mething was
amiss; he looked so wan, and ate so little, and seemed like one out
of whom all heart is gone. He would go forth daily to his work, but
he came home harassed and tired, and on the last morning she
thought him sick; but he said he was well, and promised to come
home early. Then she let him go, and no one has seen him since.

"Oh, what can have befallen him? There seems but one thing to
believe. They say the sickness is worse now than ever it was.
People drop down dead in street and market, and soon there will be
none left to bury them. That must have been Reuben's fate. He has
dropped down with the infection upon him, and if he be not lying in
some pest house--which they say it is death now to enter--he must
be lying in one of those awful graves.

"O Reuben! Reuben! we shall never see you again!"

CHAPTER XII. EXCITING DISCOVERIES.

Joseph and Benjamin found themselves exceedingly happy and
exceedingly well occupied in their aunt's pleasant cottage. They
rose every morning with the lark, and spent an hour in setting
everything to rights in the house, and sweeping out every room with
scrupulous care, as their mother had taught them to do at home,
believing that perfect cleanliness was one of the greatest
safeguards against infection. Hot and close though the weather
remained, the air out in these open country places seemed delicious
to the boys, and the freedom to run out every moment into the open
fields was in itself a privilege which could only be appreciated by
those who had been long confined within walls.

Sometimes they were alone in the house with their aunt. Sometimes
the cottage harboured guests of various degrees--travellers fleeing
from the doomed city in terror of the fearful mortality there, or
poor unfortunates turned away from their own abodes because they
were suspected of having been in contact with the sick, and were
refused admittance again. Servant maids were often put in this
melancholy plight. They would be sent upon errands by their
employers to the bake house or some other place; and perhaps ere
they were admitted again they would be closely questioned as to
what they had seen or heard. Sometimes having terrible and doleful
tales to tell of having seen persons fall down in the agonies of
death almost at their feet, terror would seize hold upon the
inmates of the house, who would refuse to open the door to one who
might by this time be herself infected. And when this was th