"I will go," said Etta, to whom he expressed the wonder.

"No! You are too young, and at the same time too old, to go through this manufacturing village alone after dark."

"Then you go, and I will stay here, for I suppose Gretchen must not be left alone."

"Of course not. She may become delirious at any moment, and there is no saying what she may do. She does not know us now. Would not you be afraid to stay with her?"

"No," said Etta, steadily. "Tell me just what to do and I will do it."

"But you might take the infection. Have you thought of that?"

"G.o.d will take care of me," said she, with a rising color; and the doctor, remembering how he had found her, thought that perhaps he could not do better than to leave her under such protection.

He was gone a long time, a very long time, it seemed to Etta, whose patient became very restless and needed constantly to be soothed and coaxed back to bed when she sprang up and insisted--in German--on going to her mother. Her teacher, at such times, bathed her face with the warm water the doctor had brought, or gave her a sip of cold water which had been left when the tea-tray was carried away, spoke to her in soothing tones, and finally sang hymns, which seemed to quiet her better than anything else. She had sung all she knew and was commencing the _repertoire_ over again, when a heavy step, followed by a lighter one, came along the pa.s.sage, and presently Dr. Bolen appeared, followed, not by Eunice, as her sister had expected, but by Katie's mother, Mrs.

Robertson! There was no time for questionings. The doctor gave Mrs.

Robertson his directions, and then, leaving the patient to her, he took the young girl's arm and led her from the room, down the stairs, and out into the street, where the cool night air seemed wonderfully refreshing.

"I would not have exposed you thus," he said, "if there had been any other way. Do you feel very tired, very much exhausted?"

"Oh, no," she said bravely, for the air had greatly revived her. "I don't believe it will hurt me a bit. It's time I learned to do something besides amuse myself, you know. I've never been of much use in the world yet, but I mean to be."

"You have great capacities and opportunities for usefulness," said he, gravely, "but you know none of us is sufficient for these things."

"I am asking G.o.d to help me," she said in a low tone. "Don't you think he will?"

"No one ever sought his help in vain. I am glad you are setting out in the right way. All success be with you. Now you must attend to my directions and obey me exactly. As soon as you get home take off every garment you have on; throw away or burn up everything that can't be washed, take a warm bath, and go to sleep as soon as you can, and, remember, you are not to go near my patient again till I give you permission. Will you promise?"

Then he told her how sensibly Eunice had planned that Mrs. Robertson, who often went out to nurse the sick, should be engaged to take care of Gretchen; that to-morrow a certain empty house belonging to Mr.

Mountjoy should be fitted up as a temporary hospital, and the sick girl moved there that the battle of life and death might be fought where there were not crowds of people to take the infection. He also cautioned Etta not to spread a report concerning the nature of Gretchen's disease, as a panic might result which would be not only deleterious to her father's business interests, but also disastrous to the lives of mult.i.tudes of the employees of the mill.

By this time they had reached the door of Etta's home, and Dr. Bolen bade the girl good-night, after reiterating his directions.

Eunice came to her sister's room that night after she was in bed to see if the doctor's orders had been complied with. She gave her such a caress as her undemonstrative nature rarely gave way to, and it somehow opened Etta's heart and mouth as well. A long talk followed, and Eunice heard a great deal that made her very happy to hear. Etta begged her pardon for the many times she had refused obedience to one standing toward her almost in the position of a mother, and promised to be more docile and helpful for the future. Both felt that the sisterly bond which had been so weak between them was linked afresh to-night, and that they were now sisters in reality because they were one in Christ.

The next day Eunice's plan was fully carried out. The vacant house, which had been for some months without a tenant, was swept out and furnished with a few necessary articles, and Gretchen, now entirely delirious, was taken there in a close carriage, and Mrs. Robertson established as resident nurse. The good woman fretted and grumbled a good deal at leaving her home and her children,--whom, of course, she could not see for a long time,--but she _was_ a good woman in spite of her grumbling. She was a very experienced nurse, and here was service for the Master from which she dared not turn away. Katie, a.s.sisted by Tessa, was fully competent to manage the house and cook what they and the boys needed to eat, so she resolutely accepted the trust.

Eunice and Etta went down to the empty house early in the morning, and both worked hard, with a woman who had been hired to do so, to get the rooms in readiness, but when all was prepared, they went home, for Dr.

Bolen said there was no use for either to be unnecessarily exposed to infection. He did not want more patients than were sent him in the natural course of events.

Great pains were taken to keep the whole matter quiet. Katie and Tessa and the boys were cautioned not to speak about it, and the removal of the patient was effected during the forenoon when all the factory "hands" were safe in the mill. But the precautions were useless. Before the next night there were four more patients in the temporary hospital, all from the rag-room, and the consternation was extreme. Many refused to work, and the mill was in danger of being forced to stop just in the middle of filling some very important contracts, when the doctor, taking his own life in his hands, as doctors must, made a thorough investigation of the rag-room, where all the cases had occurred, and found the contagion to be in a bale of rags imported from Ireland, which had not received the usual overhauling before being brought to the mill.

These were all collected and burned, and the room thoroughly fumigated, the operatives receiving full wages for the days they were thus shut out from work, and one good result of the fever was that henceforth the bales were all opened and smoked in a separate building before they ever entered the mill at all.

The contagion did not spread any farther after this, and the hands returned without more delay to the mill. Mr. Mountjoy sent to the city for an experienced hospital nurse, and promised to pay all the expenses of the illness, in addition to the wages of those who were thus prevented from earning anything. The "hospital" was supplied from the kitchen of the "great house," and both Eunice and her young sister found full occupation in the preparation of dainties and food for the sick.

The interest in the five sick girls was intense, and when one--a poor, sickly little thing--died, every one felt as though death had come very close, and many were compelled to listen to the voice which said:--

"Prepare to meet thy G.o.d."

CHAPTER XIV.

GOOD FOR EVIL.

"Bertie Sanderson has not been in the mill for a week," said Tessa to Katie, as the two friends walked home together one hot afternoon. "One of the rag-room girls said so. I wonder if she has the fever!"

"That's not likely; the girls are all getting better," said her companion.

"Yes; but she's been absent for more than a week," persisted Tessa.

"Let's go round that way and inquire."

But Katie, somehow, shrank from this. While she knew nothing with absolute certainty, she could not help feeling that Bertie was in some way connected with the general avoidance of herself by the girls of the Sunday-school cla.s.s, and the evident suspicion with which both Miss Eunice and Miss Etta regarded her. What her former companion could have said or done, she had no idea; but the sense of an undefined something had made her of late keep as far as possible from Bertie. She was about to say with her usual impulsiveness:--

"No; I hate Bertie! Don't let's go near her," when she remembered all her purposes of doing Tessa good and setting her a Christian example. Is it Christian to cherish a dislike of another because one has reason to suppose that other has done one an injury? Katie's enlightened conscience knew it was not. It was not like him who said:--

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you;" and who, by acting in strict accordance with his own teachings, "left us an example that we should follow in his steps."

For a few moments the little girl said nothing as she walked silently by the side of her companion; then, having during those silent moments sent up an earnest prayer that the hateful feelings might be taken away from her heart, that so she might become more like Christ, she answered by turning her steps in the other direction.

The two girls found, as Tessa had suggested, that Bertie had indeed taken the fever, and was very ill in her own comfortable home. Dr. Bolen had suggested her being removed to the temporary hospital, and being cared for by the competent nurses there; but her mother would not hear of it. She was always a very foolish woman, had been very much opposed to her daughter's going into the mill, and now told her husband that this fever was all the result of his obstinacy, and she hoped he enjoyed having murdered his own child. Now, however, she meant to have her own way. Her Bertie, who was every bit as good as the city young ladies, her cousins, was not to go to an empty house and be nursed with a lot of common mill-girls. If her mother couldn't take care of her, she should like to know who could--which would have been unanswerable if Mrs.

Sanderson had known how to nurse anybody--a thing of which she was profoundly ignorant. So poor Bertie had a hard time of it, and daily grew worse instead of better; and as if this were not enough, Mrs.

Sanderson never thought of isolating the patient, or of keeping the other children from her, and before long the third child, a boy of six years old, was taken down with the fever also, and the incompetent mother had her hands more than full with the care of her house, the two patients, and two fretful, badly trained little children, with only Nina, who had never been taught to do anything in the world, to help her.

Matters were in this state on the evening when the girls called, and poor Mrs. Sanderson, coming to the door, without an atom of prudence or caution, insisted on dragging in Katie at least, because in her wild delirium Bertie had been incessantly shouting her name. Katie was impulsive, not very old or experienced, and had, moreover, been always taught to obey grown people, so without a thought of possible danger to herself, she followed the woman into the house, while Tessa waited for her outside, and was soon standing by the bedside of her old acquaintance.

She would never have known Bertie Sanderson. The long, disorderly hair, as well as the disfiguring "bangs," had, by the doctor's orders, all been shaved off; the round, rosy cheeks were pallid and sunken; the solid frame was wasted almost to a skeleton, and there was a fierce, wild look in the eyes alternated with an expression of intense fear.

Katie stood aghast, and even as she looked the wasted lips suddenly shrieked out:--

"Katie, Katie Robertson! Send her here. I want to tell her something."

"I am here," said Katie, as soothingly as she could, for her fright.

But Bertie took no sort of notice of her; evidently did not recognize her at all, and went on:--

"It wasn't a lie! I did see her find it and put it in her pocket. That's being a thief, isn't it? It was money--a great deal of money. I saw a five and a nought. It wasn't a lie, I tell you! She did steal it!

Katie's a thief, for all she's so saintly."

Katie started. This, then, was the mystery; this was the secret thing that had been setting so many against her. She had never in all her speculations concerning the general avoidance thought of this as a cause. Bertie must have seen her find that fifty-dollar bill and put it in her pocket. But even if, from mere idleness, she had repeated the story to her companions, had she told simply what she really saw, could it be called stealing? And if Miss Eunice or Miss Etta had heard it they would naturally have spoken of it to their brother; he would have told the facts as he knew them, and that would have made matters all straight.

Bertie must have altered her tale in some way, exaggerated it, or suppressed a part. What for? Could her companion be so malicious as simply to desire to make her unpopular and to prevent the young ladies from looking upon her with approbation? She could not understand it. Of course she could not, for malice and jealousy were entirely foreign to Katie's nature, even if she had not been striving "in all her ways to acknowledge" her Saviour. She did wish, however, that she had thought of mentioning her good fortune and Mr. James's kindness at the time, that all this trouble might have been avoided.

Meanwhile Bertie began to moan and cry and call for Katie; and the latter, after speaking in vain again and again, turned to go.

"Oh, don't go away!" said Mrs. Sanderson, imperatively. "She'll know you by-and-by; and I can't stand her calling for you; besides, if you can just stay with Bertie and give her the medicine and drink, I might get a chance to see to Alf., who is most as bad as she is, and see what Nina's doing with those children; they've been screaming this half-hour.

I don't believe she's given 'em a mite of dinner, and I guess there ain't anything in the house for supper. You just stay where you are."