ret had died away, a sudden sound of
alarm ran through the city, in curiously muffled tones that blanched the
bravest faces,--a visitant, then feared beyond measure, that science had
not been able to cope with. People spoke of it with bated breath. It was
not simply among the poor and destitute, or those indifferent to
cleanliness and order, but it spread everywhere,--the dreaded,
mysterious cholera.

The older people remembered the scourge of almost twenty years before,
and many of them prepared to fly to places of safety. The plague spot of
the city was then the old Five Points, where the lowest and poorest,
beggars and thieves, and sometimes murderers, had crowded in until it
was a nest to be shunned and feared. Through this tract the plague swept
like wildfire.

Margaret had accepted the urgent invitation of the cousins at Tarrytown,
and gone thither with her baby, insisting also upon taking her little
sister. Father Underhill was glad to have her out of danger, and was
fain to persuade his wife to follow.

"No," she said stoutly; "Joe must remain; and you and Stephen cannot run
away from business. With Margaret and Hanny safe, I shall stay to keep
watch over the rest of you. I may be needed."

Dolly had taken her two children up to her sisters', who lived on the
Hudson near Fort Washington. Stephen could drive up every day or two
with news of everybody.

It did not seem at all alarming up at the Morgan's rural home. True,
Cousin Famie was aging fast, and had grown more feeble than her years
really warranted. Mrs. Eustis was quite the head of the house, and very
bright and chatty, with a rather romantic turn of mind, just as fond of
reading as some of the younger folks.

And it seemed to them as if the world was quite full of famous people
then. For beside Cooper and Irving, there were Prescott's splendid
histories, that were full of romance. And for story-writers, Miss
Leslie, who was entertaining magazine-readers, and Miss Sedgwick and
Lydia Maria Child. Then there was Hanny's favourite Mrs. Osgood, Alice
Carey, and Mrs. Welby coming into notice, and Longfellow, Hawthorne and
Emerson. The Doctor brought them up the new magazines, and said
everybody kept well. Ben came up and stayed a week, and added to their
stock of books.

They went down to Sleepy Hollow, though it had not become so famous for
pilgrimages. Mr. Irving had come home from Madrid, and friends dropped
in upon him. He always had a delightful