been sent to them by a special providence. There was something
satisfactory and consolatory to them all in my freedom from personal
anxieties and cares like their own. I had neither parent, nor husband,
nor child to be attacked by the prevailing infection. As soon as Minima
had passed safely through the most dangerous stages of the fever, I was
at leisure to listen to and sympathize with each one of them. Possibly
there was something in the difficulty I still experienced in expressing
myself fluently which made me a better listener, and so won them to pour
out their troubles into my attentive ear. Jean and Pierre especially
were devoted to me, since the child that had belonged to them had died
upon my lap.

Through March, April, and May, the fever had its fling, though we were
not very long without a doctor. Monsieur Laurentie found one who came
and, I suppose, did all he could for the sick; but he could not do much.
I was kept too busily occupied to brood much either upon the past or the
future, of my own life. Not a thought crossed my mind of deserting the
little Norman village where I could be of use. Besides, Minima gained
strength very slowly, too slowly to be removed from the place, or to
encounter any fresh privations.

When June came there were no new cases in the village, though the
summer-heat kept our patients languid. The last person who died of the
fever was Mademoiselle Pineau, in the mill-cottage. The old man and his
son had died before her, the former of old age, the latter of fever. Who
was the heir to the ruined factory and the empty cottage no one as yet
knew, but, until he appeared, every thing had to be left as it was. The
cure kept the key of the dwelling, though there was no danger of any one
trespassing upon the premises, as all the villagers regarded it as an
accursed place. Of the four hundred and twenty-two souls which had
formed the total of Monsieur le Cure's flock, he had lost thirty-one.

In July the doctor left us, saying there was no fear of the fever
breaking out again at present. His departure seemed the signal for mine.
Monsieur Laurentie was not rich enough to feed two idle mouths, like
mine and Minima's, and there was little for me to do but sit still in
the uncarpeted, barely-furnished _salon_ of the presbytery, listening to
the whirr of mademoiselle's spinning-wheel, and the drowsy, sing-song
hum of the village children at school, in a shed against the walls of
the house. Every