e infection with them. They
were at once isolated, and such prompt and efficient measures were taken
to prevent the spread of the disease, that there have been no more
cases, either in the circus or in the town. Now, I should imagine, all
danger of its spreading is practically over; but, of course, it made
everybody in the neighbourhood, and everybody who had been to the
circus, very nervous and uncomfortable for a few days. The local
authorities, however, omitted no possible precaution which should assist
them in stamping out the epidemic, should those few cases have started
an epidemic--which was, of course, possible, though hardly likely."

And then Alan proceeded to expound his views on the matter of sanitary
authorities in general and of those of Burlingham in particular, to
which Felicia listened with absorbing attention and Elisabeth did not
listen at all.

Soon after this she took her leave; and all along the homeward walk
through Badgering Woods she was conscious of feeling ashamed of
herself--a very rare sensation with Elisabeth, and by no means an
agreeable one. She was by nature so self-reliant and so irresponsible
that she seldom regretted anything that she had done; if she had acted
wisely, all was well; and if she had not acted wisely, it was over and
done with, and what was the use of bothering any more about it? This was
her usual point of view, and it proved as a rule a most comfortable one.
But now she could not fail to see that she had been in the
wrong--hopelessly and flagrantly in the wrong--and that she had behaved
abominably to Christopher into the bargain. She had to climb down, as
other ruling powers have had to climb down before now; and the act of
climbing down is neither a becoming nor an exhilarating form of exercise
to ruling powers. But at the back of her humble contrition there was a
feeling of gladness in the knowledge that Christopher had not really
failed her after all, and that her kingdom was still her own as it had
been in her childish days; and there was also a nobler feeling of higher
joy in the consciousness that--quite apart from his attitude toward
her--Christopher was still the Christopher that she had always in her
inmost soul believed him to be; that she was not wrong in the idea she
had formed of him long ago. It is very human to be glad on our own
account when people are as fond of us as we expected them to be; but it
is divine to be glad, solely for their sakes, when th