was light, one December morning, Moss was
sent to ask if Abby could possibly come for a
few minutes, because mother was worse, he
found his sister alone, looking at the floor,
her hands on her lap, though the baby was
fidgetting in its cradle. Fleming's face was
covered, and he lay so still that Moss, who
had never seen death, felt sure that all was
over. The boy hardly knew what to do; and
his sister seemed not to hear what he said.
The thought of his mother,—that Abby's
going might help or save her,—moved him to
act. He kissed Abby, and said she must
please go to mother; and he took the baby
out of the cradle, and wrapped it up, and put
it into its mother's arms; and fetched Abby's
bonnet, and took her cloak down from its peg,
and opened the door for her, saying, that he
would stay and take care of everything. His
sister went without a word; and, as soon as
he had closed the door behind her, Moss sank
down on his knees before the chair where she
had been sitting, and hid his face there till
some one came for him,—to see his mother
once more before she died.

As the two coffins were carried out, to be
conveyed to the churchyard together, Mr.
Nelson, who had often been backward and
forward during the last six weeks, observed
to the surgeon that the death of such a man
as Fleming was a dreadful loss.

"It is that sort of men that the fever cuts
off," said the surgeon. "The strong man, in
the prime of life, at his best period, one may
say, for himself and for society, is taken away,—
leaving wife and child helpless and forlorn.
That is the ravage that the fever makes."

"Well: would not people tell you that it is
our duty to submit?" asked Mr. Nelson, who
could not help showing some emotion by voice
and countenance.

"Submit!" said the surgeon. "That
depends on what the people mean who use the
word. If you or I were ill of the fever, we
must resign ourselves, as cheerfully as we
could. But if you ask me whether we should
submit to see more of our neighbours cut off
by fever as these have been, I can only ask
in return, whose doing it is that they are
living in a swamp, and whether that is to go
on? Who dug the clay pits? Who let that
ditch run abroad, and make a filthy bog? Are
you going to charge that upon Providence,
and talk of submitting to the consequences?
If so, that is not my religion."

"No, no. There is no religion in that,"
replied Mr. Nelson, for once agreeing in what
was said to him. "It must be looked to."

"It must," said the surgeon, as decidedly as
if he had been a railway director, or king and
parliament in one.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

"I wonder whether there is a more forlorn
family in England than we are now," said
Woodruffe, as he sat among his children, a
few hours after the funeral.

His children were glad to hear him speak,
however gloomy might be his tone. His
silence had been so terrible that nothing that
he could say could so weigh upon their hearts.
His words, however, brought out his widowed
daughter's tears again. She was sewing—her
infant lying in her lap. As her tears fell
upon its face, it moved and cried. Becky
came and took it up, and spoke cheerfully, to
it. The cheerfulness seemed to be the worst
of all. Poor Abby laid her forehead to the
back of her chair, and sobbed as if her heart
would break.

"Ay, Abby," said her father, "your heart is
breaking, and mine too. You and I can go to
our rest, like those that have gone before us:
but I have to think what will become of these
young things."

"Yes, father," said Becky gently, but with a
tone of remonstrance, "you must endeavour to
live, and not make up your mind to dying,
because life has grown heavy and sad."

"My dear, I am ill—very ill. It is not
merely that life is grown intolerable to me.
I am sure I could not live long in such misery
of mind: but I am breaking up fast."

The young people looked at each other in
dismay. There was something worse than
the grief conveyed by their father's words in
the hopeless daring—the despair—of his tone
when he ventured to say that life was
unendurable.

Becky had the child on one arm; with the
other hand she took down her father's plaid
from its peg, and put it round his rheumatic
shoulders, whispering in his ear a few words
about desiring that God's will should be
done.

"My dear," he replied, "it was I who taught
you that lesson when you were a child on my
knee, and it would be strange if I forgot it
when I want so much any comfort that I can
get. But I don't believe (and if you ask the
clergyman, he will tell you that he does not
believe), that it is God's will that we, or any
other people, should be thrust into a swamp
like this, scarcely fit for the rats and the frogs
to live in. It is man's doing, not God's, that
the fever makes such havoc as it has made
with us. The fever does not lay waste healthy
places."

"Then why are we here?" Allan ventured
to say. "Father, let us go."

"Go! I wonder how or where! I can't go,
or let any of you go. I have not a pound in
the world to spend in moving, or in finding
new employment. And if I had, who would
employ me? Who would not laugh at a
crippled old man asking for work and
wages?"

"Then, father, we must see what we can do
here, and you must not forbid us to say
'God's will be done!' If we cannot go
away, it must be His will that we should stay
and have as much hope .and courage as we
can."

Woodruffe threw himself back in his chair.