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WINNIE CORSELLIS; OR, DEATH IN THE POT.

which had frightened it from earth was only the beginning of the greater terror which marked its passage to eternity.

Mr. Hammond was right when he said that his partner would be worried. George Ferrars went to his work for the first time with a divided mind ; while he was attending to his patients his thoughts would turn to Winnie. What if she were ill, far away from medical help, and with no one at hand who had experience in the treatment of the cholera. What if going up to the farm had only placed her beyond the reach of timely aid,—and no one knew better than he did that in cholera every thing depended on prompt measures taken at the begin- ning,—and thus had increased the risk instead of diminishing it. He knew that his fears were un- reasonable, and that his judgment did not endorse the anxiety which nevertheless would not be shaken off. He was doing his work badly and was fully aware of it; but he could not, as at other times, shake off all care, all distracting thoughts, and devote his whole attention to the cases under his care.

“TF am doing no good, and what is worse I}

cannot help it. I have a great mind to take the mare, and ride up to the farm to-night: she would not want many hours’ rest, and I could be back again before the morning,” he thought, as he went wearily from street to street. Had the work gone on as usual he would have done so, but to add horror to horror a dreadful colliery accident occurred that afternoon, and a deeper cloud of gloom fell over the place as the procession of litters, each bearing a sufferer, passed through the town. There was no chance of leaving now, and it was far on in the night when the doctors met again at their own home. Both were too tired by that time to do any thing but go to bed, and the fresh call coming from a new source had roused George Ferrars and made him forget his anxiety about Winnie while expending all his surgical skill upon the maimed and wounded men.

In the morning there was a letter from Winnie herself, written cheerfully as usual, and telling him of the visit from his aunts which was to take place the day she wrote, and of her hopes that it might result in some good to the Ramsays.

“They are all right,” he said to Mr. Hammond, who was reading his own letter. “It seems. my aunts were to be over there yesterday ; [had no idea that the Castle was their farm, though I’ve heard enough about that most unsatisfactory piece of pro- perty, and ought to have remembered its name.”

“T don’t think we need worry ourselves about that cholera business any more,” replied Mr. Hammond, as he folded up his letter. “Jane says that no one goes near the house where it occurred, so I think you may set your mind at rest.”

“Yes, I shall be able to attend to my business

to-day, I hope: yesterday it was the merest farce ; I could not give my attention to any thing. Luckily there was nothing very serious till the colliery cases came on, and they awoke me up. | If that accident had not happened, I should have | ridden up to the farm last evening, and come back | again as soon as the mare had rested; but I am | glad I did not, as things have turned out.”

“You must have a day there as soon as eyer it can be managed,” said Mr. Hammond; “this press of work cannot go on for ever.”

“J will take a holiday if I want it, Hammond. You will see that I practise what I preach, but I don’t need rest; now J am not anxious about her, it will be all right.”

And so with cheerful hearts the two men went out to their work, and resumed the hand-to-hand fight with Death, over many a bed of pain and weariness. To some they brought hope and strength, and the promise of life; to others they gave ease from suffering, and cheered afresh spirits that were sinking into despair. To some they could bring nothing. Here and there the destroyer was too strong for them, and they could only look on at the deadly agony which they were powerless to alleviate.

It was late in the afternoon, and Mr. Hammond was coming quickly up High Street, on his way to visit one of the injured colliers who lived in a small court at the back of St. Thomas’s Church, when his eye caught an elderly man riding towards him, on a heavily-built horse that seemed to belong to the plough rather than the road. Something in the look of the rider seemed to strike him as familiar, but he knew so many of the country people by sight, that it was only when he was abreast of the horse that the remembrance of where he had seen the man’s face flashed across him. And then in the same moment with one of those sudden intuitions that come to us now and then, and tell us of evil before the tidings have been spoken, he knew that Ramsay had come for him, and that there was trouble at the farm. He knew it even before he had sprung into the street, and laid his hand on the bridle, long before Ramsay spoke.

“T was a looking for you, sir.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“ye got a note here as will tell you better nor Lean.”

“My wife, the children.”

“Your missus wrote it, sir. Here it be,” and he pulled it out of his coat-pocket after some search. “They’m all right,” he added, seeing how Mr. | Hammond’s fingers shook. ‘It’s Miss Corsellis.”

Almost involuntarily he gave a sigh of relief. | His wife and children were safe, and the mist cleared from his eyes, and he could read the hurried lines which he held in his hand.

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