we had yet to witness the crowning sobering effect of a raging
pestilence.

The little schoolmarm, Alethea-Belle Buchanan, organised the women
into a staff of nurses. Mrs. Dumble enrolled herself amongst the band.
Did she take comfort in the thought that she was wiping out John Jacob
Dumble's innumerable rogueries? Let us hope so.

Within a week yellow bunting waved from half a score of cottages in
and about Paradise. And then, one heavenly morning, as we were riding
into the village, we saw the hideous warning fluttering outside George
Leadham's door.

Sissy was down with it!

Poor George, his brown, weather-beaten face seamed with misery, met us
at the garden gate.

"She's awful bad," he muttered, "an' the doc. says she'll be worse
afore she's better."

Next door a man was digging two graves in his garden.

Meantime, Pap Spooner had disappeared. We heard that he had gone to a
mountain ranch of his about fifteen miles away. Nobody missed him;
nobody cared whether he went or stayed. In the village store it was
conceded that Pap's room, rain or shine, was better than his company.
His name was never mentioned till it began to fall from Sissy
Leadham's delirious lips.