Mrs. Birkett’s native indolence would have kept her at home, well fumigated and isolated, even in such a strait of fear and danger as this in which they all were, and Adelaide was racked with torment at leaving Leam unwatched and unhindered in the same place as Edgar; yet, being more afraid of the fever than even of a potential rival, she agreed with her father that in justice to themselves they ought to go now at once; and Pace, who was to remain to take care of the rector, packed up their best dresses, and sent them off with Adelaide’s maid shared between them.  She prophesied, however, that their things would all be spoiled before they returned, and then they would know her value.  As Mr. Dundas elected to remain at home, not being afraid of infection and being tired of travel, Mrs. Birkett insisted on taking little Fina with her.  This was her contribution to the sum of philanthropy and self-sacrifice in the world, and it was not despicable; for Fina was restless and only six years of age, and Mrs. Birkett was indolent and soon tired.

Thus, the whole society of the place was reduced now to the rector, Mr. Dundas and Leam, with Edgar Harrowby left alone at the Hill.  The Corfields did not count, because of Alick’s illness, by which they were put in quarantine; and if Mr. Gryce at Lionnet had not been the cipher he was, his illness too would have disbarred him.

There was nothing of the saint by nature nor of the instinctive philanthropist about Leam.  She was too concentrated for general benevolence, and men and women whom she did not know were little more than symbols to her.  When she loved it was with her whole heart, her whole being:  failing this kind of love, she had but weak affections and no curiosity, in which much of our ordinary charity consists.  When the servants told her of such and such distressing circumstances, she was sorry because they were sorry, not because she realized in her own emotions the troubles she did not share or see.  When prompted she sent improper things in the way of diet and useless things in the way of dress for the benefit of the poor fever patients—­and she sent generously—­but it never occurred to her as possible that she should go to see them in their own homes.  When we read of a cyclone in China which has killed half a hundred mandarins and a small army of coolies, we realize the sorrow of the survivors no more than we realize the distress of a disturbed ant-hill; and Leam’s attitude of mind toward the poor of her native village was precisely the same as ours toward the Chinese killed in a cyclone or the ants murdered in their hill.