It was Albinia's great wish to lift that dark veil, and Lucy began,
with as much seriousness and sadness as could co-exist with the
satisfaction and importance of having to give such a narration, and
exciting emotion and pity. It was remarkable how she managed to make
herself the heroine of the story, though she had been sent out of the
house, and had escaped the infection. She spoke in phrases that
showed that she had so often told the story as to have a set form,
caught from her elders, but still it had a deep and intrinsic
interest for the bride, that made her sit gazing into the fire,
pressing Lucy's hand, and now and then sighing and shuddering
slightly as she heard how there had been a bad fever prevailing in
that lower part of the town, and how the two boys were both unwell
one damp, hot autumn morning, and Lucy dwelt on the escape it had
been that she had not kissed them before going to school. Sophy had
sickened the same day, and after the tedious three weeks, when father
and mother were spent with attendance on the three, Edmund, after
long delirium, had suddenly sunk, just as they had hopes of him; and
the same message that told Lucy of her brother's death, told her of
the severe illness of both parents.

The disease had done the work rapidly on the mother's exhausted
frame, and she was buried a week after her boy. Lucy had seen the
procession from the window, and thought it necessary to tell how she
had cried.

Mr. Kendal's had been a long illness; the first knowledge of his loss
had caused a relapse, and his recovery had long been doubtful. As
soon as the children were able to move, they were sent with Miss
Meadows to Ramsgate, and Lucy had joined them there.