Ah! how little pleasure does it bring!" Gertrude spoke half aloud and with some bitterness, albeit she strove to be patient with the foibles of her mother, and to think kindly of her, her many faults notwithstanding.

But the terror of these days was taking with her a very different form from what it did with Madam Mason.

It was inflaming within her a great desire to be up and doing in this stricken city, where the fell disease was walking to and fro and striking down its victims by hundreds and thousands.

Other women, in all lands and of all shades of belief, had been found to come forward at seasons of like peril, and devote themselves fearlessly to the care of the sick.

Why might not she make one of this band?
What though it should cost her her life?
Life was not so precious a thing to her that she should set all else aside to preserve it! She was awakened from her fit of musing by an unwonted sound--a hollow tapping, tapping, tapping, which seemed to come from a corner of the attic where the shadows gathered most dun and dark.
The girl drew in her head from the window with a startled expression on her face, and was then more than ever aware of the strange sound which caused a slight thrill to run through her frame.
What could it be?
There was no other room in their house from which the sound could proceed.