To be sure there was some amusement to be found in watching the life on the river; for though traffic was suspended, many whole families were living on board vessels moored on the river, and hoped by this device to keep the plague away from them.

Yet the time hung very heavy on their hands, and the stories of the increasing ravages of the plague could not but depress them, seeming as they did to lengthen out indefinitely the time of their captivity.
Three of the sisters were practically living away from the house (of which more anon), and the loneliness of the silent house was becoming unbearable.

To lads used to an active life and plenty of exercise, the distemper itself seemed a less evil than this close confinement between four walls.

The bridge houses did not even possess yards or strips of garden, and without venturing out into the streets--which had for some weeks been forbidden by their father--the boys could not stir beyond the walls of their home.
August had now come, a close, steaming, sultry August, and the plague was raging with a virulence that threatened to destroy the whole city.

The Bills of Mortality week by week were appalling in magnitude; and yet those who knew best the condition of the lower courts and alleys were well aware that no possible record could be kept of those crowded localities, where whole households and families, even whole streets, were swept away in the course of a few days, and where there were sometimes none left to give warning and notice that there were dead to be borne away.