“Have you broken fast this morn?” he inquired; “I should have bethought me of your lack. There is yet ample time, and you must eat. Come,” he added, taking her hand again and smiling, “it is good for neither soul nor body that the latter should go hungered. The Queen’s coffee-house lies just around yon corner.” A few moments later Abigail found herself seated at a table in a long, dark room, very quiet and cool, with vine-clad windows. Only one other customer besides themselves was in the room. He was an old gentleman in cinnamon-brown small-clothes, and he was so busy sipping a cup of coffee and reading a manuscript, that he did not glance up at their entrance. The inn-keeper’s buxom wife received Master Ronald’s order. Quite on her own account she brought in also a plate of cookies. “Kiss me well, honey-sweet,” said she, “and you shall have the cookies.” So Abigail kissed the goodwife in return for her gift. “Heigh-ho!” remarked Master Ronald, “in all this worry and grief I forgot that every maid has a sweet tooth, if she be the proper sort of maid.” In spite of his little pleasantry, his troubled look remained. Abigail ate steadily, not pausing to talk, only now and then glancing at her companion. After awhile Master Ronald rose, and strode up and down with savage impatience. “Alack!” he said, “I seem to be losing my wits.” Abigail, having finished, commenced putting the remaining cookies in her pocket. “Why do you do that?” asked Master Ronald. “I want summat to eat on my way home,” answered Abigail, resolutely, crowding in the last cooky. The young man laughed, but his laughter ended abruptly in a sigh of pain. Abigail could not but admire the grand and easy way in which, with a wave of his hand, he bade the inn-keeper charge the breakfast to his account, as they left the coffee-house. He led the way back to the sun-dial. They had been gone not more than twenty minutes. Frowning, Master Ronald turned his back toward the dial and leant against it. “We may as well stop here,” said he, “and wait for the minutes to speed.” Abigail pushed away the vines to read the motto printed on the dial. “‘I marke the Time; saye, gossip, dost thou soe,’” she read unconsciously aloud. “Time,” echoed Master Ronald, catching the word, “time.” He shrugged his shoulders. “What is more perverse than time? It takes all my philosophy to bear with it, and I oft wonder why ’twas e’er put in the world. ’Tis like a wind that blows first hot then cold. It must needs stand still when you most wish it to speed, and when you would fain have it stand still, it goes at a gallop.” He sighed profoundly and kicked a pebble with the toe of his shoe.