d nothing of her adventure to me, though afterwards
I learned every detail of it from her and Mrs. Smith. She did not even
tell me that she had visited the Smiths' cottage until one morning,
about eight days afterwards, when some blundering servant informed us at
breakfast that the baby Smith was dead of the smallpox in the hospital,
and that the other child was dangerously ill. I was shocked beyond
measure, for this brought the thing home, the people lived almost at my
gates. Now I remembered that I had seen the red-headed tramp catch
the child Tottie in his arms. Doubtless she introduced the infection,
though, strangely enough, her little sister developed the disease before
her.

"Jane," I said when the servant had left, "did you hear about the Smith
baby?"

"Yes, father," she answered languidly, "I knew that it had smallpox a
week ago."

"Then why did you not tell me, and how did you know?"

"I didn't tell you, dear, because the mere mention of smallpox always
upsets you so much, especially just now with all this election worry
going on; and I knew it because I was at the Smiths' cottage and nursing
the baby when the doctor came in and said it was smallpox."

"You were nursing the baby!" I almost screamed as I sprang from my seat.
"Great heavens, girl; why, you will infect the whole place."

"That was what Ernest--Dr. Merchison--seemed to think. He wanted to
vaccinate me."

"Oh, and did you let him?"

"How can you ask me such a question, father, remembering what you have
always taught me? I said----" and with omissions she told me the gist of
what had passed between them.

"I didn't mean that," I answered when she had done. "I thought that
perhaps under the influence of shock----Well, as usual, you showed your
wisdom, for how can one poison kill another poison?" and, unable to bear
it any longer, making some excuse, I rose and left the room.

Her wisdom! Great heavens, her wisdom! Why did not that fool, Merchison,
insist? He should have authority over her if any man had. And now it was
too late--now no vaccination on earth could save her, unless by chance
she had escaped infection, which was scarcely to be hoped. Indeed, such
a thing was hardly known as that an unvaccinated person coming into
immediate contact with a smallpox patient after the eruption had
appeared, should escape infection.

What did this mean? It meant that within a few days Jane, my only and
darling child, the very hope and centre of