292 WINNIE CORSELLIS ;

an estimate drawn out for needful repairs,—I cannot
venture to sanction more than what is necessary,
—and sending a copy to me and to Mr.

you observe,
Barrett.”

“We don’t want no more spent than will keep
out rain and wet from the house, and will save
crops rotting in the ground, and we are greatly in-
debted and obliged to you, ma’am, for the way you
have come forward, which is a credit to any lady,
and shows her to be of understanding mind.”

Miss Fisher accepted the compliment graciously;
she felt she deserved it, and that Ramsay was only
giving her her due.

“T trust you will find the other person concerned
willing to profit by my example,” she remarked,
and Ramsay chuckled again, as he said that he hoped
he should, but that there was no telling, for folks
was terrible contrary by times.”

* Does not that cottage belong to us also ?” asked
Miss Fisher, pointing to the thatched roof of Lowe’s
house, which could just be seen from the window.

“Yes, ma’am; but it’s in pretty fair condition
| that is. Poor things, they be in sad trouble up there.”

“Indeed, in what way, Mrs. Ramsay ?” and then
she heard the story of Emma’s death, and the illness
of the other two children. “Dear me! but this
must be seen to! The night before last, you say,
she was brought home, and now two more cases !
J think I'll go up and take a glance at the house.”

“Please, ma’am, we thought it best as they should
keep theirselves to theirselves for a bit; it seems
a pity like for more people nor is obliged to run
into places where the cholera has been, for there’s
no saying for certain how it is spread.”

* Perhaps not for certain, Mrs. Ramsay ; but it is
believed to be spread more frequently by water than
any thing else.”

“By water, ma’am! well to be sure, I should
have said as water would be just the thing to make
all pure andsweet! In course you know best, but
who'd have thought it ?”

Whereupon Miss Fisher mounted her hobby-
horse, and then and there set off at a gallop, till the
Ramsays’ hair nearly stood on end with the horrors
she detailed. Water was the surest means of convey-
ing disease from one place to another ; water might
look pure and bright, and yet be a poison, deadly as
the juice of the hemlock. Cases were on record
of typhus fever and diphtheria being carried for
miles from one house to another by water. She
told them of a village where typhus fever had
been so bad that Government sent down an
|inspector, and he discovered that all the houses
where the fever had broken out were supplied with
water from a stream that received the drainage
| from a cottage where the first case appeared.
Every house so supplied had the fever, every other

jamin, as he went off to the cow-shed rather erest-

OR, DEATH IN THE POT.

standing high up on the hills with air pure and
fresh as God made it ; but there had been such a
terrible outbreak of diphtheria, that seven persons
out of a femily of ten had fallen victims. By-and-
by some one thought of testing the water, and it
was found laden with impurities from the soakage
of the foalyard.

“Tor! bless me, to think of that!” ejaculated
Mrs. Ramsay ; “ how careful folks had need to be
about their water!”

“ And it is precisely what they are utterly care- |
less of,” said Miss Fisher, delighted with the im-
pression she had produced. “If it looks clean
they think all is safe, and yet the cleanest-looking
water is often the most poisonous. Where does
your water come from, Mrs. Ramsay ?”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s aught to fear about
our’n, thank the Lord,” replied Mrs. Ramsay, “it
comes straight down from the spring up there nigh
the top of the hill.”

“ And how does the cottage get its water ?”

“ The same road, ma’am, and wonderful comfort- |
able off they befor poor people; itruns intoa bit ofa |
well close to their back-door, and out again through |
pipes as brings it to our brew-house.”

“JT shall go up and see about it,” announced Miss
Fisher; and without further ado she marched out of |
the kitchen.

“Well to be sure, had I better go along ?”|
asked Mrs. Ramsay of Winnie. |

“No, I think not; she might not like it. You
will let us have some tea, soon, please,” she continued, |
as she rose wearily from her chair ; “the carriage
is ordered for five o’clock.”

“You don’t seem very hearty, Miss,”
Ramsay, looking at the girl.

“ No, I think the sun has been too much for me, |
I feel so heavy about my head, and so tired. When,
they are gone, I will lie down for an hour.” |

“ Her don’t look well, not by a long way,” said}
Benjamin, as she left the kitchen. ‘ What if her’s
going to have the sickness ! ”

“ Hold thy tongue,” replied his wife sharply,
“T won’t have thee talking no such nonsense. How |
should her get the sickness as has never been nigh 2.|
the place ?”

** Well, I weren’t saying no harm,” muttered Ben-

said Mrs. |

fallen ;
sharp.”

He did not understand the cause of such an un-|
usual snubbing, for Mrs. Ramsay seldom lost her
temper. But the idea he had suggested was so)
terribly painful to the old lady, that she would not
allow herself to think of it as possible, and resented |
the suggestion all the more bitterly because it was |
the echo of a fear which lay hidden away within her |
own heart.

“there weren’t no call to snap me up so)

jeageees: Then of another, a farm like their own,