-you will take proper precautions?" exclaimed Nizza.

"Why should I exert myself for one about whose recovery I am
indifferent?" said Judith.

"Why?" exclaimed Nizza. "But it is in vain to argue with you. I must
appeal to your avarice, since you are deaf to the pleadings of humanity.
I have just bethought me that I have an old gold coin, which was given
me years ago by my father. He told me it had been my mother's, and
charged me not to part with it. I never should have done so, except in
an emergency like the present."

As she spoke, she drew from her bosom a broad gold piece. A hole was
bored through it, and it was suspended from her neck by a chain of
twisted hair.

"Let me look at it," said Judith taking the coin. "Who gave you this?"
she asked, in an altered tone.

"My father?" replied Nizza; "I have just told you so. It was my
mother's."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Judith!

"Have you ever seen it before?" inquired Nizza, astonished at the change
in the nurse's manner.

"I have," replied Judith, "and in very different hands."

"You surprise me," cried Nizza. "Explain yourself, I beseech you."

"Not now--not now," cried Judith, hastily returning the coin. "And this
is to be mine in case I cure the youth?"

"I have said so," replied Nizza.

"Then make yourself easy," rejoined Judith; "he shall be well again in
less than two days."

With this, she set a pan on the fire, and began to prepare a poultice,
the materials for which she took from a small oaken chest in one corner
of the vault. Nizza looked on anxiously, and while they were thus
employed, a knock was heard at the door, and Chowles opening it, found
the piper and one of the vergers.

"Ah! is it you, father?" cried Nizza, rushing to him.

"I am glad I have found you," returned the piper, "for I began to fear
some misfortune must have befallen you. Missing you in the morning, I
traversed the cathedral in search of you with Bell, well knowing, if you
were in the crowd, she would speedily discover you."

His daughter then hastily recounted what had happened. When the piper
heard that she had promised the piece of gold to the plague-nurse, a
cloud came over his open countenance.

"You must never part with it," he said--"never. It is an amulet, and if
you lose it, or give it away, your good luck will go with it."

"Judith Malmayns says she has seen it before," rejoined Nizza.

"No such thing," cried the piper hastily, "she knows nothing about it