tion of the character of the pestilence, the
warden's wife fled with her little children to her mother's home in a
neighboring county; maternal solicitude having extinguished her womanly
reluctance to desert her husband, at a juncture when her presence and
assistance would so materially have cheered, and lightened his labors.
An attempt was made to isolate the first case in the hospital, but the
cots in that spacious apartment filled beyond the limits of
accommodation; and soon, a large proportion of the cells on the ground
floor held each its victim of the fatal disease, that as the scythe of
death cut a wide swath through convict ranks. Consulting physicians
walked through the infected ward, altered prescriptions, advised
disinfectants which were liberally used, until the building seemed to
exhale pungent, wholesome, but unsavory odors; yet there was no
abatement in the virulence of the type. When the twenty-third case was
entered on the hospital list, the trustees and inspectors determined to
remove all who showed no symptom of the contagion, to an old,
long-abandoned cotton factory several miles distant; where the vacant
houses of former operatives would afford temporary shelter; and to
diminish the chances of carrying infection, each prisoner was carefully
examined by the attending physician, and then furnished with an
entirely new suit of clothing.

When the nature of the epidemic could no longer be concealed from the
inmates, instinctive horror drove them from the neighborhood of the
victims, and like frightened sheep they huddled in remote corners,
removed as far as possible from the infected precincts, and loath to
minister to the needs of the sufferers.

Two men, and as many women, selected and detailed as nurses in their
respective wards, openly rebelled; and while Doctor Moffat and Mr.
Singleton were discussing the feasibility of procuring outside
assistance, the door of the dispensary adjoining the hospital, opened,
and Beryl walked up to the table, where medicines were weighed and
mixed.

"Put me to work among the sick. I want to help you."

"You! What could you do? I should as soon take a magnolia blossom to
scrub the pots and pans of a filthy kitchen," answered the doctor,
looking up over his spectacles from the powder he was grinding in a
glass mortar.

"I can follow your directions; I can obey orders; and physicians deem
that the sine qua non in nurses. Closed lips, open ears, willing hands
are