Slowly Miriam carried her home, the gravedigger following and rejoicing, while he shook his head, and murmured: "It wouldn't have surprised me had we found the child dead. Not at all! The Great Death is coming near us again. They say that it has already reached the Turks!..." Miriam did not hear these strange words. She carried the child into her little room, and put her in bed even more tenderly than usual, smoothing her hair off her brow, and kissing her mouth again and again. Then she visited her neighbors, and thanked them in woman's fashion, in many words. After that, she returned to her own room, and thanked God with a long silent look upward. She could not sleep, so she crouched beside the bed, and watched her sleeping child. But, heavens! what was the matter? The poor woman's blood turned cold, for Lea's usually pale face was flushed with fever, and she was breathing quickly and stertorously. Her hands and feet were cold, and her head was burning hot. "Lea, are you ill?" cried Miriam. "Speak, my life!" Hearing her voice, the child opened her eyes, but they were no longer lusterless. A strange unnatural light glowed in them. "I am cold," she lisped, drawing the bed-clothes about her. "She will die!..." was Miriam's muttered thought, and she felt paralyzed for the moment. Recovering herself, however, she took her thin shawl from her shoulders, and her best gown from her box, and spread them over the child. Lea's teeth were chattering. She shivered with cold, though she seemed but half conscious. Miriam once more hurried to her neighbors' room, and knocked at their closed door. She wished to beg them to come and tell her what was the matter with her child; for a Jewish gravedigger is required to visit the sick as well as to bury the dead. When the doctor is not called in, the gravedigger is sent for. But the man had gone to the town to keep the night-watch over the body of rich Moses Freudenthal. His wife came, however, and staid with the poor widow, in hopes of comforting her. "It is only a fever," she said, consolingly. "The child has caught cold, and it is only a common fever. See, burning heat follows a shivering fit." In fact, Lea's fever soon ran so high, that all her bed-clothes had to be taken off. The women made a strong herb tea, but the child would not drink it. The terrible night passed very slowly. In the morning, when the gravedigger came home from his sad vigil, he went to see the sick child. On seeing her, he shook his head. The mother wrung her hands in despair when she saw his gesture, and gave utterance to a low moan. He pitied her, and said slowly: "It isn't a dangerous kind of fever. Lea will soon be well." "Tell me the truth," cried Miriam; "but I shall send for the doctor whether the illness is dangerous or not." The gravedigger shrugged his shoulders. "The doctor has been at the muster at Zalesczyki for the last eight days. But even if he were here.... No doctor can help the child!"