This was underscored, and conveyed to Queenie’s mind just the meaning Ethel meant it to convey. Mr. Beresford was daily growing more and more interested in Margery, and Queenie rejoiced that it was so. She was so glad for Margery to be happy in a good man’s love, though her own sun had set in deepest gloom, and there was a ceaseless moan in her heart for poor Phil, while the load of humiliation which had come so suddenly upon her seemed sometimes greater than she could bear. “If I only had something to do which would make me forget myself a little I should be happier,” she thought, as morning after morning she awoke to the same monotonous round of duties, or, rather, occupation of trying to kill the time. She had no real duties, for everything pertaining to the household arrangements was managed by Aunt Judy, who petted her young mistress as if she had been a queen, while both Pierre and Axie, watched vigilantly to anticipate every want before it was framed in words. Mrs. Strong was absent on her plantation near Lake Jackson, and thus Queenie was left almost entirely alone and free to let her morbid fancies feed upon themselves. She _did_ need something to do, and at last the something came, though in a very different form from what she would have chosen had it been hers to choose. As the summer advanced it grew hotter and hotter until the nights were like the days, and there came no breath of air to relieve the dreadful heat. There were rumors of sunstroke here and there, and talk of the sickness which must ensue if the state of things continued. And still in middle Florida it was comparatively healthy, and the air was free from malaria; but farther to the north, where a city spread itself over miles of territory, an ominous cloud was gathering. Once before the town had been scourged as with the plague, and the terror-stricken inhabitants had fled to the country for refuge from the pestilence, which oftentimes overtook them on the road and claimed them for its victims. And now it was coming again—was lurking in the corners of the lanes and alleys, where poverty and filth held high carnival—was breathed in the poisonous air which brooded over the doomed city like a pall, until at last it was _there_, and men spoke the awful word to each other in whispers, while their voices shook with fear and their hearts sank as they remembered the past and thought of the possible future. The _yellow fever_ was in their midst, and though as yet confined to the poorer classes and the unfrequented parts of the city, the people knew too well that, like fire applied to cotton, it would spread until there was no house however grand, or spot however exclusive, which its shadow would not reach, its horrid presence threaten. The city was doomed, and as the days went by and the disease and danger grew, and the death roll increased, and men who walked the streets to-day were dead to-morrow, a panic seized upon