips.
"There is Frederick!" she said.
CHAPTER II.
LONDON'S YOUNG CITIZENS.
The door of the room where mother and daughter sat was flung wide
open with scant ceremony, and to the accompaniment of a boisterous
laugh. Into the room swaggered a tall, fine-looking young man of some
three-and-twenty summers, dressed in all the extravagance of a lavish
and extravagant age. Upon his head he wore an immense peruke of
ringlets, such as had been introduced at Court the previous year, and
which was almost universal now with the nobles and gentry, but by no
means so amongst the citizens. The periwig was surmounted by a
high-crowned hat adorned with feathers and ribbons, and ribbons
floated from his person in such abundance that to unaccustomed eyes
the effect was little short of grotesque. Even the absurd high-heeled
shoes were tied with immense bows of ribbon, whilst knees, wrists,
throat, and even elbows displayed their bows and streamers. The young
dandy wore the full "petticoat breeches" of the period, with a short
doublet, a jaunty cloak hung from the shoulders, and an abundance of
costly lace ruffles adorned the neck and wrists of the doublet, he wore
at his side a short rapier, and had a trick of laying his hand upon the hilt,
as though it would take very little provocation to make him draw it
forth upon an adversary.
His step was not altogether so steady as it might have been, as he
swaggered into his mother's presence. His handsome face was deeply
flushed. He was laughing boisterously; but there was that in his aspect
which made his sister turn away with a look of repulsion, though his

mother's glance rested on him with a look of admiring pride that
savoured of adoration. In her fond and foolish eyes he was perfection,
and the more he copied the vices and the follies of the gallants about
the person of the King, the prouder did his vain and weak mother
become of him.
"Ho! ho! ho! such a bit of fun!"
It is impossible to give Frederick Mason's words verbatim, as he
seldom opened his lips without an oath, and inter-larded his talk with
coarse jests in English and fragments of ribaldry in vile French, till it
would scarce be intelligible to the reader of today.
"Such a prime bit of fun! Who would have thought that little Dorcas
next door would grow up such a marvelous pretty damsel! By my troth,
what a slap she did give me in return for my kiss!"
Gertrude suddenly turned upon her brother with flashing eyes.
"Think shame of yourself, Frederick! You disgrace your boasted
manhood. How dare you annoy with your coarse gallantry the daughter
of our father's oldest friend, and that too