ich, "now you're
come back to nurse your husband, Mrs. Malmayns? I shall be glad to get
home to my own bed, for I don't feel well at all."

"Don't alarm yourself," replied Judith. "There's a bottle of plague
vinegar for you. Dip a piece of linen in it, and smell at it, and I'll
insure you against the pestilence."

Kerrich took the phial, and departed. But the remedy was of little
avail. Before daybreak, he was seized with the distemper, and died two
days afterwards.

"I hope poor Kerrich hasn't got the plague?" said the old woman, in a
tremulous tone.

"I am afraid he has," replied the daughter-in-law, "but I didn't like to
alarm him."

"Mercy on us!" cried the other, getting up. "What a dreadful scourge it
is."

"You would say so, if you had seen whole families swept off by it, as I
have," replied Judith. "But it mostly attacks old persons and children."

"Lord help us!" cried the crone, "I hope it will spare me. I thought my
age secured me."

"Quite the reverse," replied Judith, desirous of exciting her
mother-in-law's terrors; "quite the reverse. You must take care of
yourself."

"But you don't think I'm ill, do you?" asked the other, anxiously.

"Sit down, and let me look at you," returned Judith.

And the old woman tremblingly obeyed.

"Well, what do you think of me--what's the matter?" she asked, as her
daughter-in-law eyed her for some minutes in silence. "What's the
matter, I say?"

But Judith remained silent.

"I insist upon knowing," continued the old woman.

"Are you able to bear the truth?" returned her daughter-in-law.

"You need say no more," groaned the old woman. "I know what the truth
must be, and will try to bear it. I will get home as fast as I can, and
put my few affairs in order, so that if I am carried off, I may not go
unprepared."

"You had better do so," replied her daughter-in-law.

"You will take care of my poor son, Judith," rejoined the old woman,
shedding a flood of tears. "I would stay with him, if I thought I could
do him any good; but if I really am infected, I might only be in the
way. Don't neglect him--as you hope for mercy hereafter, do not."

"Make yourself easy, mother," replied Judith. "I will take every care of
him."

"Have you no fears of the disorder yourself?" inquired the old woman.

"None whatever," replied Judith. "I am _a safe woman_."

"I do not understand you," replied her mother-in-law, in surprise.

"I have had the plague," replied Judith