A WORD FOR TYPHUS. DR. DALRYMPLE'S PECULIAR INTEREST IN THE CASE. THE NURSE'S FRONT TOOTH. AN INVALID WHO MEANT BUSINESS. SAPPS COURT AGAIN. HOW DAVE AND DOLLY LEFT THINGS BE IN MRS. PRICHARD'S ROOM. DOLLY JUNIOR'S LEGS. QUEEN VICTORIA AND PRINCE ALBERT. MRS. BURR'S RETURN. BUT SHE COULD GIVE AUNT M'RIAR A LIFT, IN SPITE OF HER INSTEP. HOW THE WRITING-TABLE HAD LOST A LEG. WHAT IT WOULD COME TO TO MAKE A SOUND JOB OF IT. BUT ONLY BY EMPTYING OUT THE THINGS INSIDE OF THE DRAWER. WHO WOULD ACT AS BAILEE? HOW A VISION VOLUNTEERED. HOW THE LOCK CAME OPEN QUITE EASY, AND MRS. BURR MADE A NEAT PACKET OF WHAT IT RELEASED, TO BE TOOK CHARGE OF BY THE VISION

It had got wind in Cavendish Square that Typhus had broken out at Number One-hundred-and-two. That was the first form rumour gave to the result of a challenge to gaol-fever, recklessly delivered by Miss Grahame in a top-attic in Drury Lane. It was unfair to Typhus, who, if not disqualified from saying a word on his own behalf, might have replied:—"I am within my rights. I know my place, I hope. I never break out in the homes of the Well-to-do. But if the Well-to-do come fussing round in the homes of the Ill-to-be, they must just take their chance of catching me. I wash my hands of all responsibility."

And no doubt the excuse would have been allowed by all fair-minded Nosologists. For although Typhus—many years before this—had laid sacrilegious hands on a High Court of Justice, giving rise to what came to be known as the "Black Assizes," all that had happened on that occasion was in a fair way of business; good, straightforward, old-fashioned contagion. If prison-warders did not sterilise persons who had been awaiting their trial for weeks in Houses of Detention—Pest-houses of Detention—you could not expect a putrid fever to adopt new rules merely to accommodate legal prejudice. And in the same way if Cavendish Square came sniffing up pestilential effluvia in Drury Lane, it was The Square's look out, not Typhus's.

Nevertheless, the Lares and Penates of The Square, who varied as individuals but remained the same as inherent principles—its Policeman, its Milk, its Wash, its Crossing-Sweeper—even after the germ of contagion had been identified beyond a doubt as a resident in Drury Lane, held fast to a belief that Typhus had been dormant at the corner house since the days of the Regency, and had seized an opportunity when nothing antiseptic was looking, to break out and send temperatures up to 106° F. For, said they, when was the windows of that house opened last? Just you keep your house shut up—said they—the best part of a century, and see if something don't happen! But the person addressed always admitted everything, and never entered on the suggested experiment.

Persons of Condition—all the real Residents, that is—did not allow themselves to be needlessly alarmed, and refused to rush away into the country. There was no occasion for panic, but they would take every reasonable precaution, and give the children a little citrate of magnesia, as it was just as well to be on the safe side. And they had the drains properly seen to. Also they would be very careful not to let themselves down. That was most important. They felt quite reassured when Sir Polgey Bobson, for instance, told them that there was no risk whatever three feet from the bedside of the patient. "And upwards, I presume?" said a Wag. But Sir Polgey did not see the Wag's point. He was one of your—and other people's—solemn men.

Said Dr. Dalrymple—he whose name Dave Wardle had misremembered as Damned Tinker—to Lady Gwen, arriving at Cavendish Square in the early hours of the morning—still early, though she had been nearly four hours on the road:—"I wish now I had told you positively not to come.... But stop a minute!—you can't have got my letter?"

"Never mind that now. How is she?"

"Impossible to say anything yet, except that it is unmistakable typhus, and that there is nothing specially unfavourable. The fever won't be at its height for the best part of a week. We can say nothing about a case of this sort till the fever subsides. But you can't have got my letter—there has been no time."

"Exactly. It may have arrived by now. Sometimes the post comes at eight. I came because she telegraphed. Here's the paper."

The doctor read it. "I see," said he. "She said don't come, so you came. Creditable to your ladyship, but—excuse me!—quite mad. You are better out of the way."

"She has no friend with her."

"Well—no—she hasn't! At least—yes—she has! I shall not leave her except for special cases. They can do very well without me at the Hospital. There are plenty of young fellows at the Hospital."

Gwen appeared to apprehend something suddenly. "I see," she said. "I quite understand. I had never guessed."

He replied:—"How did you guess? I said nothing. However, I won't contradict you. Only understand right. This is all on my side. Miss Grahame knows nothing about it—isn't in it."

"Oh!" said Gwen incredulously. "Now suppose you tell me what your letter said!"

"You are sure you understand?"

"Oh dear, yes! It doesn't want much understanding. What did your letter say?"

Dr. Dalrymple's reply was substantially that it said what Gwen had anticipated. The patient was in no danger whatever, at present, and with reasonable precautions would infect nobody. He knew that her ladyship's impulse to come to her friend would be very strong, but she could do no good by coming. The wisest course would be for her to keep away, and rely on his seeing to it that the patient received the utmost care that skill and experience could provide. "I knew that if I said I should not allow you to see her, you would come by the next train. Excuse my having taken the liberty to interpret your character on a very slight acquaintance."

"Quite correct. Your interpretation did you credit. I should have come immediately. The letter you did write might have made me hesitate. Now I want to see her."

The doctor acquiesced in the inevitable. "It's rash," he said, "and unnecessary. But I suppose it's no use remonstrating?"

"Not the slightest!" said Gwen. And, indeed, the supposition was a forlorn hope, and a very spiritless one. Also, other agencies were at work. A tap at the door, that was told to come in, revealed itself as an obliging nurse whose upper front tooth was lifting her lip to look out under it at the public. Her mission was to say that Miss Grahame had heard the visitor's voice and she might speak to her through the door, but on no account come into the room. A little more nonsense of this sort, and Gwen was talking with her cousin at a respectful distance, to comply with existing prejudices; but without the slightest belief that her doing so would make any difference, one way or the other. The dreadful flavour of fever was in everything, and lemons and hothouse grapes were making believe they were cooling, and bottles that they contained sedatives, and disinfectants that they were purifying the atmosphere. It was all their gammon, and the fiend Typhus, invisible, was chuckling over their preposterous claims, and looking forward to a happy fortnight, with a favourable outcome from his point of view; or, at least, the consolation of sequelÆ, and a retarded convalescence.

There is a stage of fever when lassitude and uncertainty of movement and eyesight have prostrated the patient and compelled him to surrender at discretion to his nurses and medical advisers, but before the Valkyrie of Delirium are scouring the fields of his understanding, to pounce on the corpses of ideas their Odin had slain. That time was not due for many hours yet, when Gwen got speech of her cousin. She immediately appreciated that the patient was anxious to impress bystanders that this illness was all in the way of business. Also, that she was watching the development of her own symptoms as from a height apart, in the interest of Science.

"I knew I should catch it. But somebody had to, and I thought it might as well be me. I caught it from a child. A mild case. That would not make much difference. Being a woman is good. More men die than women. It's only within the last few years that typhus has been distinguished from typhoid...." After a few more useful particulars, she said:—"It was very bad of you to come. I telegraphed to you not to come, last week.... Wasn't it last week?... Well then—yesterday.... They ought never to have let you in.... There!—I get muddled when I talk...." She did, but it did not amount to wandering.

Gwen made very fair essays towards the correct thing to say; the usual exhortations to the patient to rely upon everything; acquiesce in periodical doses; absorb nourishment, however distasteful it might be on the palate, and place blind faith in everyone else, especially nurses. It was very good for a beginner; indeed, her experience of this sort of thing was almost nil. But all she got for it was:—"Don't be irritating, Gwen dear! Sit down there, where you are. Yes, that far off, because I've something to say I want to say.... No—more in front, so that I needn't move my head to see you.... Oh no—my head's all right in itself; only, when I move it, the pain won't move with it, and it drags.... Suppose I shuffle off this mortal coil?"

Gwen immediately felt it her duty to point out the improbability of anyone dying, but was a little handicapped by the circumstances attendant on Typhus Fever. She had to be concise in unreason. "Don't talk nonsense, Clo dear." The patient ignored the interruption. "Oh dear!—give me another grape to suck without having to open my eyes.... Ta!—now I can talk a little more." The obliging nurse headed Gwen off to a proper distance, and herself supplied the grape. In doing this she smiled so hard that the tooth got a good long look at Gwen, who looked another way. The patient resumed, speaking very much from her lofty position of lecturer by her own bedside.

"You see, a percentage of cases recovers, but this one may not be in it. However, the constitution is good.... No, Gwen dear, you know perfectly well I may die, so where is the use of pretending?" Whereupon Gwen conceded the possibility of Death, and the patient seemed to be easier in her mind; saying, as one who leaves trivialities, to settle down to matters of business:—"I want to talk to you about my small boy, Dave Wardle."

"Shall I go and see him at Sapps Court?"

"Yes—that's what I want. And then come back here and tell me ... promise!" She was getting very indeterminate in speech, and the nurse was signalling for the interview to close. So Gwen cut it short. But she felt she had made a binding promise. She must go to Sapps Court.

Said Gwen to Dr. Dalrymple, a few minutes later, in the sitting-room:—"I hope she hasn't talked too much." The doctor appeared to have taken temporary possession, and to have several letters to write.

"It makes very little difference," he said. "At present the decks are only being cleared for action. In a few days we shall be in the thick of it—pulse over a hundred—temperature a hundred and four—then a crisis. When it's all over, we shall be able to see how many ships are sunk."

Sapps Court had resumed its tranquil routine of everyday life, and the accident had nearly become a thing of the past. Not entirely, for Mrs. Prichard's portion of No. 7 still remained unoccupied, even Susan Burr remaining absent at her married niece's at Clapham. Aunt M'riar had charge, and kept a bit of fire going in the front-room, so the plaster should get a chance to dry out. Also she stood the front and back windows wide to let through a good draught of air, except, of course, it was pouring rain, and then it was no good. The front-room was a great convenience to Aunt M'riar, who now and then was embarrassed with linen to dry, relieving her from the necessity of rendering the kitchen impassable with it in the morning till she came down and took it off of the lines ready for ironing, and removed the cords on which she had hung it overnight.

Dave and Dolly were allowed upstairs during operations, on stringent conditions; or, rather, it should be said, on a stringent condition. They were to leave things be. This was honourably observed, especially by Dave, who was the soul of honour when once he gave his word. As for Dolly, she was still young, and if she did claw hold of a chemise and bring down the whole line, why, it was only that once, and we was children once ourselves. This was Uncle Mo, of course; he was that easy-going.

But whenever Aunt M'riar was not handicapping the desiccation of the walls by overcharging the atmosphere with moisture of the very wettest possible sort, Dolly and Dave could have the room to themselves, so long as they kep' their hands off the clean wallpaper; which was included in leaving be, obviously—not an intrusion of a new stipulation. They would then, being alone, go great lengths in picturing to themselves and each other the pending reappearance of Mrs. Picture and Mrs. Burr, and the delights of resuming halcyon days of old. For this strangely compounded clay, Man, scarcely waits to be quite sure he is landed in existence, before he inaugurates a glorious fiction, the golden Past, which never has been; between which and its resurrection into an equally golden Future—which never will be—he sandwiches the pewter Present, which always is, and which it is idle to pretend is worth twopence, by comparison.

"When old Mrs. Spicture comes back"—thus Dolly—"she shall set in her own chair wiv scushions, and she shall set in her own chair wiv a 'igh hup bact, and she shall set in her own chair wiv...." Here came a pause, due to inanition of distinctive features. Dolly's style was disfigured by vain repetitions, beyond a doubt.

"When old Mrs. Spicture comes back"—thus Dave, accepting the offered formula, somewhat in the spirit of the true ballad writer—"she's a-going to set in her own chair with cushions, just here!" He sat down with violence on a spot immediately below the proposed centre of gravity of the chair. "And then oy shall bring her her tea."

"No, you s'arn't! Mrs. Spicture shall set in her chair wiv scushions, and me and dolly shall tite her her tea."

Dave sat on the floor fixing two intelligent blue eyes on dolly junior's unintelligent violet ones, and holding his toes. "Dorly carn't!" said he contemptuously. "Her legs gives. Besides, she's no inside, only brand." This was a new dolly, who had replaced Struvvel Peter, who perished in the accident. His legs had been wooden, and swung several ways. This one's calves were wax, and one had come off, like a shoe. But the legs only bent one way.

Dolly the mother did not reply to Dave's insinuations against his niece, preferring the refrain of her thesis:—"When Mrs. Spicture comes back and sets in her chair wiv scushions and an Aunt-Emma-Care-Saw, Mrs. Burr she'll paw out the tea with only one lump of shoogy, and me and dolly shall cally it acrost wivout a jop spilt, and me and dolly shall stand it down on the little mognytoyble, and Mrs. Spicture she'll set in her chair wiv scushions, and dolly hand her up the stoast."

"Let me kitch her at it!" said Dave, with offensive male assumption. "Oy shall see to Mrs. Spicture's toast, and see she gets it hot. And Mrs. Burr she'll give leave to butter it, and say how much, and the soyde edge trimmed round toydy with a knoyf." All these details, safely based on items of past experience, were practically historical.

Dolly always accepted Dave's masculine airisomeness with meek equanimity, but invariably took no notice of it. This is nearly common form in well-organized households. She went on to refer to other gratifying revivals that would come about on Mrs. Picture's return. The sofy should be stood back against the wall, for dolly to be put to sleep on. And Queen Victoria she should go up on one nail, and Prince Halbert on the other. These were beautiful coloured prints, smiling fixedly across a full complement of stars and garters. The red piece of carpet would go down against the fender, and the blue piece near the window, as of yore. Dave looked forward with interest to the resurrection of Mrs. Picture's wroyting toyble with a ployce for her Boyble to lie on, and to the letters to his Granny Marrowbone in the country which would certainly be wrote at it, directly or by dictation, in the blessed revival of the past which was to come. Mrs. Burr's cat, who had travelled by request in a hamper to her married niece's at Clapham, in charge of Michael Ragstroar, would return and would then promptly have kittens in spite of doubtful sex-qualifications suggested by the name of Tommy; which kittens would belong to Dave and Dolly respectively, choice being made as soon as ever it was seen what colour they meant to be.

These speculations, which had made pleasant material for castles-in-the-air in the undisturbed hours when the children were in sole possession of the apartment, seemed to be within a measurable distance of realisation when Aunt M'riar, acting on a communication from Mrs. Burr at Clapham, proceeded to unearth the hidden furniture from the bedroom where Mr. Bartlett's careful men had interred it, and where it hadn't been getting any good, you might be sure. At least, so said Mrs. Ragstroar, who was so obliging as to lend a hand getting the things back in their places, and giving them a dust over to get the worst of the mess off. And Uncle Mo he was able to make himself useful, with a screw here and a tack there, and a glue-pot with quite a professional smell to it, so that you might easy have took him for a carpenter and joiner. For Mr. Bartlett's men, while doubtless justifying their reputation for handling everything with care due to casualties with compound fractures, had stultified their own efforts by shoving the heavy goods right atop of the light ones, and lying things down on their sides that should have been stood upright, and committing other errors of judgment. It was a singular and unaccountable thing that these men seemed to share the mantle of their employer and somehow to claim forgiveness, and get it, on the score of the inner excellence of their hearts and purity of their motives.

So that within a day or two after her young ladyship's sudden appearance at the fever-stricken mansion in Cavendish Square, Mrs. Burr put in her first appearance at Sapps Court since she went away to the Hospital. She was able to walk upon her foot, while convinced that a more rapid recovery would have taken place but for the backward state of surgical knowledge. She was confident they might have given her something at the Hospital to bring it forward, and make some local application—"put something on" was the expression. She seemed to have based an unreasonable faith in bread poultices on their successful employment in entirely different cases.

"Now what, you, got, to, lay out for, the way I look at it, ma'am,"—thus Mrs. Ragstroar, departing and bearing away the hand she had lent, to get supper ready for her own inmates—"is to do no more than you can 'elp, and eat as much as you can get." The good woman then vanished, leaving the united company's chorus to her remarks still unfinished when she reached her own door at the top of the Court. For Uncle Mo, Mr. Alibone, Aunt M'riar, and Dolly and Dave as claqueurs, were unanimous that Mrs. Burr should lie still for six months or so, relying on her capital, if any; if none, on manna from Heaven.

However, there was little likelihood of Mrs. Burr being in want of a crust, which is the theoretical minimum needed to sustain life, so long as Sapps Court recognised its liabilities when any component portion of it, considered as a residential district, fell on and crushed one of its residents' insteps. If Mr. Bartlett's repairs had come down on Mrs. Burr in the fullest sense of the expression, she would certainly—unless she outlived the impact of two hundred new stocks and three thousand old bats and closures, deceptively arranged to seem like a wall—have had the advantage, whatever it is, of decent burial, even if she had not had a married niece at Clapham, or any other relative elsewhere. So she was able to abstain without imprudence from immediate efforts to reinstate her dressmaking connection; and was able, without overtaxing her instep, to give substantial assistance to Aunt M'riar, who would have had to refuse a good deal of work just at that time except for her opportune assistance.

It was a natural corollary of this that Mrs. Prichard's tenancy should be utilised as a workshop, as Mrs. Burr was now its only occupant; and that she herself should take her meals below, with Aunt M'riar and the family. So the red and the blue carpet were not put down just yet a while, and Uncle Mo he did what he could with the screw here and the tack there, while Aunt M'riar and Mrs. Burr exercised mysterious functions, with tucks and frills and gimpings and pinkings and gaufferings, which it is beyond the powers of this story to describe accurately.

One mishap had occurred with the furniture which did not come within the scope of Uncle Mo's skill to remedy. The treasured mahogany writing-table that had so faithfully accompanied old Mrs. Picture through all her misfortunes had lost a leg. A leg, but not a foot. For the brass foot, which belonged, was found shoved away in the chest of drawers, which was enough, and more than enough, to contain the whole of the owner's scanty wardrobe. It was a cabinet-maker's job, and rather a nice one at that, to provide a new and suitable leg and attach it securely in the place of the old one. And it would come to nineteen-and-sixpence to make a job of it. The exactness of this sum will suggest the facts, that a young man in the trade, an acquaintance of Uncle Mo at The Sun, he come round to oblige, and undertook to give in a price as soon as he had the opportunity to mention it to his governor. The opportunity occurred immediately he went back to the shop. The sum was for a new leg, involving superhuman ingenuity in connecting it firmly with the pelvis; but a reg'lar sound job. Of course, there was another way of doing it, by tonguing on a new limb below the knee, and inserting a dowell for to stiffen it up. But that would come to every penny of fifteen shillings, and would be a reg'lar poor job, and would show. Nothing like doing a thing while you were about it! It saved expense in the end, and it was a fine old bit of furniture. Bit of old Gillow's!

But there was a point to be considered. The things must be took out of the drawers and the attached desk, or the governor he'd never have it at the shop. He was a person of the most delicate sensibility, who shrank from making himself responsible for anything whatever. Them drawers must be emptied out, or nothing could be done. Why—you'd only got to shake the table to hear there was papers inside!

This was a serious difficulty. It would, of course, be easy enough to write to Mrs. Prichard for the key; which, said testimony, was very small and always lived in her purse. But then all the milk would be out of the cocoanut; that metaphorical fruit being, in this case, the pleasure of surprising Mrs. Prichard with a writing-table as good as new. Open it, of course, you could! It was a locksmith's job, but the governor would send the shop's locksmith, who would do that for you while you counted half-a-dozen. The counting was optional, and in no sense necessary, nor even contributory, to the operation.

The real crux of the difficulty was not one of mechanism, but of responsibility. Who was qualified to decide on opening the desk and drawers? Who would be answerable for the safety of those papers? The only person who volunteered was Dolly, and Dolly's idea of taking care of things was to carry them about with her everywhere, and if they were in a parcel, to unpack it frequently at short intervals to make sure the contents were still in evidence. Her offer was declined.

The young man in the trade had numerous and absorbing engagements to plead as a reason for his inability to 'ang about all day for parties to make up their minds—the usurper's plea, by-the-by, for a coup d'État—so perhaps some emissary might be found, to drop round to the shop to leave word. This young man was anxious to oblige, but altruism had its limits. Just then a knock at the door below led to Dave receiving instructions to sift it and make sure it wasn't a mistake, before a senior should descend to take it up seriously. It was not a mistake, but a lady, reported by Dave, returning out of breath, to be "one of Our Ladies,"—making the Church of Rome seem ill-off by comparison. He was seeking for an intelligent distinction between Sister Nora and Gwen, in reply to the question "Which?", when the dazzling appearance of the latter answered it for him.

"I thought I might come up without waiting to ask," said the vision—which is what she seemed, for a moment, to Sapps Court. "So I didn't ask. Is that Mrs. Picture's writing-table where Dave gets his letters written?"

Never was a more unhesitating plunge made in medias res. It had a magical effect in setting Sapps Court at its ease, and everyone saw a way to contribute to an answer, the substance of which was that the table was Mrs. Prichard's, but had lost its leg. The exact force of the but was not so clear as it might have been; this, however, was unimportant. Gwen was immediately interested in the repair of the table. Why shouldn't it be done while Mrs. Picture was away, before she came back?

A momentary frenzy of irrelevance seized Sapps Court, and a feverish desire to fix the exact date when the table-leg was disintegrated. "It wasn't broke, when it came from Skillicks," said Mrs. Burr. "That's all I know! And if you was to promise me a guinea I could say no more." Said Aunt M'riar:—"It's been stood up against the wall ever since I remembered it, and Mr. Bartlett's men assured me every care was took in moving." A murmur of testimony to Mr. Bartlett's unvarying sobriety and that of his men threatened to undermine the coherency of the conversation, but the position was saved by Uncle Mo, who seemed less infatuated than others about them. "Bartlett's ain't neither here or there," said he. "What I look at's like this,—the leg's off, and we've got to clap on a new un. Here's a young man'll see to that, and it'll come to nineteen-and-sixpence. Only who's going to take care of the letters and odd belongings of the old lady the whilst? That's a point to consider. I'd rather not, myself, if you ask me. Not without she sends the key, and that won't work, as I see it."

"I see," said Gwen. "You want to make Mrs. Picture a new table-leg, and you can't do it without opening her desk. And you can't get the key from her without saying why you want it. Isn't that it?" Universal assent. "Very well, then! You get the lock opened, and I'll take everything out with my own hands, and keep it safe for Mrs. Picture when she comes back."

This proposal was welcomed with only one reservation. None but a real live locksmith could open a lock, any more than one who is not born a turncock can release the waters that are under the earth through an unexplained hole in the road. It was, however, all within the province of the young man in the trade, who had not vanished when the vision appeared, in spite of those pressing appointments. He would go back to the shop, and send, or bring, a properly qualified operative.

Pending which, an adjournment to the little parlour below, out of all this mess, seemed desirable. Dave and Dolly were, of course, part of this, but Mrs. Burr remained upstairs after answering inquiries about her own health, and Mr. Alibone went away with the young man in search of the locksmith.

Gwen had to account for her sudden appearance. "I'm sorry to have bad news to tell you about my cousin, Miss Grahame," said she, so seriously that both her grown-up hearers spoke under their breaths to begin asking:—"She's not...?"—the rest being easily understood. Gwen replied:—"Oh no, she's not dead. But she's in the doctor's hands." Uncle Mo looked as though he thought this was nearly as bad, and Aunt M'riar was so expressive in sympathy without words that both the children became appalled, and Dolly looked inclined to cry. Gwen continued:—"She has caught a horrible fever in a dreadful place where she went to see poor people, and nobody can say yet a while what will happen. It is Typhus Fever, I'm afraid."

As Gwen uttered the deadly syllables, Uncle Mo turned away to the window, leaving some exclamation truncated. Aunt M'riar's voice became tremulous on the beginning of an unfinished sentence, and Dolly concealed a disposition to weep, because she was afraid of what Dave would say after. That young man remained stoical, but did not speak.

Presently Uncle Mo turned from the window, and said, somewhat huskily:—"I wish some of these here poor people, as they call themselves, would either go away to Aymericay, or keep their premises a bit cleaner; nobody wants 'em here that ever I've heard tell of, only Phlarnthropists."

Aunt M'riar's unfinished sentence had begun with "Gracious mercy!..." Its sequel:—"Well now—to think of a lady like that! My word! And Typhus Fever, too!"—was dependent on it, and contained an element of resignation to Destiny.

Dave struck in with irrelevant matter; as he frequently did, to throw side-lights on obscurities. "The boy at the School had fever, and came out sported all over with sports he was. You couldn't have told him from any other boy." That the other boy would be similarly spotted was, of course, understood.

Having broken the news, Gwen went on to minimise its seriousness; a time-honoured method, perhaps the best one. "Dr. Dalrymple is cheerful enough about her at present, so we mustn't be frightened. He says only very old persons never recover, and that a young woman like my cousin is quite as likely to live as to die...."

Uncle Mo caught her up with sudden shrewdness. "Then she's quite as likely to die as to live?" said he.

"Oh, Mo—Mo—don't ye say the word! Please God, Sister Nora may live for many a long day yet!" Thus Aunt M'riar, true to the traditional attitude of Life towards Death—denial of the Arch-fear to the very threshold of the tomb.

"So she may, M'riar, and many another on to that. But there's a good plenty o' things would please us that don't please God, and He's got it all His own way."

Uncle Mo, after moving about the room in an unsettled fashion, as though weighed upon by the news he had just heard, had come to an anchor at the table opposite Gwen—obsessed by Dolly, but acquiescent. As he sat there, she saw in his grizzled head against the light; in the strong hand resting on the table, moving now and then as though keeping time to some slow tune; in the other, motionless upon his knee, an image that made her ask herself the question:—"What would Samuel Johnson have been as a prizefighter?" She was not properly shocked, but perhaps that was because she was quick-witted enough to perceive that Uncle Mo had only said, in the blunt tongue of the secular world, what would have sounded an impressive utterance, in another form, from the lips of the sage of whom he had reminded her. She felt she ought to say that the Lord would assuredly—a solemn word that!—do what He liked with His own, supplying capitals. She gave it up as out of her line, and went on to business.

"Any of us may die, at any minute, Mr. Wardle," said she. "But my cousin is twenty times as likely to die as you or I, because she's got Typhus Fever, and half the cases are fatal, more or less.... They told me how many; I've forgotten.... What's that?—is it the locksmith man?" For a knock had come at the street-door, and the sound was as the sound of an operative who had to be back in half an hour or his Governor would cut up rough. He was therefore directed to go upstairs and cast his eye on the job, and the lady would come up in five minutes to see the things took out of the drawer.

"Stop a minute, Aunt M'riar," said the lady. "He mustn't make a mistake and open it, till I come. Please tell him, to make sure!" And Aunt M'riar would have started on her errand if she had not been stopped by what followed. "Or—look here! Let Dave go. You go up, Dave, and say he mustn't touch the lock till I come. Run along, and stop there to see that he does as you tell him." Whereupon, off went Dave, shouting his instructions as soon as he got to the second landing. He felt like a Police-Inspector, or a Warden of the Marches.

As soon as Dave had left tranquillity behind, Gwen set herself to anticipate an anxiety she saw Aunt M'riar wanted to express, but was hanging fire over. "You needn't be afraid about this chick, Aunt M'riar," she said. "It isn't really infectious, only contagious. You can only get it from the patient. Dr. Dalrymple says so. Like the thing you can only buy of the maker. Besides, I've hardly been in the room; they make such a fuss, and won't allow me. And I'm not living in the house at all, but at my father's in Park Lane. And I've been there to-day since Cavendish Square, so anyhow, if I give it to Dolly, my father and mother will have it too.... Oh no—she's not rumpling me at all! I like it." It was satisfactory to know that an Earl and Countess were pledged to have Typhus if Dolly caught it. Dolly evidently thought the combination of circumstances as good as a play, and a sprightly one.

Gwen was not sorry when the young ambassador came rushing back, shouting:—"The Man says—the Man says—the Man says it wouldn't take above half a minute to do, and is the loydy a-coming up? Because—because—because if the loydy oyn't a-coming up he—has—to—get back to the shop." This last was so draconically delivered that Gwen exclaimed:—"Come along, Dolly, we've got our orders!" And she actually carried that great child up all those stairs, and she going to be four next birthday!

Upstairs, the lock-expert was apologetic. "Ye see, miss," he explained, "our governor he's the sort of man it don't do to disappynt him, not however small the job may be. I don't reckon he can wait above a half an hour for anything, 'cos it gets on his narves. So we studies not puttin' of him out, at our shop." At which Gwen interrupted him, sacrificing her own interest in the well-marked character of this governor, to the business in hand; and the prospect, for him, of an early release from his anxiety.

As for the achievement which had been postponed, it really seemed a'most ridiculous when you come to think of it. Such a fuss, and those two men standing about the best part of an hour! At least, so Mrs. Burr said afterwards.

For the operation, all told, was merely this—that the young man inserted a bent wire into the lock, thereby becoming aware of its vitals. Withdrawing it, he slightly modified the prejudices of its tip; after which its reinsertion caused the lock to spring open as by magic. He wished to know, on receipt of a consideration from Gwen, whether she hadn't anything smaller, because it only came to eighteenpence for his time and his mate's, and he had no change in his pocket. Gwen explained that none was needed owing to the proximity of Christmas, and obtained thereby the good opinion of both. They expressed their feelings and departed.

And then—there was old Mrs. Picture's writing-table drawer, stood open! But only a little way, to show. For the lady's hands alone were to open it clear out, to remove the contents. Gwen felt that perhaps she had undertaken this responsibility rashly. It is rather a ticklish matter to tamper unbidden with locks.

So confident was she that old Mrs. Picture would forgive her anything, that she made no scruple of examining and reading whatever was visible. There was little beyond pens and writing-paper in the drawer, but in a desk which formed part of the table were some warrants held by the old lady as a life-annuitant, and two or three packets of letters, one carefully tied and apparently of considerable age. There was also a packet marked "Hair," and a small cardboard box. Little enough to take charge of, and soon made into a neat parcel by Mrs. Burr for Gwen to carry away in her reticule, a receptacle which in those days was almost invariably a portion of every lady's paraphernalia, high and low, rich and poor.

The desk opened with the drawer—or rather unrolled itself—a flexible wood-flap running back when it was opened, and releasing a lid that made one-half of the writing-pad when turned back. The letters were under the other half, the old packet being in a small drawer with the parcel marked "Hair." These were evidently precious. Never mind! Gwen would keep them safe.

Dave and Dolly were so delighted with the performance of opening and shutting the drawer, and seeing the cylindrical sheath slip backwards and forwards in its grooves, that they could scarcely drag themselves away to accompany their Lady to the carriage that, it appeared, was waiting for her in the beyond, outside Sapps Court.