purification of infected houses.

"My sisters will soon get their burdens off their hands. It is time
they had a change; they were looking worn and tired even before I
left the city."

"They are coming! they are coming! They are just here!" shouted
Joseph and Benjamin in one breath, coming rushing down from a
vantage post up to which they had climbed in one of the great elm
trees. "They must all be there--every one of them! It is like a
caravan along the road; but I know it is they, for we saw father
leading a horse, and mother was riding it--with such a lot of bags
and bundles!"

The next minute the caravan hove in sight through the windings of
the lane, and three minutes later there was such a confusion of
welcomes going on that nothing intelligible could be said on either
side; nor was it until the whole party was assembled round the
table in Mary Harmer's pleasant kitchen, ready to do justice to the
good cheer provided, that any kind of conversation could be
attempted.

The sisters felt like prisoners released. They laughed and cried as
they danced about the garden in the twilight, stooping down to lay
their faces against the cool, wet grass, and drinking in the
scented air as though it were something to be tasted by palate and
tongue.

"It is so beautiful! it is so wonderful!" they kept exclaiming one
to the other, and the quaint, rambling cottage, with its bare
floor, and simple, homely comforts, seemed every whit as charming.

Dorcas was there, as well as Janet and Rebecca; and the three
sisters, together with Gertrude, were to share a pair of attics
with a door of communication between them.

They were delighted with everything. They kept laughing and kissing
each other for sheer joy of heart; and although a sigh, and a
murmur of "Poor Dan! if only he could be here!" would break at
intervals from one or another, yet in the intense joy of this
meeting, and in the sense of escape from the city in which they had
been so long imprisoned, all but thankfulness and delight must
needs be forgotten, and it was a ring of wonderfully happy faces
that shone on Mary Harmer at the supper board that night.

"This is indeed a kindly welcome, sister," said Rachel, as she sat
at her husband's right hand, looking round upon the dear faces she
had scarce dared hope to see thus reunited for so many weary weeks;
"I could have desired nothing better for all of us. Thou canst
scarcely know how it does feel to be free once