Miss Flint had been compelled to work night and day, till they
both looked as if they had had the sickness, and were justified in
saying that no money could pay them for what they were undergoing. They
began earnestly to wish what they had till now deprecated--that Dr
Levitt might succeed in inducing some of his flock to forego the
practice of wearing mourning. But of this there was little prospect:
the people were as determined upon wearing black, as upon having the
bell tolled for the dead; and Miss Nares's heart sank at the prospect
before her, if the epidemic should continue, and she should be able to
get no help.

Almost every second house in the place was shut up. The blank windows
of the cottages, where plants or smiling faces were usually to be seen
on a Sunday morning, looked dreary. The inhabitants of many of the
better dwellings were absent. There were no voices of children about
the little courts; no groups of boys under the churchyard wall. Of
those who had frequented this spot, several were under the sod; some
were laid low in fever within the houses; and others were with their
parents, forming a larger congregation round the fortune-tellers' tents
in the lanes, than Dr Levitt could assemble in the church.

Hester heard the strokes of the hammer and the saw as she passed the
closed shop of the carpenter, who was also the undertaker. She knew
that people were making coffins by candlelight within. Happening to
look round after she had passed, she saw a woman come out, wan in
countenance, and carrying under her cloak something which a puff of wind
showed to be an infant's coffin--a sight from which every young mother
averts her eyes. As Hester approached a cottage whose thatch had not
been weeded for long, she was startled by a howl and whine from within;
and a dog, emaciated to the last degree, sprang upon the sill of an open
window. A neighbour who perceived her shrink back, and hesitate to
pass, assured her that she need not be afraid of the dog. The poor
animal would not leave the place, whose inmates were all dead of the
fever. The window was left open for the dog's escape; but he never came
out, though he looked famished. Some persons had thrown in food at
first; but now no one had time or thought to spare for dogs.

Mr Walcot issued from a house near the church as Hester passed, and he
stopped her. He was roused or frightened out of his usual simplicity of
manner, and observed, with an