“Saviour of earth, Mave dear, is it mad you are?  You, achora machree, that’s! dearer to us all than the apple of our eye, or the very pulse of our hearts—­to let you into a plague-house—­to let you near the deadly faver that’s upon them—­where you’d be sure to catch it; an’ then—­oh, blessed Father.  Mave what’s come over you, to think of sich a thing?—­ay, or to think that we’d let you expose yourself?  But it’s all the goodness and kindness of your affectionate heart; put it out of your head, however—­don’t name it, or let us hear of it again.”

“But, father, it’s a duty that our religion teaches us.”

“Why—­what’s come over you, Mave?—­all at wanst too—­you that was so much afeard of it that you wouldn’t go on a windy side of a feverish house, nor walk near any one that was even recoverin’ from it.  Why, what’s come over you?”

“Simply, father, the thought if I don’t go to them and help them, they will die.  I was afeard of the fever, and I am afeard of it—­but am I to let my own foolish fears prevent me from doin’ the part of a Christian to them?  Let us put ourselves in their place—­an’ who knows—­although may God forbid!—­but it may be our own before the season passes—­suppose it was our own case—­an’ that all the world was afeard to come near us; oh, what would we think of any one, man or woman, that trustin’ in God, would set their own fears at defiance, an’ come to our relief.”

“Mave, I couldn’t think of it; if anything happened you, an’ that we lost you, I never would lay my head down without the bitther thought that I had a hand in your death.”

At this moment, the mother who had been in another room, came in to the kitchen—­and having listened for a minute to the subject of their conversation, she immediately joined her husband; but still with feelings of deep and almost tearful sympathy for the Daltons.

“It’s like her, poor affectionate girl,” she exclaimed, looking tenderly at her daughter; “but it’s a thing, Mave, we could never think of; so put it out of your head.”

She approached her mother, and, seizing her hands, exclaimed:—­

“Oh, mother, for the sake of the livin’ God, make it your own case!—­think of it—­bring it home to you—­look into the frightful state they’re in.  Are they to die in a Christian country for want of some kind person to attend upon them?  Is it not our duty, when we know how they are sufferin’?  I cannot rest, or be at ease; an’ I am not afeard of fever here.  You may say I love young Condy Dalton, an’ that it is on his account I am wishin’ to go.  Maybe it is; an’ I will now tell you at wanst, that I do love him, and that if it was the worst plague that ever silenced the noise of life in a whole country, it wouldn’t prevent me from goin’ to his relief, nor to the relief of any one belongin’ to him.”

“I know,” said her father, “that that was at the bottom of it.”