of the time.

The first impulse was to summon a physician; but it was evident that the
patient had been sinking by slow degrees to this state, and that the
last struggle had begun. Nothing remained but to watch her while
expiring, and perform for her, when dead, the rites of interment. The
survivor was capable of consolation and of succour. I went to her and
drew her gently into another apartment. The old man, tremulous and
wonder-struck, seemed anxious to perform some service. I directed him to
kindle a fire in Eliza's chamber. Meanwhile I persuaded my gentle friend
to remain in this chamber, and resign to me the performance of every
office which her sister's condition required. I sat beside the bed of
the dying till the mortal struggle was past.

I perceived that the house had no inhabitant besides the two females and
the old man. I went in search of the latter, and found him crouched, as
before, at the kitchen-fire, smoking his pipe. I placed myself on the
same bench, and entered into conversation with him.

I gathered from him that he had, for many years, been Mr. Hadwin's
servant. That lately he had cultivated a small farm in this
neighbourhood for his own advantage. Stopping one day in October, at the
tavern, he heard that his old master had lately been in the city, had
caught _the fever_, and after his return had died with it. The moment he
became sick, his servants fled from the house, and the neighbours
refused to approach it. The task of attending his sick-bed was allotted
to his daughters, and it was by their hands that his grave was dug and
his body covered with earth. The same terror of infection existed after
his death as before, and these hapless females were deserted by all
mankind.

Old Caleb was no sooner informed of these particulars, than he hurried
to the house, and had since continued in their service. His heart was
kind, but it was easily seen that his skill extended only to execute the
directions of another. Grief for the death of Wallace and her father
preyed upon the health of the eldest daughter. The younger became her
nurse, and Caleb was always at hand to execute any orders the
performance of which was on a level with his understanding. Their
neighbours had not withheld their good offices, but they were still
terrified and estranged by the phantoms of pestilence.

During the last week Susan had been too weak to rise from her bed; yet
such was the energy communicated by the tidings that