he had seen this morning. Walcot had complained that his skill and knowledge could have no fair play among a set of people so ignorant as the families of his Deerbrook patients. They put more faith in charms than in medicines or care; and were running out in the cold and damp to have their fortunes told by night, or in the grey of the morning. If a fortune-teller promised long life, all the warnings of the doctor went for nothing. Then, again, the people mistook the oppression which was one of the first symptoms of the fever, for debility; and before the doctor was sent for, or in defiance of his directions, the patient was plied with strong drinks, and his case rendered desperate from the beginning. Mr Walcot had complained that the odds were really too much against him, and that he believed himself likely to lose almost every fever patient he had. It may be imagined how welcome to him were Mr Hope’s countenance, suggestions, and influence,—such as the prejudices of the people had left it.

Dr Levitt’s influence was of little more avail than Mr Hope’s. From this day, he was as busily engaged among the sick as the medical gentlemen themselves; laying aside his books, and spending all his time among his parishioners; not neglecting the rich, but especially devoting himself to the poor. He co-operated with Hope in every way; raising money to cleanse, air, and dry the most cheerless of the cottages, and to supply the indigent sick with warmth and food. But all appeared to be of little avail. The disease stole on through the village, as if it had been left to work its own way; from day to day tidings came abroad of another and another who was down in the fever,—the Tuckers’ maidservant, Mr Hill’s shop-boy, poor Mrs Paxton, always sure to be ill when anybody else was, and all John Ringworth’s five children. In a fortnight, the church bell began to give token how fatal the sickness was becoming. It tolled till those who lived very near the church were weary of hearing it.

On the afternoon of a day when its sound had scarcely ceased since sunrise, Dr Levitt and Hope met at the door of the corner-house.

“You are the man I wanted to meet,” said Dr Levitt. “I have been inquiring for you, but your household could give me no account of you. Could you just step home with me? Or come to me in the evening, will you? But stay! There is no time like the present,