h our country towns are subject, in the place of
those "agues," or intermittents, so largely prevalent in the South and
West, were already beginning, and Maurice, who had exposed himself in the
early and late hours of the dangerous season, must be expected to go
through the regular stages of this always serious and not rarely fatal
disease.

Paolo, his faithful servant, would fain have taken the sole charge of his
master during his illness. But the doctor insisted that he must have a
nurse to help him in his task, which was likely to be long and
exhausting.

At the mention of the word "nurse" Paolo turned white, and exclaimed in
an agitated and thoroughly frightened way,

"No! no nuss! no woman! She kill him! I stay by him day and night, but
don' let no woman come near him,--if you do, he die!"

The doctor explained that he intended to send a man who was used to
taking care of sick people, and with no little effort at last succeeded
in convincing Paolo that, as he could not be awake day and night for a
fortnight or three weeks, it was absolutely necessary to call in some
assistance from without. And so Mr. Maurice Kirkwood was to play the
leading part in that drama of nature's composing called a typhoid fever,
with its regular bedchamber scenery, its properties of phials and
pill-boxes, its little company of stock actors, its gradual evolution of
a very simple plot, its familiar incidents, its emotional alternations,
and its denouement, sometimes tragic, oftener happy.

It is needless to say that the sympathies of all the good people of the
village, residents and strangers, were actively awakened for the young
man about whom they knew so little and conjectured so much. Tokens of
their kindness came to him daily: flowers from the woods and from the
gardens; choice fruit grown in the open air or under glass, for there
were some fine houses surrounded by well-kept grounds, and greenhouses
and graperies were not unknown in the small but favored settlement.

On all these luxuries Maurice looked with dull and languid eyes. A faint
smile of gratitude sometimes struggled through the stillness of his
features, or a murmured word of thanks found its way through his parched
lips, and he would relapse into the partial stupor or the fitful sleep in
which, with intervals of slight wandering, the slow hours dragged along
the sluggish days one after another. With no violent symptoms, but with
steady persistency, the disease moved