One of them came to see her two or three times—­once when she seemed to be at the point of death, and twice afterwards, reading prayers with her, to her great comfort.  He spoke of her as an angel of goodness, spending all the means allowed her by her husband among her poor exiled countrymen and women.  And as she used no concealment, and only took what was supplied to her for her own ‘menus plaisirs,’ her husband might grumble, but did not forbid.  I knew now that my brother had loved in her something more than the lovely face.

And oh for that beauty!  I felt as though I were trying to guard a treasure for him as I used every means I had heard of to save it from disfigurement, not permitting one ray of daylight to penetrate into the room, and attempting whatever could prevent the marks from remaining.  And here Millicent’s habits of patience and self-command came to her aid, and Dr. Dirkius said he had never had a better or a gentler sick person to deal with.

Alas! it was all in vain.  Millicent’s beauty had been of that delicate fragile description to which smallpox is the most fatal enemy, with its tendency not only to thicken the complexion, but to destroy the refined form of the features.  We were prepared for the dreadful redness at first, and when Millicent first beheld herself in the glass she contrived to laugh, while she wondered what her little Emilia would say to her changed appearance, and also adding that she wondered how it fared with her step-mother, a more important question, she tried to say, than for herself, for the young lady was betrothed to a rich merchant’s son, and would be married as soon as the days of mourning were over.  However, as Veronica had never been reckoned a beauty, and les beaux yeux de sa cassette had been avowedly the attraction, we hoped that however it might be, there would not be much difference in her lot.

We were to joint her at Hunkerslust to rid ourselves of infection, while the house was purified from it.  Before we went, Annora daily brought little Emilia before the window that her mother might see the little creature, who looked so grown and so full of health as to rejoice our hearts.  My brother and sister seemed to have made the little maid much more animated than suited a Dutch child, for she skipped, frolicked, and held up her wooden baby, making joyous gestures in a way that astonished the solemn streets of Graavehage, as the inhabitants call it.  She was to come to us at Hunkerslust so soon as the purification was complete; and then I was to go back to my brother and sister, for as the spring advanced it was needful that we should return to France, to our mother and my son.

It was April by the time Madame van Hunker was fit to move, and the great coach came to the door to carry us out the three or four miles into the country.  I shall never forget the charm of leaving the pest-house I had inhabited so long, and driving through the avenues, all budding with fresh young foliage, and past gardens glowing with the gayest of flowers, the canals making shining mirrors for tree, windmill, bridge, and house, the broad smooth roads, and Milicent, holding one of my hands, lay back on the cushions, deeply shrouded in her widow’s veil, unwilling to speak, but glad of the delight I could not help feeling.