im, thou shalt not lack the best nursing that
all London can give."

She looked up at him with fearless eyes.

"Do men ever recover when once attacked by the plague?"

"Yes, many do--though nothing like the number who die. Amongst our
nurses and bearers of the dead are numbers who have had the
distemper and have survived it. They go by the name of the 'safe
people.' Yet some have been known to take it again, though I think
these cases are rare."

"If Frederick takes it, will he be like to live?" asked Gertrude;
and Reuben was silent.

Both knew that the unhappy young man had long been given to
drunkenness and debauchery, and that his constitution was
undermined by his excesses. The girl pressed her hands together and
was silent; but after a few moments' pause she looked up at Reuben,
and said, "You have given me courage by this visit. Come again
soon. I must to my mother now. I must ask her what I can do to help
her and my unhappy brother."

"Take this paper and this packet before you go," said Reuben. "The
one contains directions for the better lodging and tending of the
sick. The other contains prepared herbs which are useful as
preventives--tormentil, valerian, zedoary, angelica, and so forth;
but I take it that pure vinegar is as good an antidote to infection
as anything one can find. Keep some always about you. Let your
kerchief be always steeped in it. Then be of a cheerful courage,
and take food regularly, and in sufficient quantities. All these
things help to keep the body in health; and though the most healthy
may fall victims, yet methinks that it is those who are underfed or
weakened by disease or dissipation upon whom the malady fastens
with most virulent strength. I will come anon and learn what is
betiding. Farewell for the nonce, sweet mistress, and may God be
with you."

Greatly cheered and strengthened by this unexpected interview,
Gertrude descended to the lower part of the house in search of her
mother, and found her, with her face tied up in a cloth soaked in
vinegar, bending over the unhappy Frederick, who lay with a face as
white as death upon a couch in one of the lower rooms.

To her credit be it said, the motherhood in the Master Builder's
wife had triumphed over her natural terror at the thought of the
infection. When her husband had brought her the news that Frederick
was in one of the old shop buildings, awaiting her permission
(after what had occurred) to enter the house; when sh