which goes round daily to take away such as die of the Plague, though as
it then stood we could not discern if any dead person lay in it.

'It is waiting for our neighbour next door,' says Althea. 'As I stood by
an open casement up-stairs I plainly heard the family bemoaning
themselves because the master is dead; I heard also how they are
devising to get away unobserved in the early morning, and escape to some
place of safety in the country. How sayest thou, Lucy? were it not well
for thee to go also in their company?'

'Never I, while you stay here,' I answered.

'It repents me often,' she said, 'that I discovered to you my design of
coming up hither. I would you were safe at home again.'

'I have no home, but where you are,' said I.

'Poor faithful little heart!' she says, sighing. 'Well, get on with thy
history-writing; I must go forth presently, when all is quiet again;
and when I return thou shalt show me what thou hast written. Tell the
tale orderly, Lucy; begin at the beginning with "Once upon a time there
lived two sisters; the elder was a fool, but the younger one loved
her"'--and before I could say a word she had slipt away.

I sat awhile, too much disquieted to write, listening against my will
for the heavy sounds that told how the dead man next door was being
carried forth and laid in the cart; but the thing lumbered away at last,
its cracked bell tinkling dolefully; and I found courage to take to my
work.