so weak that during
the stethoscopic examination her head fell from side to side as she was
moved, and when the doctor pressed her right side her moans were
pregnant with pain.

'Now let me see the tongue. Dry and parched.'

'Shall I die, doctor?' the girl asked feebly and plaintively as she sank
amidst the pillows.

'Die! no, not if you take care of yourself and do what you are told.'

'But tell me, Dr. Reed,' Alice asked. 'You can tell me the truth.'

'She'll get well if she takes care of herself. It is impossible to say.
No one can predict the turn pneumonia will take.'

'Pneumonia! What is that?'

'Congestion of the lungs, or rather an advanced stage of it. It is more
common in men than in women, and it is the consequence of long exposure
to wet and cold.'

'Is it very dangerous?'

'Very; and now let me tell you that it is all-important that the
temperature of the room should not be allowed to vary. I attended a case
of it some three or four miles from here, but the damp of the cabin was
so great that it was impossible to combat the disease. The cottage, or
rather hovel, was built on the edge of a soft spongy bog, and so wet was
it that the woman had to sweep the water every morning from the floor,
where it collected in great pools. I am now going to visit an evicted
family, who are living in a partially roofed shed fenced up by the
roadside. The father is down with fever, and lies shivering, with
nothing to drink but cold water. His wife told me that last week it
rained so heavily that she had to get up three times in the night to
wring the sheets out.'

'And why were they evicted?'

'Oh, that is a long story; but it is a singularly characteristic one. In
the first place, he was an idle fellow; he got into difficulties and
owed his landlord three years' rent. Then he got into bad hands, and was
prevented from coming to terms with his landlord. There was a lot of
jobbing going on between the priest and the village grocer, and finally
it was arranged that the latter should pay off the existing debt if the
landlord could be forced into letting him the farm at a "fair rent,"
that is to say, thirty per cent reduction on the old rent. In
recognition of his protecting influence, the priest was to take a third
of the farm off the grocer's hands, and the two were then to conjointly
rack-rent poor Murphy for the remaining third portion, which he would be
allowed to retain for a third of the original rent; but t