WINNIE CORSELLIS; OR, DEATH IN THE POT.

229

“Did she suffer much?” asked Winnie, com-
passionately.

But Mrs. Ramsay busied herself about the fire,
and did not answer. She had seen many death-
beds, many dreadful sights, but nothing like this,
nothing so terrible as the struggle of a strong
young life in the deadly grasp of cholera. It
made her shudder even to think of it, and she did
not care to put the horror into words.

“ Are there other children, there?” said Mrs.
Hammond.

“Yes, ma’am, and the mother’s pretty nigh off
her head for fear they should be took, there’s six
on ’em; it will be a terrible job if they was to have
it. Curious, ain’t it, ma’am?” continued the old
lady, straightening herself as she turned round,
“there’s been more sickness in that house nor any
other in the parish for all it lies welly on the top
ofthe hill. They had fever two years ago. One of
the lads ketched it while he were out harvesting :
he went into a house for a drink of water, being
thirsty, and him being hot, I suppose, it made him
likely for taking a sickness, for he come home that
night feeling bad, and the fever was on him by the
next day. They wondered how ever he had got it,
till some one happened by chance to say that there
was a man ill of it in the house where he’d gone
for the drop of water, and then they knowed how
it come. But it went right through them all, there
were six of them down at once: what a time it was
to be sure!”

“Poor things, they seem to have had a great
deal of trouble.”

“They have, sure enough: there’s always some-
thing the matter; first one, then another, they’m
never all peart together.”

“ And illness comes so hard on poor people,”
said Winnie; “it is bad enough for any one, but
worse for them.”

“Ah, youre right, Miss Winnie; it do come
terrible hard when they’m ill, and just as they
wants it most there’s no money coming in.”

“Do the Lowes belong to any club?”

“No, ma’am, I never heard they did; they’m
queer sort of people, and don’t seem to have much
forecast. The parish will have to bury this poor
thing, I doubt.”

When Mrs. Hammond and Winnie were alone,
they talked a good deal about the poor girl, and
agreed to ask Mrs. Ramsay to take charge of a
little money to be spent as she thought best.

“J am afraid it will vex Charles very much to
hear that we have a case of cholera so close to us,”
said Mrs. Hammond, as she stood in Winnie’s room
with her candle in her hand. “He seemed so
very glad that we were not at home, and to rejoice
so much in the safety of this place.”

“TJ suppose you will tell him when you write

to-morrow?” said Winnie. She was taking down
her hair, and as she loosened the braids it fell in
wavy masses on her white dressing-gown.

“Yes, it would not be right to keep it fom
him. I don’t know what George will do,” she
added, with a smile.

“T wish we had stayed at home,” replied Winnie
softly, more as if speaking to herself than address-
ing her sister: “Jane, if any thing should happen,
they could hardly get here in time.”

She was standing by the dressing-table, one
hand resting on the toilet-cover, the other holding
back the long brown hair from her face; she looked
very pretty, her sister thought, far prettier than
when properly dressed, but her eyes were large
and dark, and she was very pale.

“ Are you frightened, dear? indeed I don’t think
there is any risk, Winnie; we shall have no com-
munication with the cottage, and in such a pure
atmosphere infection can hardly spread, even if it
is infectious, which Charles says it is not. He
believes it is contagious, but then we shall keep
quite clear of the house, and of course Mrs.
Ramsay won’t think of having the mother here.”

Winnie smiled, but it was a very sad smile.

“JY am not afraid, Jane, really I am not. I
think I should not be afraid even if I were quite
sure I was going to have the cholera, I don’t
know, but I think I should not.”

“But, dearest child, I hope none of us will have
it: I believe we are quite safe.”

Winnie shivered all over as if with sudden cold.

“T think I am over tired,” she said presently,
“and that makes me fancy things. But it came
into my head just now, almost as clearly as if some
one had said the words, that we had come up here
to escape the cholera, and that after all it had
found us out, and would have its way.” Her voice
sank to a whisper as she uttered the last sentence.

“You are tired,” said Mrs. Hammond cheer-
fully, “and you have been worrying yourself about
George till you have grown nervous. I will come
and sleep with you, shall 1?”

“Yes, please; it is very silly, Jane, I know, but
I can’t help thinking about the cholera to-night.”

Mrs. Hammond stayed with Winnie, and long
after she had fallen asleep the elder sister thought
anxiously and prayerfully about her little children
and the girl beside her, whose quiet breathing
scarcely broke the silence of the room. It was so
unlike Winnie to talk in that way, that it had
struck her with a dreadful fear of what might be
going to happen to them, but at last she also fell
asleep, with the words of the ninety-first Psalm,
grown very familiar to her during this time of
anxiety, soothing her into a trustful rest.

(Lo be continued.)