as pleased a
merciful Providence to spare the lives of myself, my child, and this
young man, and if you should be attacked, the same benificent Being may
preserve you in like manner."

"The Lord's will be done!" rejoined Dame Lucas. "I know I shall be well
attended to by Doctor Hodges. I nursed him when he was an infant, and he
has been like a son to me. Bless his kind heart!" she exclaimed, her
eyes filling with tears of gratitude, "there is not his like in London."

"Always excepting my master," observed Leonard, with a smile at her
enthusiasm.

"I except no one," rejoined Dame Lucas. "A worthier man never lived,
than Doctor Hodges. If I die of the plague," she continued, "he has
promised not to let me be thrown into that horrible pit--ough!--but to
bury me in my garden, beneath the old apple-tree."

"And he will keep his word, dame, I am sure," replied Leonard. "I would
recommend you, however, as the best antidote against the plague, to keep
yourself constantly employed, and to indulge as few gloomy notions as
possible."

"I am seldom melancholy, and still more seldom idle," replied the good
dame. "But despondency will steal on me sometimes, especially when the
dead-cart passes and I think what it contains."

While the conversation was going forward, Nizza and the piper withdrew
into an inner room, where they remained closeted together for some time.
On their re-appearance, Nizza said she was ready to depart, and taking
an affectionate farewell of her father, and committing Bell to his
charge, she quitted the cottage with the apprentice.

Evening was now advancing, and the sun was setting with the gorgeousness
already described as peculiar to this fatal period. Filled with the
pleasing melancholy inspired by the hour, they walked on in silence.
They had not proceeded far, when they observed a man crossing the field
with a bundle in his arms. Suddenly, he staggered and fell. Seeing he
did not stir, and guessing what was the matter, Leonard ran towards him
to offer him assistance. He found him lying in the grass with his left
hand fixed against his heart. He groaned heavily, and his features were
convulsed with pain. Near him lay the body of a beautiful little girl,
with long fair hair, and finely-formed features, though now disfigured
by purple blotches, proclaiming the disorder of which she had perished.
She was apparently about ten years old, and was partially covered by a
linen cloth. The man, whose feature