infection, I am sound and bring no hurt to others, I am
not afraid that I shall bring hurt to thee. I could not bear to
have no tidings of how it fared with thee. Thou wilt not chide me
for making this provision. It came into my head so soon as I knew
that peril of infection was like to come within these walls. We
must not let thee be shut quite away from us. We may be able to
give thee help, and in times of peril neighbours must play a
neighbourly part."

The tears stood in Gertrude's eyes. She was thinking of the
unkindly fashion in which her mother had spoken of late years of
these neighbours, and contrasting with that the way in which they
were now coming forward to claim the neighbour's right to help in
time of threatened trouble. The tears were very near her eyes as
she made answer:

"O Reuben, how good thou art! But if our house be infected, how can
it be possible for thee to come and go? Would it not be a wrong
against those who lay down these laws for the preservation of the
city?"

Then Reuben explained to her that, though the magistrates and
aldermen were forced to draw up a strict code for the ordering of
houses where infection was, these same personages themselves,
together with doctors, examiners, and searchers of houses, had
perforce to go from place to place; yet by using all needful and
wise precautions, both for themselves and others, they had
reasonable hope of doing nothing to spread the contagion. Reuben,
as a searcher under his father, had again and again been in
infected houses, and brought face to face with persons dying of the
malady; yet so far he had escaped, and by adopting the wise
precautions ordered at the outset by their father, no case of
illness had appeared so far amongst them. If every person who could
be of use excluded himself from all chance of contagion, there
would be none to order the affairs of the unhappy city, or to carry
relief to the sufferers. There must be perforce some amongst them
who were ready to run the risk in order to assist the sufferers,
and they of the household of James Harmer were all of one mind in
this.

"We do naught that is rash. We have herbs and drugs and all those
things which the doctors think to be of use; and thou shalt have a
supply of all such anon--if indeed thy mother be not already amply
provided. But I cannot bear for thee to be straitly shut up; I must
be able to see how it goes with thee. And should it be that thou
wert thyself a vict