I had noticed a twinkle in Pickering's eyes when he directed us to go to this tavern, but did not understand the cause of his merriment until I learned that by a curious old custom, a maid seeking entrance for the first time must contribute one of her garters before being admitted. The worst feature of the usage was that the garter must be taken off at the door, and then and there presented to the porter, who received it on the point of his official staff. After entering Rochester, we went to the Maid's Garter and at once drove into the courtyard, as the custom is with travellers intending to remain all night. When we left the coach and started to climb the steps to the great door, we found the landlord and his retinue waiting to receive us. Frances was in the lead, and when we reached the broad, flat stone in front of the door, the head porter stepped before her, bowed, and asked humbly:-- "Is my lady maid or madam?" Frances looked up in surprise, and he repeated his question. "What is that to you, fellow?" asked Frances. "It is this, my lady," returned the porter. "If my lady be a maid, she must pay me one of her garters as her admission fee to this inn. If she be madam, she enters free. It is a privilege conferred on the Maid's Garter by good St. Augustine when he was Bishop of Canterbury, so long ago that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." "What nonsense is this?" asked Frances, turning to me, and Bettina asked the same question with her eyes. I explained the matter, and Frances, turning to the porter, said:-- "I'll buy you off with a jacobus or a guinea." "Not a hundred guineas would buy me off, my lady," answered the porter, bowing, "though I might say that a shilling usually goes with the garter." "Well, I'll send you both the shilling and the garter from my room," said Frances, moving toward the inn door. "The garter must be paid here, my lady. The shilling may be paid at any time," returned the porter, with polite insistence. Frances was about to protest, but Betty, more in sympathy with the eccentric customs of inns, modestly lifted her skirts, untied her garter and offered it to the porter, telling him very seriously:-- "I am a maid." The porter thanked her gravely, whereupon Frances, turning her back on the audience in the doorway, brought forth her garter, gave it to the porter, and we were admitted. Our supper, beds, and breakfast were all so good that they reconciled Frances and Bettina to the payment of the extraordinary admission fee, and when we left the next morning, curiosity prompted them to pass near the garter rack in the tap-room, where garters were hanging which had been taken from maids whose great granddaughters had become great grandmothers. The garters that had belonged to Frances and Bettina, being the latest contributions, hung at the bottom of the rack, neatly dated and labelled, and, as I left the room, I overheard Bettina whisper to Frances:-- "I'm glad mine was of silk."