over you?"

"Simply, father, the thought if I don't go to them and help them, they
will die. I was afeard of the fever, and I am afeard of it--but am I to
let my own foolish fears prevent me from doin' the part of a Christian
to them? Let us put ourselves in their place--an' who knows--although
may God forbid!--but it may be our own before the season passes--suppose
it was our own case--an' that all the world was afeard to come near us;
oh, what would we think of any one, man or woman, that trustin' in God,
would set their own fears at defiance, an' come to our relief."

"Mave, I couldn't think of it; if anything happened you, an' that we
lost you, I never would lay my head down without the bitther thought
that I had a hand in your death."

At this moment, the mother who had been in another room, came in to
the kitchen--and having listened for a minute to the subject of their
conversation, she immediately joined her husband; but still with
feelings of deep and almost tearful sympathy for the Daltons.

"It's like her, poor affectionate girl," she exclaimed, looking tenderly
at her daughter; "but it's a thing, Mave, we could never think of; so
put it out of your head."

She approached her mother, and, seizing her hands, exclaimed:--

"Oh, mother, for the sake of the livin' God, make it your own
case!--think of it--bring it home to you--look into the frightful state
they're in. Are they to die in a Christian country for want of some kind
person to attend upon them? Is it not our duty, when we know how they
are sufferin'? I cannot rest, or be at ease; an' I am not afeard of
fever here. You may say I love young Condy Dalton, an' that it is on
his account I am wishin' to go. Maybe it is; an' I will now tell you at
wanst, that I do love him, and that if it was the worst plague that ever
silenced the noise of life in a whole country, it wouldn't prevent me
from goin' to his relief, nor to the relief of any one belongin' to
him."

"I know," said her father, "that that was at the bottom of it."

"I do love him," she continued, "an' this is more than ever I had
courage to tell you openly before; but, father, I feel that I am called
upon here to go to their assistance, and to see that they don't die
from neglect in a Christian country. I have trust an' confidence in the
Almighty God. I am not afeard of fever now; and even if I take it an'
die, you both know that I'll die in actin' the part of a Christian girl;
an' what br