of their own accord in the closet; and
this was a sign that something was going to happen to somebody. She
thought of the doctor at the time, and prayed that he might be kept from
coming near her; for she knew he would be the death of her, somehow, as
he had been of other folks. So Hope was obliged to leave her and her
rheumatism to the gossips. The particular object of his visit to the
place to-day, however, was a little girl, a grandchild of one of the
pensioners, admitted by special favour into the establishment. This
girl had small-pox, and her case was a severe one. Hope was admitted
with unwillingness even to her, and was obliged to assume his ultimate
degree of peremptoriness of manner with her nurses. He found her
muffled up about the head with flannel, and with a slice of fat bacon,
folded in flannel, tied about her throat,--a means considered a specific
for small-pox in some regions. The discarding of the flannel and bacon,
of course, caused great offence; and there was but too much reason to
fear that all his directions as to the management of the girl would be
observed by contraries, the moment his back was turned. He had long ago
found explanation and argument to be useless. All that he could do was,
to declare authoritatively, that if his directions were not followed,
the girl would die, and her death would lie at the door of her nurses;
that, in that case, he expected some of the people about her would be
ill after her; but that if he was obeyed, he trusted she might get
through, and nobody else be the worse. Almost before he was out of the
house, another slice of fat bacon was cut, and the flannels put to the
fire to heat again.

Hope mounted his horse to depart, just at the hour when the labourers
were at their dinners in all the cottages around. They poured out to
stare at him, some shouting that they should not have him long to look
at, as they would get a better doctor soon. Some sent their dogs
yelping at his horse's heels, and others vented wrath or jokes about
churchyards. Soon after he had left the noise behind him, he met Sir
William Hunter, riding, attended by his groom. Hope stopped him, making
it his apology that Sir William might aid in saving the life of a
patient, in whom he was much interested. He told the story of the
small-pox, of the rural method of treating it with which he had to
contend, and proposed that Sir William should use his influence in
securing for the patien