"Well, this is a fine place, to be sure!" said Dame Evans, looking about her. "What a large garden, and what a great house! Which is Mrs. Paulina's room, now?" "That one with the projecting window and the open casement." "You don't mean to say you leave the window open, and she lying ill of a fever!" exclaimed Dame Evans, in horror. "What can you be thinking of, child? 'Tis enough to be her death!" "It is by the doctor's orders," said Winifred. "He is a new doctor from London, who is taking care of the family." "Aye, some of those new-fangled notions! No doubt, he must be setting up to know more than all his elders and betters. Tis the way of this age! I dare say the poor child will die, and Sir John too." "Almost every one does die who has the fever, anyway," observed Winifred. "Perhaps it may be well to try some new method, since the old ones certainly seem to answer no good purpose." "Well, well, 'twas not for that I came," said Dame Evans, pettishly. "I want to know what you mean, Winifred, by staying here in this plague-stricken house? Why did you not come home directly Mrs. Paulina was taken? And now they say all the maids have run away—idle, cowardly jades! I'll be bound I'd teach them! And who is to do anything?" "Why, aunt, it seems to me that I should have been as bad as the maids, if I had gone away and left the family in their distress!" said Winifred. "Why not?" "Why not, gurtha! Why, because they are hired servants bound to stay till their quarter-day, whatever happens! Do you mean to even yourself to a common serving-wench?" "No, and for that reason I would not be willing to leave in their trouble a family who have been kind to me. The maids are poor, ignorant creatures, of whom we cannot expect a great deal. I should not like to show that I am worth no more than they!" added Winifred, smiling. "Well, well!" said her aunt, somewhat taken aback by being thus met on her own ground. "All that does not signify. What I want to know is, whether you will go out to Stonehill farm with us to-morrow or no. The house is empty, and business here is dull, besides that the fever is already growing bad down by the water-side, and you uncle hath concluded to take a holiday for once and go into the country for a month. He says that you shall have your choice, for all you have behaved so ill, and are just as like as not to bring the fever among us," added the dame, falling into her usual grumbling strain. "But you must make up your mind quickly." For one moment Winifred's heart bounded. To see the old place once more—to visit all the old haunts where she had walked with her mother—to go over the Hall and the gardens, and walk across the moor to Dame Sprat's old cottage! But long before Dame Evans had finished her speech, Winifred's mind was made up.