[Illustration: A noisy rabblement of people came running up] ANDREW GOLDING: A Tale of the Great Plague. By ANNIE E. KEELING CONTENTS. CHAP. INTRODUCTION.--HOW I, LUCIA DACRE, CAME TO WRITE THIS HISTORY I. HOW WE WERE VISITED BY TWO OF OUR KINSFOLK, OUR FATHER BEING DEAD; AND HOW THEY BEHAVED THEMSELVES TOWARD US II. HOW WE JOURNEYED UP TO YORKSHIRE; AND HOW WE WERE WELCOMED THERE III. HOW MR. TRUELOCKE PREACHED HIS LAST SERMON IN WEST FAZEBY IV. HOW HARRY TRUELOCKE LEFT US FOR THE SEA V. HOW ANDREW MADE ONE ENEMY, AND WAS LIKE TO HAVE ANOTHER VI. HOW MR. TRUELOCKE AND MRS. GOLDING LEFT US VII. HOW ANDREW CAME TO THE GRANGE BY NIGHT VIII. HOW A STRANGE MESSENGER BROUGHT US NEWS OF ANDREW IX. HOW WE WENT UP TO LONDON, AND FOUND NO FRIENDS THERE X. HOW WE DWELT IN A HOUSE THAI' WAS NOT OUR OWN XI. HOW THERE CAME NEW GUESTS INTO THE HOUSE XII. HOW WE SAILED FOR FRANCE IN THE 'MARIE-ROYALE' CONCLUSION.--HOW LUCIA DWELLS IN ENGLAND, AND ALTHEA OTHERWHERE INTRODUCTION. HOW I, LUCIA DACRE, CAME TO WRITE THIS HISTORY, AT THE TIME THAT I WITH MY SISTER WAS LODGED IN A DESERTED HOUSE IN LONDON, WHEN THE GREAT PLAGUE WAS AT ITS HEIGHT; WHICH WAS IN THE MONTHS OF JULY AND AUGUST, ANNO SIXTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE. Now that my sister and myself are in such a strange melancholy case, and I enforced to spend many hours daily in idleness, I find the time hang very heavy; for I cannot, like Althea, entertain any longer the hopes that brought us hither. She continues daily to make great exertions in pursuing them, but does not often admit my help; and, being afraid that I may fall into mere desperation, I have bethought me how to amuse some hours daily by setting down the manner of our present troubles and the beginnings that led to them. May I live to write of their happy end! but my fears are very great, and almost forbid me to pray thus. Having thus resolved how to beguile the heavy time, I began spying about for paper and pens and ink; and finding in a kind of lumber room a great many sheets of coarse paper, I stitched them together; then with much trembling I peeped into the study of the late poor master of the house, and there found a bundle of quills and some ink; and, leaving money in his desk to the full value of the things I took, I carried my writing-tools into the great front parlour, and set myself to the work.