home for a week or two, but at the first alarm she fled, rushing
headlong through the hall and down the stairs, unmindful of the
tremulous voice, which cried imploringly, "Don't leave me, daughter,
to die alone!"

Hannah followed next, holding the camphor bottle to her nose, and
saying to John when he expostulated with her, "I reckon I's not
gwine to spile what little beauty I've got with that fetched
complaint."

"But, mother," persisted John, "may be it's nothin' but vary-o-lord
after all, and that don't mark folks, you know."

"You needn't talk to me about your very-o-lord," returned Hannah. "I
know it's the very-o-devil himself, and I won't have them pock-ed
marks on me for all the niggers in Virginny."

"Then go," said John, "hold tight to the camphire, and run for your
life, or it may cotch you before you git out of the house."

Hannah needed no second bidding to run, and half an hour later she
was domesticated with a colored family who lived not far from the
Hill. Thus left to themselves, Louis and John, together with the
physician, did what they could for the sick man, who at last
proposed sending for Maude, feeling intuitively that she would not
desert him as his own child had done. Silent, desolate, and forsaken
the old house looked as Maude approached it, and she involuntarily
held her breath as she stepped into the hall, whose close air seemed
laden with infection. She experienced no difficulty in finding the
sick-room, where Louis' cry of delight, John's expression of joy,
and the sick man's whispered words, "God bless you, Maude," more
than recompensed her for the risk she had incurred. Gradually her
fear subsided, particularly when she learned that it was in fact the
varioloid. Had it been possible to remove her brother from danger
she would have done so, but it was too late now, and she suffered
him to share her vigils, watching carefully for the first symptoms
of the disease in him.

In this manner nearly two weeks passed away, and the panic-stricken
villagers were beginning to breathe more freely, when it was told
them one day that Maude and Louis were both smitten with the
disease. Then indeed the more humane said to themselves, "Shall they
be left to suffer alone?" and still no one was found who dared to
breathe the air of the sick-room. Dr. Kennedy was by this time so
much better that Louis was taken to his apartment, where he
ministered to him himself, while the heroic Maude was left to th