ss would intrude themselves upon Arthur's
happiest hours, until he could bear it no longer; so he told Louisa the
unkind way in which he had left his father, and how unhappy he was on
that account, proposing that they should proceed to Barrington Park
without delay. To this she readily agreed, but unfortunately their route
lay through a district where a malignant fever was very prevalent, and
while traversing a lone and dreary portion of this district, Arthur was
attacked with this terrible disease. He strove bravely against it, and
endeavored to push on to the nearest town, but that was yet forty miles
distant, when Arthur became so alarmingly ill that they were forced to
stop at a little hamlet and put up with the best accommodation its
miserable inn afforded, which was poor indeed. There was no doctor to be
had nearer than Z----, but the driver promised to procure one from there
if possible. With this they were obliged to be content; but day after
day passed and none came, while Arthur hourly became worse, and Louisa
grew half wild with grief and fear.

"If we could only get a doctor, I believe he would soon be well; but,
ah! it is so dreadful to see him die for want of proper advice,"
murmured Louisa, glancing toward the bed where Arthur lay tossing in the
terrible malaria fever, so fatal to temperaments such as his; "but he
will not die, O no I cannot believe that my happiness will be of such
short duration that I shall again be left in such icy desolation. Oh!
Arthur, Arthur, do not leave me she sobbed, covering her face with her
hands, but Arthur does not heed her, racked with burning fever he cannot
even recognize her, as with patient gentleness she endeavors to
alleviate his sufferings with cooling drinks, or bathes his burning
brow. In vain were all the remedies that the simple people of the inn
could suggest, or that Louisa's love could devise. Day by day his life
ebbed away consumed by the disease, the prostration and langour
following the fever being too much for his strength, thus Louisa saw
that he who alone in the wide world loved or cared for her, was fast
passing away; still though she could not but see it was so, she would
not believe the terrible truth, but clung to the hope that a doctor
might yet arrive before it was too late, and so her great bereavement
came upon her with overwhelming force, when after a day of more than
usual langour, during her midnight vigil, he ceased to breathe. Louisa
had n