"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," Phoebe 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, Phoebe," she said, and flicked a caterpillar over the fence. Phoebe 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, Phoebe Wise, folks'll think you're vain as a pouter pigeon." Phoebe 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 you," she said. Then with a coaxing tone and looking with appealing archness at her sister, she went on: "Is it really like me, Rebecca? Honest true?" The elder woman merely grunted and moved on to the next bed, and Phoebe, with another laugh, ran lightly into the house. A few moments later she reappeared at the front door with consternation on her face. "Land o' goodness, Rebecca!" she cried, "do you know what time it is? Near onto one o'clock, an' I've got to be at the Shakespeare class at half past. We'll have to dish up dinner right this minute, and I don't see how I can change my dress after it an' help with the dishes too." She whisked into the house again, and Rebecca followed her as rapidly as possible.