ied out. The vacant house,
which had been for some months without a tenant, was swept out and
furnished with a few necessary articles, and Gretchen, now entirely
delirious, was taken there in a close carriage, and Mrs. Robertson
established as resident nurse. The good woman fretted and grumbled a
good deal at leaving her home and her children,--whom, of course, she
could not see for a long time,--but she _was_ a good woman in spite of
her grumbling. She was a very experienced nurse, and here was service
for the Master from which she dared not turn away. Katie, assisted by
Tessa, was fully competent to manage the house and cook what they and
the boys needed to eat, so she resolutely accepted the trust.

Eunice and Etta went down to the empty house early in the morning, and
both worked hard, with a woman who had been hired to do so, to get the
rooms in readiness, but when all was prepared, they went home, for Dr.
Bolen said there was no use for either to be unnecessarily exposed to
infection. He did not want more patients than were sent him in the
natural course of events.

Great pains were taken to keep the whole matter quiet. Katie and Tessa
and the boys were cautioned not to speak about it, and the removal of
the patient was effected during the forenoon when all the factory
"hands" were safe in the mill. But the precautions were useless. Before
the next night there were four more patients in the temporary hospital,
all from the rag-room, and the consternation was extreme. Many refused
to work, and the mill was in danger of being forced to stop just in the
middle of filling some very important contracts, when the doctor, taking
his own life in his hands, as doctors must, made a thorough
investigation of the rag-room, where all the cases had occurred, and
found the contagion to be in a bale of rags imported from Ireland, which
had not received the usual overhauling before being brought to the mill.
These were all collected and burned, and the room thoroughly fumigated,
the operatives receiving full wages for the days they were thus shut out
from work, and one good result of the fever was that henceforth the
bales were all opened and smoked in a separate building before they ever
entered the mill at all.

The contagion did not spread any farther after this, and the hands
returned without more delay to the mill. Mr. Mountjoy sent to the city
for an experienced hospital nurse, and promised to pay all the expenses
of the