Some were in the first creeping stages of the disease flattering themselves that it was only a little cold they had taken. Others were shivering with that deathly chill that glides like the icy trail of a serpent down the back; the limbs aching as with severe toil, and the brain literally on fire with seething poison. Others were fierce and mad with delirium; their faces, their breasts and arms had turned of a dull copper color, the strongest and unmistakable sign of the deadly form which typhus takes when it is called malignant ship fever. The poor creatures rolled to and fro on their narrow couches, tearing out the straw with their hot and quivering fingers, or twisting the soiled sheets with a feeble and shaking grasp. Some were calling for water, and praying in piteous tone for mountains of ice, cold bright ice to fall down and bury them. Others were still further advanced in the terrible disease, and lay with the last heavy clouds of delirium resting upon the brain. Pale, emaciated and motionless, they spoke in whispers of the husbands and children whom they had left, it seemed to them years before, and of whom they faintly pleaded for tidings. It was piteous to see those weaker still, that lay more helpless than infants, the tears rolling mournfully from their eyes, unable to utter the inquiries that kept their white lips in constant motion, but gave out no sound. More than one stretched back upon the meagre pillow, was in her death-throe groping in the air, with glazed eyes rolled upward to the ceiling, while the under jaw dropped lower, lower, leaving the mouth half open never to be closed again, save by a penitentiary nurse. One lay dead upon her couch stiffening, there unheeded, the God of heaven only knowing at what moment the breath left her body. Scant and miserable as were those pauper beds, enough for all to die upon could not be found at the Hospital; so blankets had been cast upon the floor, and on them were laid the sick, till the whole ward was completely littered with human misery. Over this scene came the glaring daylight, for the windows had neither blinds nor shutters, nothing but a valance of gingham through which the sunshine poured upon the aching eyes of the sick. They laid Mrs. Chester among those who moaned and writhed upon the floor. Nothing but the rough folds of a blanket lay between her delicate limbs and the hard boards. Amid the groans, the ravings of delirium, the faint death rattle that rose and swelled upon the horrid atmosphere, they laid her down. The student physician had been his rounds that day, and so she was left to the care of the nurses. Thus she remained quite unconscious of the horrors that surrounded her, till the nurse came back from her interview with Judge Sharp. This woman grasped the money in her palm, and the touch seemed to give a glow of animal pleasure to her features, as she threaded her way through the prostrate sick.