There had been a good deal of fever at San Stefano throughout the summer. When the little Brian was barely six weeks old, it became only too evident that Mrs. Luttrell was sickening of some illness--probably the same fever that had caused so much mortality in the village. The baby was hastily taken away from her, and a nurse provided. This nurse was a healthy young woman with very thick, black eyebrows and a bright colour; handsome, perhaps, but not prepossessing. She was the wife of a gardener employed at the villa, and had been recommended by one of the Fathers at the monastery--a certain Padre Cristoforo, who seemed to know the history of every man, woman and child in San Stefano. She was the mother of twins, but this was a fact which the Luttrells did not know. This woman, Vincenza Vasari by name, was at first domiciled in the villa itself with her charge; but as more dangerous symptoms declared themselves in Mrs. Luttrell's case, it was thought better that she should take the baby to her own home, which was a fairly clean and respectable cottage close to the gates of the villa. Here Mr. Luttrell could visit the child from time to time; but as his wife's illness became more serious he saw less and less of the baby, and left it more than ever to Vincenza's care. Vincenza's own children were with their grandmother at a hamlet three miles from San Stefano. The grandmother, generally known as old Assunta, used to bring one or another of them sometimes to see Vincenza. Perhaps they took the infection of fever in the course of these visits; at any rate one of them was soon reported to be seriously ill, and Vincenza was cautioned against taking the Luttrells' baby into the village. It was the little Lippo Vasari who was ill; his twin-brother Dino was reported perfectly well. Some days afterwards Mr. Luttrell, on calling at the cottage as usual, noticed that Vincenza's eyes were red, and her manner odd and abrupt. Old Assunta was there, with the baby upon her knee. Mr. Luttrell asked what was the matter. Vincenza turned away and burst into tears. "She has lost her baby, signor," the old woman explained. "The little one died last night at the village, and Vincenza could not see it. The doctor will tell you about it all," she said, nodding significantly, and lowering her voice. "He knows." Mr. Luttrell questioned the doctor, and received his assurance that Vincenza's child (one of the twins) had been kept strictly apart from the little Brian Luttrell; and that there could be no danger of infection. In which assurance the doctor was perfectly sincere, not knowing that Vincenza's habit had been to spend a portion of almost every evening at her mother's house, in order to see her own children, to whom, however, she did not seem to be passionately attached.