“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.”

We made a short drive to Maidstone, where we stopped over night.  The next day a longer journey brought us to Canterbury, where we spent two nights and a day, visiting the cathedral both by sunlight and moonlight; the combination of moonlight and Bettina being very trying to me.

From Canterbury we drove in the rain to Dover, where we lodged at that good inn, the Three Anchors, to await a fair wind for Calais.

During the next three days the wind was fair, but it was blowing half a gale, and therefore the passage was not to be attempted.  Though I was enjoying myself, I was anxious to post our letters, as mine gave a full account of several matters at court concerning which I knew George ought to be informed.

Among other news, I told him that King Charles had sent a messenger into France carrying a personal letter to King Louis, asking his help in finding the man Hamilton, who had threatened Charles’s life.  I also suggested in my letter that the king of France was trying to buy the city of Dunkirk from King Charles, and that because of the friendly negotiations then pending, Louis might give heed to our king’s request.  In that case, it might be well, I thought, for Hamilton to leave France at once.

With this urgency in mind, I suggested to Frances and Betty that I cross to Calais alone, regardless of the weather, leaving them at Dover till my return.  But they would not be left behind, so we all set sail on a blustery morning and paid for our temerity with a day of suffering.  In Calais we posted our letters, having learned that a messenger would leave that same day for Paris, and two days later we returned to Dover.