And all the time the poor little subject of discussion would sit writhing upon her chair, feeling that, after all, Gerty was quite right, and that she was not only unfortunately plain to look at, but that, in spite of the handsome prizes laid out in state on the top of the chest of drawers, there was little doubt that she was just too stupid to live. CHAPTER III It was a very mild and damp autumn that year, and the autumn was succeeded by an equally mild winter; therefore it is not surprising that the truth of the old saying, "A green Christmas makes a fat kirkyard," became sadly realized in the neighbourhood of Gardener’s Lane. For about the middle of December a dangerous low fever, with some leaning towards typhoid, broke out in the parish, and the men being mostly hard-drinkers, and the majority of the women idle drabs who did not use half-a-pound of soap in a month, it flew from house to house until half the population was down with it; ay, and, as nearly always happens, not only the hard-drinkers and the idle drabs were those to suffer, but the steady, respectable workmen and the good housewives came in for more than their just share of the tribulation also. And, among others, the Dicki’son family paid dearly for the sins and shortcomings of their fellow-creatures, for the first to fall sick was the pretty, complaining mother, of whom not even her detractors could say other than that she was cleanliness itself in all her ways. And it was a very bad case. The good parson came down with offers of help, and sent in a couple of nurses, whom he paid out of his own pocket--though, if he had but known it, he would have done much more wisely to have spent the same amount of money on one with more knowledge of her business and less power of speech--and the doctor and his partner came and went with grave and anxious faces, which did not say too much for the sick woman’s chance of recovery. Mr. Dicki’son stayed at home from his work for a whole week, and spent his time about equally between anxiously watching his wife’s fever-flushed face and sitting with his children, trying to keep them quiet--no easy task, let me tell you, in a house where every movement could be heard in every corner; and, as the schools were promptly closed, for fear of spreading the epidemic, the children were on hand during the whole day, and, poor little things, were as sorely tried by the silence they were compelled to keep as they tried the quiet, dull man whose heart was full almost to bursting.