pose

she was not aware of the risk. You see, Doctor, our establishment will be very much reduced.'

'Where is Miss Terry ?' asked Dr. Home.

'She is too much alarmed to remain in the house,' said

Mrs. Toogood.

The doctor made a gesture of contempt.

'Well,' said he, I am afraid, my dear madam, you will have your hands full. But if you should require assistance, you must send to me.'

All this Isabel heard with her eyes closed and her head buried in the pillow. Then the doctor said he would come again in the evening, and took his leave. Mrs. Toogood went in search of Elizabeth. Elizabeth declared that she couldn't remain in the house with the fever, no, not if it was ever so,-which she was that frightful of infection, that she had been in the shakes and trembles ever since she had heard the fever was about. might knock her down with a feather, you might !'

You

'I do not want to knock you down with a feather,' said Mrs. Toogood angrily. 'I want to know if you have not had the fever; if not, I will not keep you; but if you have, I should wish you to remain.'

'I might have it again,' said Elizabeth.

'Nothing of the kind.'

'I can't stay, ma'am; and that I just can't,' whimpered Elizabeth. " It is the judgment of Providence, and I

dursen't.'

If you had any trust in Providence,' answered her mistress, you would have no fear in staying; however,

you would be useless if kept against your will. Where's cook?'

'Cook have gone home, ma'am, if you please,' said Elizabeth. 'I wouldn't have left without a word, which I told cook; and no dinner for the young ladies, nor nothing.'

'And who, then, is with Miss Lloyd ?' asked Mrs. Toogood, feeling and looking very angry.

'Miss Astley, ma'am ; she ain't afeard of nothing, not Miss Astley, though she have never had it, like.'

Mrs. Toogood hastily left Elizabeth, who lost no time in packing up her things and making off, and sought the room where Bertha Lloyd was lying. She could not arrive there, however, without interruption—this time in the shape of the girl who acted as under housemaid, who, with red swollen eyes, stood in her mistress's path. 'Well! I suppose you wish to go home also,' said Mrs. Toogood.

'Yes; if you please, ma'am.'

'Well, go as soon as ever you like,' said Mrs. Toogood, passing on. 'I suppose Charles will give warning next,' thought she. Charles, who was the page boy, had, however, not waited to give warning, but had followed the steps of the cook; so that the house was deserted by the

servants.

Mrs. Toogood, as she had expected, found Theodora in Bertha's room.

'Miss Astley,' she commenced, 'I thought you had informed me that you have had the scarlatina?'

A General Clearance.

245

'I saw that you imagined I had, ma'am,' answered Theodora, and I did not contradict you; for, as I had already been with Bertha, I thought I had run the risk of infection, and it would have been adding to your difficulties had I gone home, especially as I heard Elizabeth declare she would not go near Bertha; indeed the poor child was quite alone for a time.'

'It was very considerate of you, Miss Astley; but suppose you become ill yourself.'

'As I said, I have already run the risk, Mrs. Toogood. Besides, if you allow me to stay with you, I shall be much obliged, as I should be very grieved to take the fever home amongst my little brothers and sisters.'

'And you are not afraid ?'

Theodora smiled. I fear I shall not have much time for being afraid,' said she, 'for poor Lucy Watson is ill now.'

Mrs. Toogood hurried away to see the new patient, and from her to Isabel Howard; then repairing to the schoolroom, she addressed the girls, holding, while she did so, a handkerchief steeped in disinfecting fluid.

My dear young ladies,' she said, 'those of you who are going home must exert themselves for themselves. I cannot, without risk, help in any of the preparations. The carriages to take you and your boxes away will be here at three o'clock. Be ready with your boxes at that time. You will require some refreshment before you go, and I am sorry to have to inform you that the servants, one and all, have left me in terror of the fever; so that I must request

you for to-day to wait upon yourselves. You will, doubtless, find abundance of cold meat in the larder. I must trust to your sagacity to find out whereabouts the larder is.'

As if the girls did not know!

'I will now wish you all farewell. I regret to add that Miss Watson, who was to have left this establishment today, has shown symptoms of fever. I trust that her case will be the last. Good-bye to each one of you, and may God protect you!'

The poor old lady's voice broke here, and she bowed silently in answer to the numerous 'Good-bye ma'am's' which came from the girls; then she returned to Isabel's room upstairs.

Before the day was out, the household was reduced to Mrs. Toogood, Theodora, Florence Leigh, Letitia Jones, and the three sick girls. When Dr. Home came in the evening, he was requested to procure a woman who would come daily to do the cooking and the down-stairs work. Letitia was kept strictly to the basement floor, so that she might have no communication with the fever patients or attendants, and a bed was put up for her in a room downstairs. Letitia found life very dull under these circumstances. She had not a soul to whom to say a word excepting the charwoman, whose entire conversation was of the scarlatina, and of the number of people it had attacked—a subject which was not calculated to raise the spirits of Letitia.

Melancholy letters from home-Officiousness of Letitia Jones-The tidings in the newspaper-Poor Alfred's fate-Mrs. Toogood in a difficulty-There is always some one in the world for whom to live and exert ourselves.

POU know there is a saying, 'Misfortunes never come alone.' Theodora thought it a bitterly

true saying that day. In the morning she had had a letter from her mother filled with lamentations over the necessity of Theodora's remaining at Prospect House, although she saw how much wiser and kinder it was in Mrs. Toogood, and in Theo herself, that she should not return home amongst the little ones. Theodora had told her mother nothing of the origin of the fever, and the result to herself; she thought that such a piece of ill news would be learnt early enough when the passing anxiety was at an end. Mrs. Astley had not the strength of mind to keep her worries to herself. Perhaps she was still influenced by the old idea that Theodora's feelings were not very acute, or perhaps it was only that Theodora was destined to be the bearer, as there is such