xiety for
them. I have sent them all abroad, and shall go for them when this
epidemic has run its course; and not till then. I little thought what
satisfaction I could feel in walking about my own house, to see how
deserted it looks. I never hear that bell but I rejoice that all that
belong to me are so far off."

"I wanted to ask you about that bell," said Hope. "My question may seem
to you to savour strongly of dissent; but I must inquire whether it is
absolutely necessary for bad news to be announced to all Deerbrook every
day, and almost all day long. However far we may be from objecting to
hear it in ordinary times, should not our first consideration now be for
the living? Is not the case altered by the number of deaths that takes
place at a season like this?"

"I am quite of your opinion, Mr Hope; and I have talked with Owen, and
many others, about that matter, within this week. I have proposed to
dispense, for the present, with a custom which I own myself to be
attached to in ordinary times, but which I now see may be pernicious.
But it cannot be done. We must yield the point."

"I will not engage to cure any sick, or to keep any well, who live
within sound of that bell."

"I am not surprised to hear you say so. But this practice has so become
a part of people's religion, that it seems as if worse effects would
follow from discontinuing it than from pursuing the usual course. Owen
says there is scarcely a person in Deerbrook who would not talk of a
heathen death and burial if the bell were silenced; and, if once the
people's repose in their religion is shaken, I really know not what will
become of them."

"I agree with you there. Their religious feelings must be left
untouched, or all is over; but I am sorry that this particular
observance is implicated with them so completely as you say. It will be
well if it does not soon become an impossibility to toll the bell for
all who die."

"It would be well, too," said Dr Levitt, "if this were the only
superstition the people entertained. They are more terrified with some
others than with this bell. I am afraid they are more depressed by
their superstitions than sustained by their religion. Have you
observed, Hope, how many of them stand looking at the sky every night?"

"Yes; and we hear, wherever we go, of fiery swords, and dreadful angels,
seen in the clouds; and the old prophecies have all come up again--at
least, all of them that are dismal.