The Panchronicon

at the foot of the little path bordered by white rose-bushes. In her lap was a bundle of papers yellowed by age and an ivory miniature, evidently taken from the carved wooden box at her side. Presently Rebecca straightened her back with a slight grimace and looked toward her sister, holding her mold-covered hands and fingers spread away from her. "Well," she inquired, "hev ye found anythin'?" Phœbe brought her gaze back from infinity and replied: "No, I ain't. Only that one letter where Isaac Burton writes her that the players have come to town." "I don't see what good them letters'll do ye in the Shakespeare class, then." Rebecca spoke listlessly—more interested in her garden than in her sister's search. "I don't know," Phœbe rejoined, dreamily. "It's awful funny—but whenever I take out these old letters there comes over me the feelin' that I'm 'way off in a strange country—and I feel like somebody else." Rebecca looked up anxiously from her work. "Them sort o' philanderin' notions are foolish, Phœbe," she said, and flicked a caterpillar over the fence. Phœbe gave herself a little shake and began to tie up the papers. "That's so," she replied. "But they will come when I get these out, an' I got 'em out thinkin' the' might be somethin' about Shakespeare in 'em for our class." She paused and looked wistfully at the letters again. "Oh!" she cried, "how I do wonder if he was among those players at the Peacock Inn that day! You know 'players' is what they called play-actors in those days, and he was a play-actor, they say." "Did he live very far back, then?" said Rebecca, wishing to appear interested, but really intent upon a new sprout at the foot of the lilac-bush. "Yes, three hundred years ago. Three of these letters has a date in 1598 exactly." There was a long silence, and at length Rebecca looked up from the ground to ascertain its cause. She frowned and drew her aching back stiffly straight again. "Everlastin'ly lookin' at that pictur'!" she exclaimed. "I declare to goodness, Phœbe Wise, folks'll think you're vain as a pouter pigeon." Phœbe laughed merrily, tossed the letters into the box and leaped to her feet. The miniature at which she had been gazing was still in her hands. "Folks'll never see me lookin' at it, Rebecca—only