trousseau. I'm dying to see
it," laughingly replied Miss Thayer, while another rejoined, "Lost
her fortune. Was she then an heiress?"

"Yes, a milkman's heiress," said J.C., with a slightly scornful
emphasis on the name which he himself had given to Maude at a time
when a milkman's money seemed as valuable to him as that of any
other man.

There was a dark, stern look on the face of James De Vere, and as
Miss Thayer, the ruling spirit of the party, had an eye on him and
his broad lands, she deemed it wise to change the conversation from
the "Milkman's Heiress" to a topic less displeasing to their
handsome host. In the course of the afternoon the cousins were alone
for a few moments, when the elder demanded of the other: "Do you
pretend to love Maude Remington, and still make light both of her
and your engagement with her?"

"I pretend to nothing which is not real," was J.C.'s haughty answer;
"but I do dislike having my matters canvassed by every silly tongue,
and have consequently kept my relation to Miss Remington a secret. I
cannot see her to-day, but with your permission I will pen a few
lines by way of explanation," and, glad to escape from the rebuking
glance he knew he so much deserved, he stepped into his cousin's
library, where he wrote the note James gave to Maude.

Under some circumstances it would have been a very unsatisfactory
message, but with her changed feelings toward the writer and James
De Vere sitting at her side, she scarcely noticed how cold it was,
and throwing it down, tore open Louis' letter which had come in the
evening mail. It was very brief, and hastily perusing its contents
Maude cast it from her with a cry of horror and disgust--then
catching it up, she moaned, "Oh, must I go!--I can't! I can't!"

"What is it?" asked Mr. De Vere, and pointing to the lines Maude
bade him read.

He did read, and as he read his own cheek blanched, and he wound his
arm closely round the maiden's waist as if to keep her there and
thus save her from danger. Dr. Kennedy had the smallpox, so Louis
wrote, and Nellie, who had been home for a few days, had fled in
fear back to the city. Hannah, too, had gone, and there was no one
left to care for the sick man save John and the almost helpless
Louis.

"Father is so sick," he wrote, "and he says, tell Maude, for
humanity's sake, to come."

If there was one disease more than another of which Maude stood in
mortal fear it was the smallpox, and her first impul