but went about amongst the sick in the neighbourhood, generally directed by Dr. Hooker, but sometimes called specially to urgent cases by neighbours or friends.  Sometimes they returned home at night to sleep, sometimes they remained for several days or weeks at a time with their patients, according to their degree and the urgency of the case.  Janet found herself very well content in her new life, and her mother liked it for her, since it brought her so much more to her home.

It began to be noted that when Dinah Morse was at the house on the occasions of the visits of the Master Builder, he addressed a great part of his conversation to her, seemed never to weary hearing her talk, and would sit looking reflectively at her when other people were doing the talking.  He had never forgotten how she had come to them in their hour of dire need, when poor Frederick had sickened of the fell disease which so soon carried him off.  He always declared that her tenderness to his wife and daughter at that time had been beyond all price, and it seemed as though his sense of obligation and gratitude did not lessen with time.

Sometimes James Harmer would say smilingly to his wife: 

“Methinks our good neighbour hath a great fancy for Dinah.  I always do say that such a woman as she ought to be the wife of some good honest man.  They might do worse, both of them, than think of marriage.  What think you of Dinah?  Tends her fancy that way at all?”

And at that question Rachel would shake her head wisely and respond: 

“Dinah is not one to wear her heart upon her sleeve!  A woman hides her secret in her heart till the right time comes for giving an answer.  But we shall see! we shall see!”

In this manner the spring and summer passed happily and quickly away.

August had come and gone, and now the first days of September had arrived.  The heat still continued very great, and a parching east wind had been blowing for many weeks, which had dried up the woodwork of the houses till it was like tinder.  Sometimes the Master Builder, coming home from his work of repairing or altering some house either great or small, would say: 

“I would we could get rain.  This long drought is something serious.  I never knew the houses so dry and parched as they are now.  If a fire were to break out, it would be no small matter to extinguish it.  The water supply is very low, and the whole city is like tinder.”

It was Saturday night.  The sun had gone down like a great ball of fire, and Gertrude had observed to her husband how it had dyed the river a peculiarly blood-red hue.  One of those wandering fortune tellers, who had paraded the city so often during the early days of the plague (till the poor wretches were themselves carried off in great numbers by it), had passed down the street once or twice during the day, and had been always chanting a rude song like a dirge, in which many woes were said to be hanging over London town.