It was in this year that Anne, just before her marriage recorded,
when the affliction had passed: "About 16, the Lord layde his hand
sore upon me and smott me with the small-pox." It is curious that
the woman whose life in many points most resembles her own--Mrs.
Lucy Hutchinson--should have had precisely the same experience,
writing of herself in the "Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson": "That
day that the friends on both sides met to conclude the marriage,
she fell sick of the small-pox, which was in many ways a great
trial upon him. First, her life was in almost desperate hazard,
and then the disease, for the present, made her the most deformed
person that could be seen, for a great while after she recovered;
yet he was nothing troubled at it, but married her as soon as she
was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her
were affrighted to look on her; but God recompensed his justice
and constancy by restoring her, though she was longer than
ordinary before she recovered to be as well as before."

Whether disease or treatment held the greater terror, it would be
hard to say. Modern medical science has devised many alleviations,
and often restores a patient without spot or blemish. But to have
lived at all in that day evidenced extraordinary vitality.
Cleanliness was unknown, water being looked upon as deadly poison
whether taken internally or applied externally. Covered with
blankets, every window tightly sealed, and the moaning cry for
water answered by a little hot ale or tincture of bitter herbs,
nature often gave up the useless struggle and released the
tortured and delirious wretch. The means of cure left the
constitution irretrievably weakened if not hopelessly ruined, and
the approach of the disease was looked upon with affright and