If I die of the plague," she continued, "he has promised not to let me be thrown into that horrible pit--ough!--but to bury me in my garden, beneath the old apple-tree." "And he will keep his word, dame, I am sure," replied Leonard.

"I would recommend you, however, as the best antidote against the plague, to keep yourself constantly employed, and to indulge as few gloomy notions as possible." "I am seldom melancholy, and still more seldom idle," replied the good dame.

"But despondency will steal on me sometimes, especially when the dead-cart passes and I think what it contains." While the conversation was going forward, Nizza and the piper withdrew into an inner room, where they remained closeted together for some time.
On their re-appearance, Nizza said she was ready to depart, and taking an affectionate farewell of her father, and committing Bell to his charge, she quitted the cottage with the apprentice.
Evening was now advancing, and the sun was setting with the gorgeousness already described as peculiar to this fatal period.

Filled with the pleasing melancholy inspired by the hour, they walked on in silence.
They had not proceeded far, when they observed a man crossing the field with a bundle in his arms.

Suddenly, he staggered and fell.