g nothing of the tom-boy, did not
forfeit the privileges of her sex. She did not think they compensated
for her Colonel's absence, and never durst introduce Violetta to them;
but she enjoyed and profited by the contact with childhood, and was a
very nice little comforter to Conrade when he was taken with a fit of
anxiety for the brother whom he missed every moment.

Quarantine weighed, however, most heavily upon poor Grace Curtis. Rachel
had from the first insisted that she should be kept out of her room; and
the mother's piteous entreaty always implied that saddest argument, "Why
should I be deprived of you both in one day?" So Grace found herself
condemned to uselessness almost as complete as Ermine's. She could only
answer notes, respond to inquiries, without even venturing far enough
from the house to see Ermine, or take out the Temple children for a
walk. For indeed, Rachel's state was extremely critical.

The feverish misery that succeeded Lovedy's death had been utterly
crushing, the one load of self-accusation had prostrated her, but with
a restlessness of agony, that kept her writhing as it were in her
wretchedness; and then came the gradual increase of physical suffering,
bearing in upon her that she had caught the fatal disorder. To her sense
of justice, and her desire to wreak vengeance on herself, the notion
might be grateful; but the instinct of self-preservation was far
stronger. She could not die. The world here, the world to come, were all
too dark, too confused, to enable her to bear such a doom. She saw her
peril in her mother's face; in the reiterated visits of the medical
man, whom she no longer spurned; in the calling in of the Avoncester
physician; in the introduction of a professional nurse, and the strong
and agonizing measures to which she had to submit, every time with
the sensation that the suffering could not possibly be greater without
exceeding the powers of endurance.

Then arose the thought that with weakness she should lose all chance of
expressing a wish, and, obtaining pencil and paper, she began to write
a charge to her mother and sister to provide for Mary Morris; but in
the midst there came over her the remembrance of the papers that she had
placed in Mauleverer's hands--the title-deeds of the Burnaby Bargain; an
estate that perhaps ought to be bringing in as much as half the rental
of the property. It must be made good to the poor. If the title-deeds
had been sold to any one who