affair.

"Oh! that's all right," replied the man of science, unoffended, a tardy recognition of her valor showing through his easy insolence. "But how about the Board of Health, and how about me? She's better off in a hospital, any way. You can't take care of her," with a scornful glance at the draggled finery and striking hat. "What do you want to try it for? I can't let the contagion spread all over the house, you know; how would you get anything to eat? No, it's no use. She's got to go. I'm not going to ruin my reputation as a doctor, and—"

Miss De Courcy smiled sweetly into the doctor's hard, common face. She drew a purse from her pocket, and selected several bills from a roll that made his small eyes light up greedily, and pressing the little packet into his not too reluctant fingers, she remarked significantly, as she sat down easily on the top of a low table:

"You're mistaken about what's the matter with her, doctor. She's got the chicken-pox. You just look at her again as you go out, and you'll see that I am right. But it's just as well to be careful. You might mail a note for me when you go out, and my wash-woman will buy things for me, and bring them up here to the door. I'll swear I won't go out till you say I may, or till you take me to the hospital. And then, as you go along, you can step into the front flat left, and tell her uncle she's took bad with chicken-pox. He's got a lot of young ones, and he'll be glad enough to let me do it, see? And of course, chicken-pox is quite serious sometimes. I should expect to pay a doctor pretty well to bring a patient out of it," she added, with a placid smile.

The doctor had turned, and was looking with deep interest at a chromo on the wall.

"I'll take another look at her. I may have been mistaken, doctors sometimes are—symptoms alike—and—m—m—you can get that letter ready for me to mail."

Strange days and nights ensued. Druse had a dim knowledge of knocks at the door at night, of curses and oaths muttered in the hall, of Miss De Courcy's pleading whispers, of a final torrent of imprecations, and then of a comparative lull; of days and nights so much alike in their fevered dull monotony that one could not guess where one ended and another began; of an occasional glimpse that melted into the general delirium, of Miss De Courcy's face, white, with heavy, dark-ringed eyes, bending over her, and of Miss De Courcy's voice, softened and changed, with never a harsh note; of her hand always ready with cooling drink for the blackened, dreadful mouth. Yes, in the first few days Druse was conscious of this much, and of a vague knowledge that the rocking ship on which she was sailing in scorching heat, that burnt the flesh from the body, was Miss De Courcy's bed; and then complete darkness closed in upon the dizzy little traveller, sailing on and on in the black, burning night, further and further away from the world and from life.

How could she guess how many days and nights she sailed thus? The ship stopped, that was all she knew; but still it was dark, so dark; and then she was in a strange land where the air was fire, and everything one touched was raging with heat, and her hands, why had they bandaged her hands, so that she could not move them?

"I can't see," said Druse, in a faint, puzzled whisper. "Is it night?"

And Miss De Courcy, bending over the bed, haggard and wan, and years older in the ghostly gray dawn, said soothingly:

"Yes, Druse, it's night," for she knew Druse would never see the light again.

"Miss De Courcy!"

"Yes, Druse."

"I expect I've kept your brother out all this time. I hope he won't be mad."

"No, no, Druse; be quiet and sleep."

"I can't sleep. I wish it would be morning. I want to see you, Miss De
Courcy. Well, never mind. Somehow, I guess I ain't goin' to get better.
If what I've had—ain't catchin'—I suppose you wouldn't want to—to
kiss me, would you?"

Without hesitation, the outcast bent her face, purified and celestial with love and sacrifice; bent it over the dreadful Thing, loathsome and decaying, beyond the semblance of human form or feature, on the bed,—bent and kissed, as a mother would have kissed.

The gray dawn crept yet further into the room, the streets were growing noisier, the Elevated trains rushed by the corner, the milkmen's carts rumbled along the Avenue, the sparrows twittered loudly on the neighboring roofs. And yet it seemed so solemnly silent in the room. "Well, now!" said Druse, with pleased surprise, "I didn't expect you would. What a long time it is gettin' light this mornin'. To think of you, a-takin' care of me, like this! An' I ain't never done a thing for you excep' the headaches and sweepin', an' even that was nicer for me than for you. I knew you was awful good, but I never knew you was religious before, Miss De Courcy. Nobody but folks that has religion does such things, they say. I wish I could remember my prayers. Ain't it strange, I've forgot them all? Couldn't you say one? Just a little one?"

And Miss De Courcy, her face buried in her hands, said, "Lord, have mercy upon us," and said no more.

"Thank you," said Druse, more feebly, and quite satisfied. "We won't forget each other, an' you'll promise to come by'm'by. Won't you? I'll be so pleased when you come!"

"Yes, Druse," whispered Miss De Courcy, "I promise."

And then the terrible form that had been Druse sat up in bed with a mighty effort, and turned its sightless eyes joyfully toward Miss De Courcy's tear-stained face.

"It's morning! I can see you!" it said, and fell back into the faithful arms and upon the faithful breast.

And so Druse, not having lived and died in vain, passed away forever from the Vere De Vere.

A LAMENTABLE COMEDY.

I stood one July noon on the platform of the desolate station at Wauchittic, the sole passenger waiting for the stage. The heat was quivering in the air. I watched the departing train, whirling like a little black ball down the narrow yellow road, cut between the green fields, and was vaguely glad that I was not going to the end of the Island on it. This was somewhere near the middle, and it was quite far enough from civilization.

The village, like so many Long Island villages, was distant from the railroad. Only one or two farm-houses were in sight. There was hardly a sound in the hot noonday air, now that the train had gone, except the whistling of a cheerful station agent, who sat in the window of the little oven-like Queen Anne structure, in his shirt sleeves, looking out at me with lively interest. I had sought for a quiet country place in which to finish my novel, the book which would decide beyond doubt whether I had a future as a writer, or whether I was doomed to sink to the level of the ordinary literary hack, for into it I had put, I knew, all that was my best.

As I looked absently down the track, I reviewed the past winter months, the long days and evenings spent at my desk in the stuffy little lodgings to which I was limited by my narrow income, interrupted frequently by invasions on various pretexts of the ill-fed chambermaid, who insisted on telling me her woes, or by my neighbor from the next room, the good little spinster, who always knocked to ask if she might heat a flat-iron at my grate when I was in the midst of a bit of minute description. She would sit down, too, would poor withered Miss Jane, in my little rocking-chair to wait while the iron heated, and she said she often told the landlady she did not know how I could write, I had so many interruptions.