ered and screened, trying to burst free from a long line of dappled clouds. So I stood in the recess of the bow window for some time, till the rustle of a robe sounded in the room, and Paula's hand upon my arm, and Paula's voice"Husband! Wish is ill-very ill."

I do not know what I said, or how she looked. I only remember the sudden horror of the shock, the heavy weight that fell on my heart, crushing all quiet thoughts away. I remember, too, that the sun had burst through the detaining clouds and shone round and golden, while the level light, intense and absolute, glorified the landscape that had seemed bright before.

held her so. The slender breath grew short It was strange, and yet not strange, that both and fast. Dr. Lethby drew near, looked for a Paula and I, from the first, had the same breath-minute, then left us softly.

might lose nothing of the fragile sound. "Come, too. Come with Wish!"

And that was all. The lips ceased to be stirred, even by the fluttering breath. A slight spasm convulsed her face for a moment and then left it settled in that pure, peaceful likeness we were to know it by evermore.

less terror of this illness that had suddenly "Mamma-papa!" we detected the faint smitten the child. She had drooped and sick- whisper, and bent down very close that we ened within a few hours, they told me. At first, Dr. Lethby himself was perplexed by the singular nature of the attack; but ultimately it resolved itself into one of those dread fevers, so subtle and sometimes so fatal. Sometimes only sometimes! I said this to myself day after day, trying to keep up the show of hope. But I was a hypocrite. Through the long hours that I watched by the little bed where our darling tossed in restless delirium though I watched as eagerly, as jealously, as if by the keenness of my vision I could fence off all ill that could come near her-still, I knew.

On the ninth day, exhausted, I had been compelled by Dr. Lethby to leave the sick room for a space. I fell into a heavy, torpid sleep, from which I was aroused by a voice, "Come," it said, "at once. The child is sinking. Nerve yourself for your wife's sake. She suffers more than you can do."

I

We leaned over her humbly. I felt as if in a dream. I could not realize; I could not believe in any thing that I saw. Wish lying there with that white, soft smile on her face was not real; and still less was Paula, sitting, without word or sign, gazing down on the dead face with her steadfast eyes. It was in an instinctive effort to break the circle of illusions which surrounded me that I called on her name.

She roused then, and looked up. The anguish seemed to surge over her face in a gradual wave of consciousness. It broke, with a forlorn wandering of the eyes, a beseeching gesture of the outstretched arms, and a low, long, desolate wail.

"My darling, my treasure! Oh, my child,

And I rose and staggered to my feet, like one in a dream, and followed him...... could not bear it. I could not bear to see the tiny figure, with its lily face and closed eyes, | my child, my child!" lying there. All my manhood forsook me. I flung myself by the bedside and burst into a passion of despair.

A hand took mine and pressed it. Paula had stolen to my side; Paula's voice spoke to me.

"Hush, husband!" Only those two words, but in such a tone! Calm, comforting, tender. I looked up at her-her face wore the same expression as her voice.

"Is there hope, then?" I said, in a harsh whisper, "and they told me there was none! Paula, can she live ?"

"No. Oh, be still; for her moments are very few; and she can hear you."

She was again hanging over the child, watching every quiver of her little face, listening to every faint breath that came and went.

Presently the eyelids trembled and unclosed. The wide blue eyes sought the mother's face and rested there content. A smile parted the pale lips, and she seemed to try to speak. "Mamma."

I sat there, mute, and watched her agony. I dared not go near it. I was stone-like and helpless. I felt as if all my world had slipped by me-floated away irretrievably into an unknown vortex, while I stood watching, as now, with my hands bound to my side and my utterance choked, even from lamentations.

My last remembrance was of Paula coming to me, touching my forehead with her hands. Then every thing was blotted out from eyes and mind.

I had been a strong man, vigorous in health as I was held to be in intellect. But in that long illness I seemed to be drained of life, both mental and physical, till only the dregs of both remained. Then there followed a long period of convalescence, during which all I could do was to lie quietly where they placed me, sometimes with closed lids and heavy, listless thoughts vaguely traversing my mind; sometimes with my eyes wandering restlessly about the room till they lit on Paula's patient face,

She laid her head beside her, so better to whereon they would linger. About that face har the feeble utterance.

my thoughts grew entangled often. I could

not rightly order them. A misty consciousness, | hill-I remembered it. Cruelly, relentlessly bright it looked now in the soft sunshine. After a little while I hid my face from it.

a painful yearning after something forgotten, continually led me into a maze of ideas so imperfectly comprehended that I felt more than ever weak and helpless in the midst.

She

"What month is this?" I asked her. told me August. I paused to think; and she divined my thoughts, and prevented the question that hovered on my lips.

"It was the last week in July that our darling went," said she, softly. "And then," she presently added, in the same hushed tone, "you left me, too. I thought I had lost both."

How did you bear it, Paula ?" I cried, hastily. "Why did your heart not break? Why was I the one to fail, and fall helpless at this time?"

At length, one day, a very little thing broke the spell that kept my mind so tightly in its bonds. Some flowers were brought and laid beside me. Their delicate fragrance seemed to steal into my very inmost heart. Among them were one or two sprays of white jasmine, with their peculiar aromatic odor. On the wings of that subtle essence recollection came to me and renewed consciousness. These were favorite flowers of our Wish; they had been among those-the last gathered by her hands "A year ago," said Paula, "I should have -that I had carelessly taken up that evening-fallen helpless, too, Lewis. No human strength, a whole life since! and distinctly, to every smallest detail of "that evening," I remembered. I saw the radiant hill and the rosy sunset, the aspect the room had worn, and the look on Paula's face when she came to tell me that Wish was ill. Then came the long, blurred, hazy memory of the ensuing days, scarcely of anxiety-that were too hopeful a name for the feeling with which we hungrily watched every breath our darling drew, every change on her face, every stirring of her limbs, through that terrible time.

From these remembrances I lifted my eyes and read their sequel in Paula's face. Yet was there still something in that shadowed face which I could not understand. Involuntarily my thought took words. "How changed!" I said. And again in my mind I commenced groping about for some new revelation which should make things clearer to me. But at the sound of my voice Paula came and stooped beside me, looking earnestly into my face, as if she were startled to hear me speak. Her own voice trembled as she asked me "What was changed?" She was afraid lest my answer should betray that I was still not myself, forpoor wife!-I had been utterly bereft of sense for many weeks. "You are changed, Paula,'

I said. "Is this a new world?"

66

Ay, it is, it is!" she answered me, and put her arms round me, and wept abundantly. By-and-by, as she gradually told me the history of all those past seven weeks, I began to look in wonderment into her face, wherein I could detect no traces of the old stony desperation that had been wont to come there when danger was near those she loved. For hers was a nature that could bear bravely, endure cheerfully, many troubles that most women would shrink from; but when anxiety or sorrow really touched her, it did more than afflict, it tortured her. All this slowly recurred to me with vividness as I lay on my sofa, holding her hand fast, and watching the outline of the pale, beautiful face that was slightly averted from me. She was looking at the landscape which was stretched out before the window. It was early autumn now; I knew the look of the trees in the garden, of the copse on the slope of the hill. The

no human fortitude is capable of enduring such woe as ours." She stopped abruptly, then added slowly, in a strange tone-low, but distinct, and with a tremulous quiver vibrating through every word-"But I-I was not comfortless." I looked at her in silence.

"Lewis," she whispered, "I was not comfortless." A pause. "No," she went on, slowly, and now her voice rose steady and clear, answering to the light that gathered and brightened in her eyes, "a mother who has seen her child die is still not comfortless. For no mother who has lost her child can doubt. Lewis, do you understand me? God is good," she cried, passionately, "and in his mercy he ordered it so, that to a bereaved mother's soul must come the conviction that is more than knowledge-the faith that is worlds above all reasoning. I know that I shall have my child again! Lewis, Lewis, I know."

She sank down beside me; and again the soft rain of tears fell plenteously. When women weep so it is well with them...... And I lay still and thought.

It was well with Paula, I could see that. To see it steadied me, strengthened me, infinitely. The feeling of that long convalescence was a very strange one. It might well be so, for the clear head, the vigorous brain I had had a man's pride in possessing, had passed from me forever; and during those months of slow recovery to bodily strength, I had to grow accustomed to the truth. Mental strength would never be mine again. All my capacities were bounded now by but a narrow circle. The profound thought, the complicated reasoning, that had been easy to me as pastime, I could pursue no longer.

The affliction fell heavily upon me; perhaps the smaller trouble it involved nerved us both to endure it better. My vocation was gone, and with it, our means of living, save the small sum that yearly accrued to Paula. It was enough to save us from absolute want; but my condition, the doctors said, necessitated many luxuries, and to gain money for these Paula worked hard. Not writing; the time for that was past. She had lived too much, perhaps, to be able to put life on paper as she had done,

It has helped to wear away this time of wait-ry signs, distinct enough to indicate to an attening to write this history for you, my true and kind friend. You knew me when the world applauded me as strong and great; and when it compassionated my weakness and my ruined prospects. And I think you, who, seeing deeper than the world, saw through both the strength and the weakness, will find the lesson that I know these pages must convey.

ten of the inhabitants remained behind to take their chances. The poor were cared for by the authorities, and removed to a place of greater salubrity, and maintained at the public expense. Meanwhile, the fever raged terribly among those who remained. No class of the community escaped. The domestic animals felt the influence of the poison. Many of them died, and even the wild deer in the neighboring forests, are said to have perished. The severity of the discase may be estimated by the large proportion of deaths. Out of the greatly reduced population two hundred and fifty died.

New Orleans also suffered terribly. Mobile was severely scourged, two hundred and ninetyfour of her population perishing. At Savannah it was confined chiefly to foreigners and unacclimated persons from the Northern States, while at Charleston the disease was severe and general. In most of these places, the pestilence ascended the navigable rivers, and penetrated for some distance into the country.

The Northern cities did not escape. Boston lost thirty-two by this fever in the month of September. In Philadelphia it had two centres, one on Market Street wharf, the other in Southwark. In New York it broke out in the same neighborhood which former epidemics selected for their first attack. The authorities very wisely ordered away the vessels which were lying at the wharves, and recommended a general evacuation of the infected district. These steps produced not a little clamor. Business men, whose regular occupation was thus interfered with, protested against the proceeding and ridiculed the unnecessary alarm of the Board of Health. Fortunately for the city the officers were positive. Some persons refused to go, and one man, who had been forcibly removed, returned clandestinely and shut himself in his house. His foolish obstinacy was not discovered until he was found dead in the place he was so unwilling to leave. Several merchants, laughing at the precautions of the authorities, persisted in visiting their counting-houses: their death atoned for their rashness. In spite of all opposition, and in defiance of all ridicule, the authorities went steadily on with their work. They removed the poor people to Staten Island and the neighborhood of Hell Gate, where they were supported at the public expense. Finally, the place was cleared, the watch doubled around it, the premises carefully cleansed, and the epidemic extinguished, with the loss of only forty-three lives. It is impossible to say what might have been the result had the Board of Health been less energetic or less determined.

In Baltimore the epidemic broke out in the midst of an uncommonly healthy season. Though the weather was hot and the rain scanty, the city enjoyed an immunity from ferile diseases to an uncommonly late period of the summer. Indeed, after the yellow fever had broken out, it was still remarked that the portions of the city unaffected by the pestilence continued healthy.

In view of these facts it is necessary to seek for some local cause of the disease. This is not hard to find. The position of the wharves and the character of the docks have already been alluded to. In their construction they unfortunately resembled too closely those wharves of New York, in the neighborhood of which the carlier epidemics of the century originated. They were filled with the offal of the streets and of the neighboring shops. Shavings and chips constituted a large portion of their bulk, and these putrescible materials were covered over with gravel. Some idea of the amount of perishable substances which made up the bulk of these wharves may be derived from the fact that an analysis of the water of an Artesian well upon one of them, made so late as 1854, showed that out of sixty-nine parts of solid residue in a gallon, twenty-five were composed of organic and volatile matter.

Late in July the storm fell suddenly upon Smith's wharf. This was then one of the busiest portions of the city, and its sanitary condition was of the worst character. The cellars were wet, and in those warehouses which had no cellars the water collected under the floors. The back windows opened upon an alley which was abominably filthy, and contained a large quantity of putrefying shavings of a most offensive odor. Suddenly several persons engaged in business on this wharf sickened. In a few days ten cases of yellow fever had occurred, and most of them died. The respectability of the victims attracted public attention, and there was much uneasiness and alarm in the city. On the last day of the month one of those sedative meetings of physicians so common at the outbreak of epidemics took place, and the people were gravely assured that there existed no cause of alarm, and that there was nothing unusual in the health of the city. These soothing words, however, did not quiet the alarm of those whose friends and neighbors had so suddenly perished. The pestilential wharf was speedily deserted, and the fever ceased for want of victims. It is remarkable that Spear's wharf, just opposite, separated only by the dock, and Bowley's wharf, on the other side of the alley, did not suffer at all. The immunity of the latter has been attributed to the fact that its windows did not open upon the offensive alley, and that its occupants had filled up and paved their cellars.

A fortnight had now elapsed and no new cases having occurred the panic had already abated, when it was revived by the report that the dreaded fever had broken out upon the Point. It was said that it or a similar disease had been prevailing during the entire month of July about Harris's Creek and Canton, rural districts in the vicinity of Fell's Point. The victims were mostly farmers, and the fever seems to have been an exaggeration of the ordinary remittents. At any rate the cases were numerous and rather unmanageable.

The pestilence made its appearance first at the foot of the Point, in the immediate vicinity

till the end of November, attacking numerous scattered sections of the city in the neighborhood of the wharves. The entire number of cases reported was 125, the deaths 83. It had the effect of calling public attention to the sanitary condition of the city, and inducing them to enter into very extensive schemes for im

of the water, among the dissipated people always found in such parts of a sea-port. The bulk of the population was made up of sailors and people who dealt with them. The improvilent and uncleanly habits of this class of people are well known. They are always peculiarly susceptible to epidemic disease, as well from their habits of living as from their greater ex-proving it. posure to the causes of such disease. Of such causes there was no lack. The first cases occurred in an unpaved street near the docks and parallel with the water. The bed of the street was deeply covered with shavings, which emitted so horribly offensive an odor, that even the sailors, who were the chief occupants of the houses, complained of it. The authorities had the putrid matter removed, but it was remarked that every laborer who was engaged in this work died of yellow fever. The people living on the street were also attacked, and the pesti-ward, on the 1st of August, several persons who lence spread gradually along the wharves and the adjacent streets. The vessels moored in the neighborhood became sickly, and were ordered out into the stream by the Board of Health.

The alarm became very general. People kindled bonfires throughout the streets in the vain hope of checking the pestilence. The authorities exerted themselves to put the infected district in a better condition, but their efforts were all in vain. All who could possibly get away now followed the advice of the Board of Health, fled from the plague-smitten spot, and desolation soon reigned throughout the busy hive. Hearses and physicians' carriages were the only vehicles which threaded the silent thoroughfares. The atmosphere of the district was as deadly as the valley of the Upas. It could not be entered with safety. A lady who resided in the upper part of the city, which, as we have said, retained its health throughout the epidemic, rode down in a carriage to one of the wharves in this vicinity in order to embark in a vessel shortly about to sail. She was obliged to wait a short time for a boat to convey her to the ship. Brief as was her stay it proved sufficient to communicate the disease, and in three days she was a corpse. The walking cases were numerous; several persons fell dead in the streets without any previous warning. September was the worst month. During its thirty days, 640 persons sickened and 242 died. The total number of deaths from yellow fever was 350. During this year the fever was very general and fatal in the West India Islands. It again crossed into Spain. At Cadiz, out of a population of 72,000, 48,000 took the fever and 5000 died.

In 1820, Philadelphia was again visited by yellow fever. After an unusually severe winter and a late, wet spring, the summer set in suddenly with great heat and little rain. The docks were in a filthy condition and odorous with the effluvia of damaged potatoes and other decaying substances. Late in July, the first case of yellow fever was reported, and the discase lingered

The following year Baltimore was again attacked and lost 173 of its inhabitants. Norfolk also suffered. The origin of the disease in the last named town appears to be pretty clearly traced to a vessel from Guadeloupe, which, late in July, pumped out some bilge-water of a very offensive odor. People living in the neighborhood of the wharf at which this vessel lay found the stench so intolerable that they were compelled to close the windows and doors which looked toward the nuisance. Four days after

had been exposed to these effluvia sickened with yellow fever. From them the disease spread. By the first of November the pestilence was over, and 160 persons had died. The violence of the disease was shown by its sparing no class of the community. The blacks, who escape ordinary epidemics, suffered very severely in this.

After 1821, the seaboard cities again enjoyed an exemption from the visitations of this frightful pestilence. Individual cases occasionally occurred, but no epidemic influence aggravated its fatality. So long did this season of quiet last that many began to talk of it as they would of the Black Death, and to regard it as a historical pestilence in which they had no more interest than in the Plague so graphically described by Thucydides. They were doomed, however, to disappointment. As early as 1850 signs of the coming storm were visible upon the southern horizon. Rio Janeiro, reputed one of the healthiest of tropical cities, was attacked.

This city has long been a favorite resort for invalids from the north, as well on account of the salubrity of its neighborhood as of the beauty of the surrounding scenery. It is built upon

a marshy plain, embossed with high hills of granite and gneiss, on the western shore of a great bay. This sheet of water sends up into the land numerous coves and bays, and washes the bases of as many points and headlands. Back of the city rise mountains from fifteen hundred to three thousand feet high, with precipitous faces, clad in all the varied luxuriance of tropical vegetation. The bay is studded with islands and rocks, and its shore is generally low and swampy—“so doubtful," says Dr. Lallemant, "that in some places it can not be said where solid land begins. These vast swampplains are covered with a labyrinth of avicennias, paulinias, and rhizophores, beneath the mysterious shadows of which millions of crustacea, annelids, and infusoria are generated, die, and putrefy." Several rivers empty their waters into this bay, thus making that mixture of salt and fresh water, which, in every climate, has been found so prejudicial to health.