And so at length the year slipped by, and spring had come again, and the
sap had leaped up the bough and burst into blossom there, and the blood
had bubbled freshly in the veins of youth, and hope had once more
gladdened all the world but Louie. With her only a dull patience stayed
that tried to call itself content, until she heard it rumored among the
harbor-people that the Sabrina was nearly due again, and with that her
heart beat so turbulently that she had to crush it down again with the
thought that, though Andrew every day drew nearer, came up the happy
climates of southern latitudes and spread his sails on favoring gales for
home, he only hastened to his wedding-day. And one day, at last, she rose
to see a craft anchored in the middle channel down below the piers,
unpainted and uncleaned by any crew eager to show their best to shore--a
black and blistered brig, with furled sails and silent deck; and some men
called it the fever-ship, and some men called it the Sabrina.
As the news of the brig's return and of her terrible companion spread
through the town, a panic followed it, and the feeling with which she was
regarded all along the shore during that day and the next would hardly be
believed by any but those who have once been in the neighborhood of a
pestilence themselves.
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