The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

THE SECRET WITNESS.

53

activity. To seclude herself as much as possible from
others was the best means of avoiding infection. Spectacles of misery which she was unable to relieve would
merely tend to harass her with useless disquietudes and
make her frame more accessible to disease. Her father's
instructions were sufficient to give her a competent acquaintance with the Italian and French languages. His
dreary hours were beguiled by this employment, and her
mind was furnished with a species of knowledge which
she hoped, in future, to make subservient to a more respectable and plentiful subsistence than she had hitherto
enjoyed.
Meanwhile, the season advanced, and the havoc which
this fatal malady produced increased with portentous rapidity. In alleys and narrow streets, in which the houses
were smaller, the inhabitants more numerous and indigent, and the air pent up within unwholesome limits, it
raged with greatest violence. Few of Constantia's neighbours possessed the means of removing from the danger.
The inhabitants of this alley consisted of three hundred
persons. Of these, eight or ten experienced no interruption of their health. Of the rest, two hundred were
destroyed in the course of three weeks. Among so
many victims, it may be supposed that this disease
assumed every terrific and agonizing shape.
It was impossible for Constantia to shut out every
token of a calamity thus enormous and thus near. Night
was the season usually selected for the removal of the
dead. The sound of wheels thus employed was incessant. This, and the images with which it was sure to be
accompanied, bereaved her of repose. The shrieks and
laments of survivors, who could not be prevented from
attending the remains of a husband or child to the place
of interment, frequently struck her'senses. Sometimes,
urged by a furious delirium, the sick would break from
their attendants, rush into the streets, and expire on the
pavement, amidst frantic outcries and gestures. By
these she was often roused from imperfect sleep, and
called to reflect upon the fate which impended over her
father and herself.
To preserve health in an atmosphere thus infected, and
6*