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JOSEPH'S PLAN.
"Ben, boy, I am sick to death of sitting at home doing naught, and seeing naught of all the sights that be abroad, and of which men are for ever speaking.

What boots it to be alive, if one is buried or shut up as we are?
Art thou afraid to come forth?
or shall I go alone ?" "Where wilt thou go, brother ?" asked Ben, looking up from a bit of wood carving upon which he was engrossed, with an eager light in his eyes.

Perhaps these two young lads had felt the calamity which had befallen the city more than any one else in the house; for whilst the father, mother, sisters, and two elder sons were all hard at work doing all in their power for the relief of the sick, the younger lads were kept at home, to be as far as possible out of harm's way, and they had felt the confinement and idleness as most irksome.

Their mother employed them about the house when she could, but it was not much she could find for them to do.