it must run on for at least three weeks," said
Julius.

"You've been to the meeting, eh? Was it that well of Pettitt's?
Really that meddling wife of Duncombe's ought to be prosecuted. I
hope she'll catch the fever and be served out."

"She tried to prevent it," said Julius.

"Pshaw! women have no business with such things, they only put their
foot in it. Nobody used to trouble themselves about drains, and one
never heard of fevers."

Instead of contesting the point, Julius asked whether Miss Vivian
were at home.

"No; that's the odd thing. I wrote, for M'Vie has no fear of
infection, and poor Camilla is always calling for her, and that
French maid has thought proper to fall ill, and we don't know what
to do. Upper housemaid cut and run in a panic, cook dead drunk last
night, not a servant in the house to be trusted. If it were not for
my man Victor I don't know where I should be. Very odd what that
child is about. Lady Susan can't be keeping it from her.
Unjustifiable!"

"She is with Lady Susan Strangeways?"

"Yes. Went with Bee and Conny. I was glad, for we can't afford to
despise a good match, though I _was_ sorry for your brother."

"Do I understand you that she is engaged to Mr. Strangeways?"

"No, no; not yet. One always hears those things before they are
true, and you see they are keeping her from us as if she belonged to
them already. I call it unfeeling! I have just been to the post to
see if there's a letter! Can't be anything wrong in the address,--
Revelrig, Cleveland, Yorkshire."

"Why don't you telegraph?"

"I shall, if I don't hear to-morrow morning."

But the morning's telegrams were baffling. None came in answer to
Sir Harry, though he had bidden his daughter to telegraph back
instantly; and two hospitals replied that they had no nurses to
spare! This was the first thing Julius heard when he came to the
committee-room. The second was that the only parish nurse had been
found asleep under the influence of the port-wine intended for her
patients, the third that there were five more deaths, one being Mrs.
Gadley, of the 'Three Pigeons,' from diphtheria, and fourteen more
cases of fever were reported. Julius had already been with the
schoolmistress, who was not expected to live through the day. He
had found that Mrs. Duncombe had been up all night with one of the
most miserable families, and only when her unpractised hands had
cared for a little corpse, had been forced hom