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Bolton lent me to-day. All about Bacon writing Shakespeare's plays, an' how Bacon was a son of Queen Elizabeth. Do you s'pose he really did?" "Oh, don't ask me, child!" was the nervous reply. "Mr. Droop's in the parlor." Phoebe had forgotten her short interview with Droop, and she now snatched off her hat in surprise and followed her elder sister, nodding to their visitor as she entered.
His entire apparel was black, save for his well-starched ruff of moderate depth and the lace ruffles at his wrists. "Wal, I dunno," Droop retorted. "Marry, an I hed known as thou wast not an acquaintance " "You would not have given me admittance?" The calm, dark eyes gazed with disconcerting steadiness into Droop's face. "Oh well I ain't sayin' "
When the Queen gets on her ear like that, it's now or never. Can you find Cousin Phoebe to-night?" "Where is the old machine, anyhow?" Rebecca asked, not heeding Droop's question. "Right over yonder," said he, pointing to a dark group of trees a few rods distant. "Well, come on, then. Let's go to it right away," said Rebecca. "I'd like to rest a bit. I'm tired!" "Tired!" Droop exclaimed.
Copernicus Droop!" she cried in a high, sharp voice. There was no reply. She looked about her for something to prod him with. There was an arm-chair on casters beside her door. She drew this to her and pushed it with all her might toward the unconscious man. The chair struck violently against Droop's seat, and even caused his body to sway slightly, but he still slept and gave no sign.
Droop's voice came out of the blackness. "Jest wait here a minute," he said. "I'll go up an' turn on the light." She heard him climbing a short flight of stairs, and a few moments later a flood of light streamed from a doorway above her head, amply lighting the little hallway in which Rebecca was standing.
It was Phoebe, who, having made all right in her room and washed all traces of tears from her face, had come to note Droop's progress. Dazed, he raised his head and looked unexpectedly into a lovely face made the more attractive by an expression only given by a sense of duty unselfishly done. "I I wish'd you'd call me Cousin Copernicus," he said for the fifth time.
"Five yards are a mile for a man of my girth, Master Droop, but praise God such words as these of yours cheer my heart to still greater deeds than faring a mile afoot." Slowly and painfully the corpulent knight drew himself to his feet, and with one hand bearing affectionately but heavily on Droop's shoulder, he shuffled over to the recess and seated himself. "What ho, there!
Phoebe blushed, but replied quite calmly: "Yes some of them from a young man, but they weren't any of them written to me." "No?" said Droop. "Who was they to 'f I may ask?" "They were all written to this lady." Phoebe held something out for Droop's inspection, and he walked over to take it. He recognized at once the miniature on ivory which he had seen once before in Peltonville.
For some time Master Bacon paced back and forth in silence, evidently wrapped in his own thoughts. In the meantime Droop's hopes rose higher and higher, and at length he could no longer contain himself. "Why, Master Bacon," he said, "I'm clean surprised yea, marry, am I that anybody could hev ben sech a fool a eh? Well, a loon what? as to hev said you wrote Shakespeare.
Droop's jaws fell apart and his eyes opened wide. "Royal Highness!" he murmured. "Well, I've got to go now," said Rebecca, smiling at her friend's astonishment. "But don't you go 'way fer a while yet. I'll try an' get the Queen to let you in soon. I want to talk with you 'bout lots of things." In a moment she was gone, leaving Copernicus rooted to the floor and dumb with amazement.
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