CHAPTER IX.
JOPPA'S MINISTRATIONS TO THE SICK.
All news, good, bad, and indifferent, flies equally fast in Joppa; and had there been a town-crier deputed for the purpose, Phebe's accident could not have sooner become a household tale in even the most distant districts of the place.

After a contradiction of the first rumor, reporting her burned to a crisp and only recognizable by a ring of her mother's on her left hand,--which ring by-the-way she never wore,--and after a contradiction in due course of the second rumor, reporting Gerald to be lying in the agonies of death and Phebe to have escaped without a hair singed, followed a period of dire uncertainty, when nobody knew what to believe, and felt only an obstinate conviction that everybody else had got it entirely wrong.

But at last the story straightened itself out into something bearing a family resemblance to actual facts, and then Joppa settled itself resolutely down to doing its duty.

My duty toward my sick neighbor in Joppa consists in calling twice a day, if not oftener, at his house; in inquiring after his condition down to minutest and most sacred details; in knowing accurately how many hours he slept last night, and what he ate for breakfast, and what is paid the sick-nurse, and if it includes her washing.

My second duty toward my sick neighbor is to bring him something to eat, on the supposition that "outside things taste differently;" or something to look at; or, if nothing better, at least something to refuse.