and sympathy of their fellow men.

"Father," she urged, as she saw that her parent still hesitated,
"what would have become of us without Dinah? What should we have
done had no help come to us in our hour of need? Think of the
hundreds and thousands about us longing for some such tendance and
love as she brought hither to us! What would have become of us had
no kind neighbours befriended us? And are we not bidden to do unto
others as we would have them do unto us in like case?"

"But the risk, my child, the risk!" he urged. "Am I to lose my last
and only stay and solace?"

"Mother died in this house, which is now doubly infected. I was
with her and with Frederick both, and yet I am sound and whole, and
thou also. Why should we so greatly fear, when no man can say who
will be smitten and who will escape? Methinks, perchance, those who
seek to do their duty to the living, as our good neighbours and the
city aldermen and magistrates and doctors are doing, will be
specially protected of God. Father, let me go! Truly I feel that I
have been bidden. Here I should fret myself ill in fruitless
longing. Let me go forth with Dinah. Let me obey the call which
methinks God has sent me. Truly I think I shall be the safest so.
And who can say in these days, take what precaution he will, that
he may not already have upon him the dreaded tokens? If we must
die, let us at least die doing good to our fellow men. Did not our
Lord say to those who visited the sick in their necessity, 'Ye have
done it unto me'?"

"Child," said the Master Builder, in a much-moved voice, "it shall
be as you desire. Go; and may the blessing of God go with you. I
will offer myself for any post, as searcher or examiner, which may
be open, if indeed I may go forth from this house ere the
twenty-eight days be expired. If Dinah will take you, and if the
Harmers will let you both sally forth from the house, I will not
keep you back. It may be indeed that God has called you; and if so,
may He keep and bless you both."

Father and daughter embraced each other tenderly.

In those times the shadow of death was so very apparent that no one
knew from day to day what might befall him ere the morrow. Strong
men, leaving their homes apparently in their usual health, would
sink down in the streets an hour afterwards, and perhaps die before
the very eyes of the passersby, none of whom would be found willing
so much as to approach the sufferer with a kind word. Men wou