explicit.  She was dissatisfied; there was more than this Alexandrian ecstasy to which Hypatia was driven; but where, and how should she find it?  Who would guide her?  Was not her guardian, in many respects, as skeptical as Raphael himself?  Dare she enter, alone and unaided, this Cretan maze of investigation, where all the wonderful lore of the gifted Hypatia had availed nothing?  What was her intellect given her for, if not to be thus employed?  Her head ached with the intensity of thought, and, as she laid it on her pillow and closed her eyes, day looked out over the eastern sky.

The ensuing week was one of anxious apprehension to all within the city.  Harriet’s words seemed prophetic; there was every intimation of a sickly season.  Yellow fever had made its appearance in several sections of the town in its most malignant type.  The board of health devised various schemes for arresting the advancing evil.  The streets were powdered with lime and huge fires of tar kept constantly burning, yet daily, hourly, the fatality increased; and, as colossal ruin strode on, the terrified citizens fled in all directions.  In ten days the epidemic began to make fearful havoc; all classes and ages were assailed indiscriminately.  Whole families were stricken down in a day, and not one member spared to aid the others.  The exodus was only limited by impossibility; all who could abandoned their homes and sought safety in flight.  These were the fortunate minority; and, as if resolved to wreak its fury on the remainder, the contagion spread into every quarter of the city.  Not even physicians were spared; and those who escaped trembled in anticipation of the fell stroke.  Many doubted that it was yellow fever, and conjectured that the veritable plague had crossed the ocean.  Of all Mrs. Hoyt’s boarders, but half a dozen determined to hazard remaining in the infected region.  These were Beulah, Clara, and four gentlemen.  Gladly would Clara have fled to a place of safety, had it been in her power; but there was no one to accompany or watch over her, and as she was forced to witness the horrors of the season a sort of despair seemed to nerve her trembling frame.  Mrs. Watson had been among the first to leave the city.  Madam St. Cymon had disbanded her school; and, as only her three daughters continued to take music lessons, Beulah had ample leisure to contemplate the distressing scenes which surrounded her.  At noon, one September day, she stood at the open window of her room.  The air was intensely hot; the drooping leaves of the China trees were motionless; there was not a breath of wind stirring; and the sable plumes of the hearses were still as their burdens.  The brazen, glittering sky seemed a huge glowing furnace, breathing out only scorching heat.  Beulah leaned out of the window, and, wiping away the heavy drops that stood on her brow, looked down the almost deserted street.  Many of the stores were closed; whilom busy haunts were silent; and very few persons were visible, save