“Drat the small-pox,” she said, with feeling; “one would think that the devil had the sowing of the pest. Confusion, wench, what are you doing with that green silk sack? Don’t crush it up as though it were dirty linen. Yes. I have told Parsons that we must make Grinstead before dusk.” Miss Betsy sat back on her heels as she knelt beside the largest trunk, and glanced round at the hundred and one articles littering the floor. “Poor Mr. Richard!” she said. “What’s that you’re saying?” “It does seem mean, ma’am, that we should be running away and leaving him alone.” “Betsy,” quoth the dowager, curtly, “you’re a fool.” “La, ma’am!” “What good can we do by staying here, hey? You should be grateful that I have the moral courage to go.” Before she departed the Lady Letitia wrote an affectionate note to her nephew, addressing him as “Mon beau Richard, mon cher neveu,” praying for his speedy recovery, and explaining that nothing but the extreme delicacy of her health persuaded her to leave him at such a crisis. Shortly after noon the dowager’s coach rolled away from the priory porch, with Peter Gladden bowing stiffly on the threshold, and staring a contemptuous farewell at Mr. Parsons on the back seat, who was looking to his pistols. Richard, half delirious in his room above, heard the grinding of the wheels and the rattling of the harness. He understood dimly that his aunt was deserting him with his guineas under her petticoat. And thus the small-pox drove the old lady out of Rodenham, and the sick man was left to Peter Gladden and Surgeon Stott. XX It was on the night of Tuesday that Isaac came to Ursula’s cottage and seated himself on the oak settle before the fire. Old Ursula was in the ingle-nook with a pile of stockings in her lap, Bess on a stool beside the fender, her hands clasped about her knees, her eyes full of the thought of Jeffray. She had opened the door to the patriarch, greeted him somewhat sullenly, and shot the bolts after him for fear that Dan should be lurking outside the cottage. Isaac Grimshaw’s smooth face suggested that he was in the most sociable of moods. He persuaded his sister to brew a bowl of rum punch, and, drawing out a short pipe and a tobacco-box from the tail-pocket of his coat, sat smoking before the fire. Bess, on her stool, was watching the old man suspiciously, and wondering what thoughts were passing in his mind. She always distrusted Isaac’s good-humor, and preferred a frown from him to a smile. Isaac began to prattle on all manner of matters, poking fun at old Ursula and looking as simple and jolly an old fellow as ever sniffed the odors of lemon and rum, cloves and cinnamon. He talked of Rookhurst Fair, and promised to buy a bunch of ribbons for Ursula, and a pair of red shoes for her to wear on May-day.