Preston and Godfrey, and of the extent to which he
troubled them. He went on, trying to do his duty, and succeeding fully
in satisfying the Misses Grant, who had come to feel a strong interest
in his welfare.

Three weeks later, Sophia Grant, who had been to the village store on
an errand, returned home, looking greatly alarmed.

"What is the matter, Sophia?" asked her sister. "You look as if you
had seen a ghost."

"Just so, Priscilla," she said; "no, I don't mean that, but we may all
be ghosts in a short time."

"What do you mean?"

"Smallpox is in town!"

"Who's got it?"

"Colonel Preston; and his wife won't stay in the house. She is packing
up to go off, and I expect the poor man'll die all by himself, unless
somebody goes and takes care of him, and then it'll spread, and we'll
all die of it."

This was certainly startling intelligence. Andy pitied the colonel,
who had always treated him well. It occurred to him that his mother
had passed through an attack of smallpox in her youth, and could take
care of the colonel without danger. He resolved to consult her about
it at once.

CHAPTER XXI
A MODEL WIFE

Colonel Preston, returning from a trip to Boston, in which, probably,
he had been unconsciously exposed to the terrible disease referred to,
was taken sick, and his wife, wholly unsuspicious of her husband's
malady, sent for the doctor.

The latter examined his patient and, on leaving the sick-chamber,
beckoned Mrs. Preston to follow him.

"What is the matter with him, doctor?" asked Mrs. Preston. The
physician looked grave.

"I regret to say, Mrs. Preston, that he has the smallpox."

"The smallpox!" almost shrieked Mrs. Preston. "Oh! what will become of
me?"

Dr. Townley was rather disgusted to find her first thought was about
herself, not about her stricken husband.

"It's catching, isn't it, doctor?" she asked, in great agitation.

"I am sorry to say that it is, madam."

"Do you think I will take it?"

"I cannot take it upon myself to say."

"And I was in the same room with him," wailed Mrs. Preston, "and never
knew the awful danger! Oh, I wouldn't have the smallpox for this
world! If I didn't die, I should be all marked up for life."

"You haven't much beauty to spoil," thought the doctor; but this
thought he prudently kept to himself.

"I must leave the house at once. I will go to my brother's house till
he has recovered," said Mrs. Preston, in agitation.

"What!" exclai