Edith looked up. Upon the house at whose door they were standing, appeared the terrific red cross, and solemn supplication, “Lord have mercy upon us,” of which they had heard so much as the sign of those places shut up, infected with the plague. It was no longer fear but certainty: the pestilence had come! Near the door, sullenly reserved and silent, stood the man appointed to watch. Edith perceived, as she recoiled from its vicinity in terror, that it was Ralph Tennison. “Who is it, Ralph?” she asked. “Speed ye away from this, Mistress Edith,” said the man hastily; “wherefore should ye be in peril more than ye need? It is Phœbe Turner, that came yestermorn from Westminster; she has brought it into the midst of us. But haste ye home, Mistress Edith, I say.” It was indeed the house which Edith had left the day before, with such a thrill of fear. “And why are you here, Ralph?” she said. “For the little children’s sake, go home.” “Better earn honest wages than live on good folks’ charity, when there’s enow widows and helpless to take it all,” said Ralph; “and better die like a man, doing work while there’s breath in me, than starve yonder idle like a dog. I’m watchman here, Mistress Edith, and here I must needs stay, die or live.” “But the children, Ralph?” said Edith. The man’s strong features moved convulsively. “They must take their chance with the rest,” he said, with a stern composure; “they can but die--and God knows who will be left, child or grown man, afore all is done!” The window above was thrown open as he spoke; the father of the stricken household, altered in this one night, to a paralyzed, broken fatuous man, looked out in feeble despair. “Good neighbors,” cried the old man, wringing his shriveled hands, “pray for my child--my Phœbe--my youngest-born! Oh, the Lord have mercy! I have sinned--I have sinned these seventy years--and now it has come!” He was drawn in from behind. Edith saw Dorothy’s faded, thin face, stern and calm in the gravity of its despair, look down upon her for a moment; then there was a hasty motion of her hand, warning her away, and then the window was carefully closed. “Ah, mother!” cried Mercy Rogers, rushing in breathlessly to her mother’s cottage; “it has come! it has come!” “What has come, child?” said the dame, rising hastily, “and where hast thou left Mistress Edith--sweet lady--and what ails thee, that thou art so pale? Thou art not ill, Mercy? My child! my child! say not thou art sick!” “Not yet, mother,” said Mercy, sadly, “and Mistress Edith is on the way, only I fled from her because I was frighted; for, oh, mother! it has come! the Plague! the terrible Plague!” “The Lord have mercy upon us!” exclaimed Dame Rogers, pressing her hands upon her heart; “what shall we do? what shall we do?”