It was little the eager boys saw of their aunt that day.  She was engrossed by Reuben the whole time.  She said he was terribly weak, and that he had not yet got back the use of his faculties.  He lay in a sort of trance or stupor, and did not know where he was or what was happening.  It came from weakness, and would pass away as he got back his strength.  The doctor had assured her that the plague symptoms had spent themselves, and that he was free from the contagion.

The boys slept in the shed that night tranquilly enough, and in the morning their aunt came to them with a grave and sorrowful face.

“Is he worse?” asked Benjamin starting up.

“Not worse, I hope, yet not better.  He has some trouble on his mind, and I fear that if we cannot ease him of that he will die,” and her tears ran over, for Reuben was dear to her as a nephew, and she knew what store her brother set by his eldest son.

“Trouble! what trouble?  Are any dead at home?” cried the boys anxiously.  “Can he speak? has he talked to you?  Tell us all!”

“He has not talked with his senses awake, but he has spoken words which have told me much.  Death is not the trouble.  He has not said one word to make me fear that our loved ones have been taken.  The trouble is his own.  It is a trouble of the heart.  It concerns one whose name is Gertrude.  Is not that the name of Master Mason’s daughter?”

“Why, yes, to be sure.  She has joined with the rest—­with Janet and Rebecca—­to care for the orphan children whom none know what to do with, there are such numbers of them.  Reuben always thought a great deal of Mistress Gertrude—­and she of him.  What of that?”

“Does she think much of him?” asked Mary eagerly.  “I feared she had flouted his love!”

“Nay, she worships the ground he treads on!” cried Joseph, who had a very sharp pair of eyes of his own, and a great liking for sweet-spoken Gertrude himself.  “It was madam, her mother, who flouted Reuben.  Gertrude is of different stuff.  Why, whenever she was with us she would get me in a corner and talk of nothing but him.  I thought they would but wait for the plague to be overpast to wed each other!”

Mary stood with her hands locked together, thinking deeply.

“Joseph,” she said, “if it were a matter of saving Reuben’s life, think you that Mistress Gertrude would come hither to my house and help me to nurse him back to health?”

Joseph’s eyes flashed with eager excitement.

“I am certain sure she would!” he answered.

“Ah, but how to let her know!” cried Mary, pressing her hands together in perplexity.  “Alas for days like these!  How shall any one get a letter safely delivered to her in time?  It may be that if we tarry the fever will have swept him off.  It is fever of the mind rather than the body, and it is hard to minister to the mind diseased, without the one healing medicine.”