y landlords in suffering such cottages as these in the bottom
to exist reacted on their own class, and the fever entered other
dwellings beside those of the peasants.

Two of the gentry were struck down by it--Alick Corfield and the new
occupant of Lionnet, that Mr. Gryce who never went to church, and who
was assumed in consequence to have neither a soul to be saved by God
nor a heart to be touched by man. And these were just the two who,
according to the theory of the good or evil of a man's deeds returned
to him in kind, had the most reason to expect exemption. For Alick had
spent his strength in visiting the sick as a faithful pastor should,
and Mr. Gryce had taken them material help with royal abundance. Both
together they had to pay the price of principle, always an expensive
luxury, and never personally so safe a card to play in the game of
life as selfishness. For virtue has not only to be contented with its
own reward, as we constantly hear, but has to accept punishment for
its good deeds, vice for the most part carrying off the blue ribbons
and the gold medals, while poor virtue, shivering in the corner, gets
fitted with the fool's cap or is haled into the marketplace to be
pelted in the pillory. As was seen now in North Aston.

The rector, who never went into an infected cottage nor suffered
a parishioner to stand between the wind and his security, kept his
portly strength and handsome flesh intact, but Alick nearly lost his
life as the practical comment on his faithful ministry; and Mr. Gryce,
who, if he did not carry spiritual manna wherewith to feed hungry
souls, did take quinine and port wine, money and comforting substances
generally, for half-starved aching bodies, was also laid hold of by
that inexorable law which knows nothing about providential immunities
from established consequences on account of the good motives of the
actors. This would have been called heresy by the North Astonian
families, who professed to trust themselves to superior care, but none
the less used Condy's Fluid as a means whereby the work of Providence
might be rendered easier to it, nor disdained precipitate flight from
the protection in which they all said dolefully they believed. But
there is a wide difference between saying and doing, and men who are
shocked by words of frank unbelief find faithless deeds both natural
and in reason.

In spite, then, of that expressed trust in Providence which is part
of the garniture of En