of the evening. She did not dance--she rarely did that
now--but after a short promenade through the room she took a seat near
the door, and was watching the gay dancers when she felt her arm softly
touched, and, turning, saw her maid standing by her with an anxious,
frightened look upon her face.

"Come, please, come quick," she said in a whisper, and, following her
out, Miss McDonald asked what was the matter.

"This--you must go away at once. I'll pack your things. I promised not
to tell, but I must. I can't see your pretty face all spoiled and ugly."

"What do you mean?" the lady asked, and after a little she made out from
the girl's statement that in strolling on the back piazza she had
stumbled upon her first cousin, of whose whereabouts she had known
nothing for a long time.

The girl, Mary, had, it seemed, come to Saratoga a week or ten days
before, with her master's family, consisting of his wife and two
children. As the hotel was crowded they were assigned rooms for the
night in a distant part of the house, with a promise of something much
better on the morrow. In the morning, however, the lady, who had not
been well for some days, was too sick to leave her bed, and the doctor
who was called in to see her, pronounced the disease--here Sarah stopped
and gasped for breath and looked behind her and all ways, and finally
whispered a word which made even Miss McDonald start a little and wince
with fear.

"He do call it the very-o-lord," Sarah said, "but Mary says it's the
very old devil himself. She knows, she has had it, and you can't put
down a pin where the cratur didn't have his claws. They told the
landlord, who was fur puttin' 'em straight outdoors, but the doctor said
the lady must not be moved--it was sure death to do it. It was better to
keep quiet, and not make a panic. Nobody need to know it in the house,
and their rooms are so far from everybody that nobody would catch it. So
he let 'em stay, and the gentleman takes care of her, and Mary keeps the
children in the next room, and carries and brings the things, and keeps
away from everybody. Two of the servants know it, and they've had it,
and don't tell, and she said I mustn't, nor come that side of the house,
but I must tell you so that you can leave to-morrow. The lady is very
bad, and nobody takes care of her but Mr. Thornton. Mary takes things to
the door, and leaves them outside where he can get them."

"What did you call the gentleman?" Miss M