the chair beside the hearth.

"Dan!" cried Reuben, and the word was echoed by all the brothers in
tones of varying surprise and dismay. "You do not mean that he is
dead!"

"Taken to the plague pit a week ago. Just when all the world is
rejoicing in the thought that the distemper is abating. Dr. Hooker
spoke truly when he said that the confidence of the people was like
to be a greater peril than the disease itself. For those who are
sick now come openly abroad into the streets, no longer afraid for
themselves or others, and thus it has come about that no man knows
whether he is safe, and my poor boy has been taken."

Sad indeed were the faces of all, and the two little boys were
dissolved in tears, as their father told how poor Dan had fallen
sick, and had succumbed on the fourth day to the poison.

"Dr. Hooker said that he was worn out with his unceasing labours,
else he would not have died," said the sorrowful father. "He had
treated many worse cases even when things were worse, and brought
them round. But Dan was worn out with all he had been doing for the
past months. He fell an easy prey; and he did not suffer much,
thank God. He lay mostly in a torpor, much as Reuben did, as I
hear, but slowly sank away. His poor mother! She had begun to think
that she was to have all her children about her yet. But in truth
we must not repine, having so many left to us, when they say there
is scarce a family in all the town that has not lost its two,
three, or four at best!"

It almost seemed a more sorrowful thing to lose Dan just when
things were beginning to look brighter, than it would have done
when the distemper was at its height. But as the good man said,
gratitude for so many spared ought to outweigh any repining for
those taken. After the first tears were shed, he gently checked in
those about him the inclination to mourn, saying that God knew
best, and had dealt very lovingly and bountifully with them; and
that they must trust His goodness and mercy all through, and
believe that He had judged mercifully and tenderly in taking their
brother from them.

The sight of Reuben alive and well did much to assuage the father's
grief; for there had been a time when he had not thought to look
upon the face of his firstborn in this life. He was also greatly
pleased to learn that he had another daughter in the person of
gentle Gertrude, and he gladly undertook the negotiation of the
purchase of his neighbour's house, so that