see the children so ill, and how she suffered from her anxiety about them; but it was Jane and Elsie who took the real charge of the little patients.  The mother did not seem really alarmed, though the children were really very ill; the only thing she did that appeared like apprehension was making Jane write to Mr. Phillips to return to England without delay as soon as the children were seized with the fever.  Jane also wrote to Dr. Phillips, and Vivian hurried to London, and stayed with his brother’s family until his return, which was a great lightening of the load of responsibility which the sisters felt rested on them.  In spite of every care and all that either doctor or nurses could do, little Eva fell a victim to the disease; and, after her death, Mrs. Phillips for the first time seemed to realize the danger of the others.  Everything had gone so prosperously with her since her marriage; she had known no sorrow, and little annoyance; she had always had her husband at her side to smooth everything for her, so that she really scarcely knew what the contingencies and trials of life were; but this death, happening when the father who loved his children so dearly was absent, affected the indolent and generally unimpressible woman very strongly.  She felt that she was somehow to blame about it.  “What will Stanley say when he comes home?  Oh, what will he say to me for losing his darling child?  Oh, why did he go to America, and leave me with such a charge?  And the others will be sure to die, too!”—­were her constant lamentations.

Her grief made her quite unfit to take any charge of the survivors, and yet she was incredulous when she was told by her brother-in-law, or by the Misses Melville, that they were really recovering.  It was not till her husband returned, which was as soon as he possibly could, and assured her that they were quite out of danger, that she gave any credit to it.  Mr. Phillips felt the loss of one of his children more keenly than most men, but he was grateful to see that he was likely to save the others, and he did full justice to the care and attention which they had received from Vivian and Jane and Elsie.

Francis Hogarth was in London, attending a short parliamentary session, when the children were so ill, and was constant in his inquiries as to their health.  Dr. Vivian Phillips forced Jane and Elsie out to hear their cousin make his first speech one evening, when the patients were decidedly convalescent.  Jane was very much pleased with Francis’ debut, and though Elsie thought it rather tame, because it was not on an important subject, and was very calmly delivered, she was glad that he had not broken down, for it seemed a most imposing assembly for a stranger to address.  Francis had visited the Derbyshire Phillipses, according to promise, after his election was over, and had been a good deal interested in Dr. Vivian, both on account of his own qualifications, and because Jane Melville had been interested in him.  He now felt that