glish respectability, a great fear fell on the
North Aston gentry when these two of their own circle were attacked.
The fever, while it had confined itself to the ill-drained,
picturesque little cottages below, was lamentable enough, but not more
than lamentable on the broad platform of a common humanity; and those
who had lost nothing told those who had lost all that they must bear
their cross with patience, seeing that it was the divine will that it
should be so. Now, when the fiery epidemic had come upon the gentry
face to face in their homes, it was a monster from which they must
flee without delay, for no one knew whose house was safe, nor for how
long his own might remain uninfected.

Mrs. Harrowby and her daughters went off to Cheltenham two days after
Alick was announced as "down," to find there the security of
living which had failed them here. They were people of the highest
respectability--people who are the very pith and marrow of English
social virtue; but they had not been touched with the divine fire of
self-sacrifice for humanity, and they had no desire to hush the groans
of the afflicted if they thereby ran the risk of having to gnash their
own teeth. They could do no good at home. As Mrs. Harrowby said, as
one propounding a self-evident paradox, how could they go and see the
sick or help to nurse ploughmen and their children? They would only
catch the fever themselves, and so spread it still farther. And every
one knows what a wicked thing that is to do. Cook had orders to supply
a certain amount of soup and wine when asked for, which was more to
the purpose than any mere sentimental kindness, of no use to the one
and highly dangerous to the other; and as Edgar had a great deal to do
in the house and stables, it was as well, she said with the air of one
undergoing something disagreeable for high principles, to get out of
his way and leave him to his bricks and mortar undisturbed. Gentlemen,
she said, as the clamp holding all together, do not like to be
interfered with in their own domain. That fever in the bottom was such
an admirable lever of womanly good sense! So they went and enjoyed
themselves at Cheltenham as much as it was in the Harrowby nature to
do, and even Josephine's kind heart consoled itself in the Pump-room
while their miserable tenants at home sickened and died as comfortably
as circumstances would allow.

The Fairbairns, too, found themselves obliged to pay a long-promised
visit to