nks, and his
case rendered desperate from the beginning. Mr Walcot had complained
that the odds were really too much against him, and that he believed
himself likely to lose almost every fever patient he had. It may be
imagined how welcome to him were Mr Hope's countenance, suggestions,
and influence,--such as the prejudices of the people had left it.

Dr Levitt's influence was of little more avail than Mr Hope's. From
this day, he was as busily engaged among the sick as the medical
gentlemen themselves; laying aside his books, and spending all his time
among his parishioners; not neglecting the rich, but especially devoting
himself to the poor. He co-operated with Hope in every way; raising
money to cleanse, air, and dry the most cheerless of the cottages, and
to supply the indigent sick with warmth and food. But all appeared to
be of little avail. The disease stole on through the village, as if it
had been left to work its own way; from day to day tidings came abroad
of another and another who was down in the fever,--the Tuckers'
maidservant, Mr Hill's shop-boy, poor Mrs Paxton, always sure to be
ill when anybody else was, and all John Ringworth's five children. In a
fortnight, the church bell began to give token how fatal the sickness
was becoming. It tolled till those who lived very near the church were
weary of hearing it.

On the afternoon of a day when its sound had scarcely ceased since
sunrise, Dr Levitt and Hope met at the door of the corner-house.

"You are the man I wanted to meet," said Dr Levitt. "I have been
inquiring for you, but your household could give me no account of you.
Could you just step home with me? Or come to me in the evening, will
you? But stay! There is no time like the present, after all; so, if
you will allow me, I will walk in with you now; and, if you are going to
dinner, I will make one. I have nobody to sit down with me at home at
present, you know,--or perhaps you do not know."

"Indeed I was not aware of the absence of your family," said Hope,
leading the way into the parlour, where Margaret at the moment was
laying the cloth.

"You must have wondered that you had seen nothing of my wife all this
week, if you did not know where she was. I thought it best, all things
considered, to send them every one away. I hope we have done right. I
find I am more free for the discharge of my own duty, now that I am
unchecked by their fears for me, and untroubled by my own an