en!"

She grew white as death; long shivers came over her from head to foot.
The little boys, frightened, crept up to her; she clasped them all
together in her arms, turning her head with a wild savage look, as if
some one were stealing behind to take them from her.

Muriel, perceiving the silence, felt her way across the room, and
touching her mother's face, said, anxiously, "Has anybody been naughty?"

"No, my darling; no!"

"Then never mind. Father says, nothing will harm us, except being
naughty. Did you not, father?"

John snatched his little daughter up to his bosom, and called her for
the hundredth time the name my poor old father had named her--the
"blessed" child.

We all grew calmer; the mother wept a little, and it did her good: we
comforted the boys and Muriel, telling them that in truth nothing was
the matter, only we were afraid of their catching the little lad's
sickness, and they must not go near him.

"Yes; she shall quit the house this minute--this very minute," said the
mother, sternly, but with a sort of wildness too.

Her husband made no immediate answer; but as she rose to leave the
room, he detained her. "Ursula, do you know the child is all but
dying?"

"Let him die! The wicked woman! She knew it, and she let me bring him
among my children--my own poor children!"

"I would she had never come. But what is done, is done. Love,
think--if YOU were turned out of doors this bleak, rainy night--with a
dying child."

"Hush! hush!"--She sank down with a sob.

"My darling!" whispered John, as he made her lean against him--her
support and comfort in all things: "do you think my heart is not ready
to break, like yours? But I trust in God. This trouble came upon us
while we were doing right; let us do right still, and we need not fear.
Humanly speaking, our children are safe; it is only our own terror
which exaggerates the danger. They may not take the disease at all.
Then, how could we answer it to our conscience if we turned out this
poor soul, and HER child died?"

"No! no!"

"We will use all precautions. The boys shall be moved to the other end
of the house."

I proposed that they should occupy my room, as I had had smallpox, and
was safe.

"Thank you, Phineas; and even should they take it, Dr. Jenner has
assured me that in every case after vaccination it has been the very
slightest form of the complaint. Be patient, love; trust in God, and
have no fear."

Her husband