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Map
The Bitterroot Valley
Dedication

To my husband, Paul
Courtesy of Gary Hettrick, Rocky Mountain Laboratories,
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
(NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
 Contents

Cover
Map
Title Page
Dedication

Author’s Note
Prologue

Chapter 1: Bitten
Chapter 2: The Scientist

The Cold War

Chapter 3: Coin Toss
Chapter 4: Bitterroot Bride
Chapter 5: Big Itch
Chapter 6: Fever
Chapter 7: Special Operations
Chapter 8: Behind the Curtain
The Hunt
Chapter 9: Out of the Abyss
Chapter 10: Confession
Chapter 11: Missing Files
Chapter 12: Last Interview
Chapter 13: Rebellion
Chapter 14: Smoking Gun
Chapter 15: Eight Ball
Chapter 16: Speed Chess
Chapter 17: Fear

Outbreak
Chapter 18: Fog of War
Chapter 19: Lone Star
Chapter 20: Survival
Chapter 21: Castleman’s Case
Chapter 22: Red Velvet Mites
Chapter 23: Wildfire
Chapter 24: Swiss Agent
Chapter 25: Collateral Damage

Postmortem
Chapter 26: Discovery
Chapter 27: DNA Detectives
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Chapter 28: Change Agent
Chapter 29: Sins of Our Fathers
Chapter 30: Surrender

Epilogue

Acknowledgments
Appendix I: Ticks and Human Disease Agents
Appendix II: Uncontrolled Tick Releases, 1966–1969
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
 Author’s Note

This narrative nonfiction story is based on the reports, letters,

memoirs, interviews, videos, lab notebooks, and oral histories of
Willy Burgdorfer and the people who knew him. Historical scenes
from Willy’s life were re-created through his letters and interviews
with family members; in most cases, dialogue in quotation marks is
pulled verbatim from these sources or reconstructed from
interviewees’ memories.
 Prologue

In 1968 there was a sudden outbreak of three unusual tick-borne

diseases that sickened people living around Long Island Sound, an
estuary of the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of New York and
Connecticut. One of these diseases was Lyme arthritis,1 first
documented near the township of Lyme, Connecticut. The other two
were Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a bacterial disease, and
babesiosis, a disease caused by a malaria-like parasite.
The investigations into these outbreaks were fragmented among
multiple state health departments, universities, and government
labs. It’s not clear if any officials were looking at the big picture,
asking why these strange diseases had appeared seemingly out of
nowhere in the same place and at the same time.
Thirteen years later, in 1981, a Swiss American tick expert named
Willy Burgdorfer was the first to identify the corkscrew-shaped
bacterium that caused the condition that we now call Lyme disease.
The discovery made headlines around the world and earned
Burgdorfer a place in the medical history books. As researchers the
world over rushed back to their laboratories to learn as much as they
could about this new organism, the two other disease outbreaks
were all but forgotten.
Thirty-eight years later, the conventional medical establishment
would like us to believe that it has a solid understanding of the
prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Lyme disease. It says that
the tests to detect Lyme are reliable and that the disease can be
cured with a few weeks of antibiotics.2
The statistics show a different reality.
 Reported cases of Lyme disease have quadrupled in the United
States since the 1990s.3 In 2017, there were 42,743 cases of Lyme
disease reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC).4 The scientists at the CDC who study the spread of diseases
now say that the actual cases may be ten times higher than
reported, or 427,430 cases.5 On average, this means there are about
1,000 new Lyme cases in the United States per day.
While most Lyme disease patients who are diagnosed and treated
early can fully recover, 10 to 20 percent suffer from persistent
symptoms, some seriously disabling.6 One study estimates that Lyme
disease costs about $1.3 billion each year in direct medical costs
alone,7 but no one has assessed the full economic and societal
impact of chronic Lyme, sometimes called post-treatment Lyme
disease syndrome (PTLDS).8 Patients with lingering symptoms are
often dismissed by the medical establishment, a situation that forces
them to seek unproven treatments that aren’t covered by medical
insurance. Many are unable to work or go to school. Some go
bankrupt. Families break up. There’s a high rate of suicide among
Lyme disease patients, reflected in a common saying among the
afflicted: “Lyme doesn’t kill you; it only makes you wish you were
dead.”
The chasm between what researchers say they know about Lyme
disease and what the chronically ill patients say they are
experiencing has remained an open wound for decades. This book
begins with the premise that both sides are mostly right, and that
the main issue is that we’re viewing this public health crisis too
narrowly, through Lyme-colored glasses.
Before I started this book, I thought I had a solid understanding
of the Lyme disease problem. As a former Lyme sufferer, I had
firsthand experience with the disease, and how the medical system
fails patients. As a researcher for the Lyme documentary Under Our
Skin, I had investigated the politics, money, and human impact of
the disease. And as a writer at a medical school working in a group
that teaches scientists how to conduct unbiased research, I was
familiar with the fault lines in our current medical system that can
compromise scientific objectivity.
It took the late, great Willy Burgdorfer to teach me how to view
the problem through a wider lens, through a secret history of the
Cold War, when Willy and others turned ticks into weapons of war.
 Chapter 1

Bitten
Off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, 2002

Ticks may be a disease-carrying menace for hikers and pets, but they’re also
masters of survival: The parasites were sucking the blood of dinosaurs 99 million
years ago, according to a set of amber fossils from Myanmar.
—Science magazine, December 12, 2017

A tiny eight-legged creature slowly crept up a blade of beach grass.

It was about the size of a poppy seed, armored with a hard, shiny
shell. When it reached the blade’s tip, the rear legs clamped down
and the creature raised its forelegs high and wide toward the sky. It
was blind, and it experienced the world through these forelegs.1
There, a few sensory bristles, perfected over more than 120 million
years of evolution,2 could detect temperature changes, humidity,
ammonia in sweat, and carbon dioxide in breath. The tick was
sniffing the air for these signals, waiting for a warm-blooded animal
to pass by. It could wait hours, days, or even months, swaying with
the sea breeze.

***

I climbed out of a cobalt-blue sailboat and onto a misty beach on

Nashawena Island, located across the channel from Martha’s
Vineyard, followed by my husband, Paul, and our two sons, ten and
twelve years old. The boys ran off to play in the surf, while Paul and
I walked down a sandy path to look around the small island of
thirteen square miles, population ten. We saw an old military gun
mount and a cowherd’s cottage, where two rust-colored Scottish
Highland cows, dull-eyed and mangy, stood at the edge of a soupy,
algae-filled pond.
We walked back to the beach to eat a picnic lunch with the boys,
and I looked over at Paul, slim and fit, with big brown eyes and a
few strands of silver woven throughout his dark hair. He was as
relaxed as I’d seen him in a long time. The Silicon Valley start-up
where he worked had recently gone public, and we had enough
stock options to finally feel some financial relief. We wouldn’t have to
sweat the monthly cash flow, and probably had enough put aside to
cover the boys’ college tuition. After this vacation, I was going to
ramp down my consulting business and try my hand as a full-time
writer. I’d just won two national writing contests, and the kids were
doing well; both were bright, creative, and happy. This would be my
shot at doing what I loved most: writing.

***

When the carbon dioxide from my breath wafted by, the tick sprang
to attention. It began waving its foreleg claws and snagged the skin
of the passing mammal. In an instant, the glands below its claws
began oozing a fatty, sticky substance that helped it hold on to my
leg. Then it started crawling upward, its senses tuned to find a
protected, blood-infused patch of skin.
The tick found the perfect spot at the nape of my neck, hidden
under my hair. The back legs elevated the tick’s mouthparts at the
perfect striking angle, and its three-part jaw telescoped down
toward my skin. First, its top two cutting mouthparts gently scraped
the surface while releasing a numbing agent. Then, by rocking its
body back and forth, the tick began digging through my tough outer
layer of skin. Its bottom jaw, shaped like a shovel and backed with
harpoon barbs, slid into the hole to anchor the drilling operation.
Once a feeding hole was established, the tick’s salivary glands
secreted chemicals into the wound site. A cement-like substance,
coated with a protein that made it invisible to my immune system,
hardened into a funnel and anchored the jaws to the hole.
As blood pooled at the bottom of the hole, the tick’s throat
muscles began a pumping action: saliva flowed out, my blood flowed
in. Chemicals in the saliva included a clot-dissolving fluid that kept
the wound from scabbing over and others that suppressed my many
immune system defenses.
While the tick fed, it released into my bloodstream the microbial
hitchhikers floating inside its body. Its salivary chemicals would blunt
my immune defenses for a week or more, allowing these foreign
invaders to multiply with little resistance.
The feeding apparatus of a female Ixodes ricinus tick
© Courtesy of Dania Richter, Technische Universitaet Braunschweig, Germany

Over the next few days, the tick’s body ballooned with blood. Its
weight increased one-hundred-plus times,3 and when the tick could
hold no more, it dropped to the ground. I remained oblivious to the
encounter. Another tick bit my husband. Both ticks would go on to
molt or lay several thousand eggs, and the cycle would begin again,
perhaps repeating for another million years.
I waded back out to the sailboat, took a seat at the stern, and
looked toward Martha’s Vineyard, veiled in mist. It would be nice to
have a writer’s studio there, overlooking the sea. The wind picked
up, and the ride across Vineyard Sound was bumpy. I felt a little
nauseated.
 This was the beginning of our long journey to hell and back.
Paul and I had been bitten by unseen ticks harboring an
unknown number of disease-causing organisms. These tick bites
would rob us of our good health and send me on an investigation
into an almost unimaginable possibility: that we were collateral
damage in a biological weapons race that had started during the
Cold War.

Kris and Paul Newby on Nashawena Island

Courtesy of Moira Cullen

While the use of arthropod-borne biological weapons ended

decades ago—arthropods include insects, crustaceans, and arachnids
—the disease-causing microbes the bugs carried are still lurking, in
the soil, in the bloodstreams of animals, and, most dangerously, in
ticks. Ticks, like tiny soldiers, keep marching outward from the
epicenter of any bioweapons release, injecting their payloads into
birds, beasts, and humans. No one is looking for many of these
microbes in sick humans. There are no simple, accurate tests for
them, and the microbes can hide deep within a body’s tissue,
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concealed from the immune system. Humans infected with more
than one species of these microbes present with a confusing set of
symptoms not well described in the medical literature. The effect of
these mutant microbes on the environment will be felt for decades.
It is an American Chernobyl.
 Chapter 2

The Scientist
Hamilton, Montana, 1981

When we think of research that makes a difference, we often picture individuals

whose particular discoveries marked watershed moments in scientific history. One
such person who made a substantial impact on biomedical science and human
health was biologist Wilhelm “Willy” Burgdorfer.1
—From “The Great Willy Burgdorfer, 1925–2014,” NIH blog post, February 2, 2015

On November 5, 1981,2 Willy Burgdorfer, a fifty-six-year-old Swiss

American scientist, picked up a blacklegged deer tick with forceps
and snipped off the tip of one of its legs. A small drop of tick blood,
called hemolymph, formed at the wound site, and Willy smeared it
on a glass slide and then slipped the slide under a microscope lens
for viewing.
Willy was working late at Rocky Mountain Laboratory, searching
for the tick-borne microbe behind a mysterious illness that had been
spreading across Connecticut and New York State in the 1970s. It
started with flulike symptoms: fever, malaise, fatigue, chills,
headache, stiff neck, sore back, and muscle aches.3 Many of the
afflicted had joint swelling that would come and go. About 20
percent of the Connecticut patients developed a red, expanding
bull’s-eye rash, called an erythema migrans. Some patients went on
to develop neurological and heart problems. Researchers called the
illness “Lyme disease” because the first set of human cases studied
were clustered in the rural area around the township of Lyme,
Connecticut.
That evening, as Willy peered into the microscope’s eyepiece, he
was greeted with a surprising sight: a roundworm of “exceptional
size”4 filled the viewing area. He leaned back from the microscope to
think. Never before had this type of roundworm been seen inside a
hard-bodied tick in the United States. Was it an accidental
hitchhiker? Willy looked through a few more ticks and found another
roundworm. Maybe the tick had picked it up after feeding on an
infected rodent or deer?
He pressed one of the ticks into a slab of clay and sliced open its
belly with a scalpel. With Swiss watchmakers’ tools, he gently
extracted the tick’s craggy midgut, shaped like a tiny glove, and
smeared its contents onto a slide. Through the microscope, he saw
something else unusual: faintly stained spirochetes (thread-like
bacteria), some slightly coiled and some in messy clumps. He
recognized them as a Borrelia, the same bacterial genus as the
African relapsing fever spirochetes he’d studied as a student in
Switzerland. And because he had read most of the early scientific
literature on these organisms, he remembered that several European
researchers suspected that spirochetes might cause a disease similar
to the one that was being investigated around Lyme, Connecticut.
This was Willy’s “aha” moment.5
Willy Burgdorfer working with African ticks, 1954
Courtesy of Gary Hettrick, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH

Next, he and his lab coworkers went through a rigorous process

to prove that this microbe was the causative agent of Lyme disease.
First, they isolated a few of the spirochetes and developed a
nutrient-rich liquid that enabled them to grow the microbes in
quantity. Then they injected the cultured microbes into healthy lab
animals to see if they caused the same disease. Two lab rabbits
developed bull’s-eye rashes similar to the ones found on Lyme
disease patients. When the researchers analyzed blood from the
newly infected lab animals and from Lyme disease patients from
New York and Connecticut, they saw similar spirochetes. These
experiments were checked and rechecked, a process that took
fourteen months.
In June 1982, Science magazine published their discovery article,
“Lyme Disease—A Tick-Borne Spirochetosis?,” and hundreds of
scientists worldwide began looking for Lyme spirochetes in patients
and in ticks. A year later, at the First International Symposium on
Lyme Disease, the spirochete was named after Willy, Borrelia
burgdorferi.
The discovery of the organism that caused Lyme disease changed
Willy’s life forever. His schedule filled up with media interviews,
invitations to scientific conferences, and worldwide queries on how
to diagnose this emerging disease. Congratulations poured in from
around the world. He received the Schaudinn-Hoffman Plaque
(1985), from the German Society of Dermatologists; the Robert Koch
Gold Medal (1988); the Bristol Award (1989), from the Infectious
Diseases Society of America (IDSA); the Walter Reed Medal (1990),
from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene; and
honorary degrees from the University of Bern, the University of
Marseille, Montana State University, and Ohio State University.6
How did Willy discover the spirochete that so many other
scientists had missed?
Many of his colleagues attributed it to his dogged work ethic and
his insistence on reading the historical papers of scientists who had
come before him. He knew that in 1909 a Swedish physician, Dr.
Arvid Afzelius, had described a patient who developed a ringlike,
expanding rash after a tick bite. In 1948, Dr. Carl Lennhoff, from the
Dermatologic Clinic at the Karolinska Institute, had identified
spirochetes as a possible cause of a number of diseases with bull’s-
eye rashes and Lyme-like symptoms. And in 1949, Dr. Sven
Hellerström, from the Karolinska Institute, suggested that the
European castor bean tick, Ixodes ricinus, might transmit a microbe
that causes an expanding rash and inflammation of the brain and
spine in some patients.7
Willy’s friend Stanley Falkow, PhD, a Stanford microbiologist and
a pioneer in figuring out how microbes cause disease, attributed the
finding to the tens of thousands of hours that Willy had spent
looking at tick innards. “He had very keen powers of observation,”
said Falkow.8
Willy called his discovery “serendipity,” a happy accident.

***

While all the pieces of this public-facing story are true, they don’t
represent the whole truth. Shortly before his death, Willy was
videotaped saying that he believed that the outbreak of tick-borne
diseases that started around Lyme, Connecticut, had been caused by
a bioweapons release.9 It was a stunning admission, but it could
explain why the condition we call Lyme disease is so hard to
diagnose and treat—and why the epidemic is spreading so far and so
fast.
An electron micrograph of thread-like Lyme disease spirochetes, Borrelia
burgdorferi, in the midgut of an infected deer tick
Courtesy of Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH

If anyone else had said this, I might have walked away, but Willy
was the person with the most to lose. When this information came
to light, his legacy would be destroyed. And because of this horrible
secret, the foundational science behind Lyme disease was
compromised, and patients were being harmed.
In the beginning, I pitched this story to a few mainstream
journalists, but none of them would touch it. Willy’s confession was
too vague and fragmented because he was suffering from advanced
Parkinson’s disease. The investigation would be time-consuming,
scientifically complex, and too reliant on a single semi-cooperative
whistle-blower. Few scientists would jump at the chance to overturn
the conventional view of Lyme disease. After all, their livelihoods
depended on government grants and favorable peer reviews. Yet, if
somebody didn’t look into this, the secret would die with Willy. The
better angel in me just couldn’t let that happen.
The Cold War
Other documents randomly have
different content
unto fountains of living waters, and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes.'"

"Is that out of the Scripture?" I ventured to ask.

"Aye, that and many more precious promises. Rosamond,

you are far more of a scholar than I. If you have a chance,
do not you neglect to study the Scripture for yourself. And
now farewell, best, dearest friend, for I hear the Sister
going to ring the bell, and Mother Gertrude will soon be
here."

Oh, that last embrace! I dare not dwell upon it! It was too
much for Amice, who fell back fainting. I called Mother
Gertrude, who was already astir, and together we revived
her. Then Mother Gertrude, seeing, I suppose, by my looks,
how much I was overcome, gave me a composing drink and
sent me to bed. I was long in falling asleep, but I did at
last, and when I waked all was over. I heard afterward how
it was. Seeing that Amice was clearly near her end, the
Sisters were assembled in her room, as usual, for the last
rite.

Then she spoke with a clear and plain voice, declaring that
having had her mind enlightened by Holy Scripture, and as
she believed also by light from on high, she did utterly
contemn and repudiate all worship and honor of images and
pictures, all prayers to our Lady and the Saints, and all trust
whatever for salvation in forms and ceremonies, in
penances, indulgences, or any such toys; placing her hopes
of salvation upon Christ alone. Having said which, (but
mentioning naught of Magdalen Jewell's escape,) she
repeated in a clear voice and with (as Sister Placida told
me,) a countenance more like a beatified Saint than a dying
heretic, these words from the Psalm: "Into thy hands I
commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord,
thou God of truth."

And then sinking back and clasping her hands, she yielded
up the ghost.

'Twas a terrible shock and surprise to all, for Amice had

been devout from a child, using many prayers, and as much
of watching and fasting as her superiors would permit; and
nobody, not even Sister Catherine, doubted that she had a
true vocation.

Mother Gertrude fainted on the spot, and revived only to fall

into fits, to which, it seems, she was formerly subject. All
the Sisters fled from the room, and the poor body lay
unwatched and uncared for till night, when it was hastily
and with little ceremony buried in the far corner of the
cemetery, by the side of that poor secluded lady, who had,
as it were, left this legacy of trouble behind her.

Sister Placida (she is Mother Placida now, having been put

in the place of dear Mother Gertrude, who is far too feeble
to perform any duty,) Sister Placida, I say, told me these
things when I was recovering from my long illness. She
professed to be very hard and severe toward the poor thing,
but I could see her heart yearned over her, and indeed she
ended by a great burst of weeping, and declaring that she
would never cease to pray for the soul of Amice Crocker,
adding that the prayers, if they did no good, could do no
harm, and might serve some other poor soul in Purgatory.

I had just waked from my long and heavy sleep, and was
striving to collect my thoughts and calm my throbbing head,
when Sister Catherine burst in on me with the news that
Amice was gone; and after recounting the manner of her
death, added that now one might see what came of
favoritism and book-learning, and court preferment; and
thanking the Saints, as usual, for her lowly station and for
the grace of humility which they had vouchsafed to obtain
for her. She added, that as the bosom friend and confident
of that lost heretic, I should doubtless be severely dealt by,
and adjured me to make a full confession and recantation,
as in that case I might be let off with perpetual
imprisonment.

Whether any such purposes were entertained against me I

know not, but I do not greatly believe it; at any rate, they
were not carried out; for that very hour I was taken with an
ague chill, which turned to a long and low fever, lasting I
know not how many weeks, during which I lay mostly in a
low, muttering delirium, knowing nobody, and talking, when
I could be understood, only of my childish life at home, and
my lessons with my mother and Master Ellenwood. Even I
after the fever left me, I was as weak as any babe, for a
long time, and as I had been removed from my usual place
and put in a cell opening from Mother Superior's part of the
house, where I saw nobody but herself, Mother Placida and
Sister Bonaventure, who brought my food, I heard nothing
of what was going on in the house.

I was very much better, and able to sit up some hours and
work a little, when, one day, I was aware of a somewhat
unusual bustle in the house, and by-and-by Mother Superior
and Mother Placida came to me.

"The Bishop is here, and desires you may be brought before

him," said Mother Superior. She spoke calmly, as usual, but
I saw that she was disturbed and flurried. They helped me
to dress, and then supporting me each by an arm, they led
me into Mother Superior's private room, where the
Reverend Prelate sat in her great chair, with Father Fabian
standing behind him.
His Lordship, though very grave, was kind and fatherly, as
when I had seen him before. He would have me sit, after I
had knelt to him on entering, and then before Father Fabian
and the two Mothers he began questioning me about Amice.
Had I ever suspected her of any leaning toward heresy?
Had we ever talked on the subject? Did I know what books
she had had, and how she had gained them?

At the answer to this last question, "that I believed she had

found a part at least of what she had, concealed in a chair
in the Queen's room," I saw the Bishop and Father Fabian
look on each other. Then he asked me whether I had been
intimate with Mrs. Bullen; to which I said decidedly no! That
I did not like her, nor she me, and we kept apart as much
as possible.

"That is well!" said he. "The woman is a pest, and will be a

greater." Then he asked me of my own opinions, to which I
answered that I had never thought of believing save as I
had been taught, which was quite true at that time,
whatever may be the case now. I believe I satisfied him at
last, for he kindly gave me his blessing, and said there was
no need of my being secluded longer—which by the way
was the first time I had known I was secluded at all. But he
gave me many sharp and solemn cautions about meddling
with matters too high for me, which certainly I had no mind
to do at that time, being mortally tired, and wanting
nothing so much as to get back to bed.

At last I was dismissed, and Mother Placida kissed me, even

with tears, and said how glad she was all was well, and
farther relieved her heart by bringing me for dinner twice as
much of all sorts of nice things as I could eat, and a cup of
her fragrant rose cordial, which I know she treasures as if it
were a draught from the water of life.
When I got about the house again—which was not for some
days—I found many, and some sad changes. Poor Mother
Gertrude sat in the sun, spinning of fine thread, and looking
far more aged and feeble even than Mother Mary Monica.
She seemed hardly to know me at first, and when she did,
was so troubled and distressed that I hardly could pacify
her. I found a stranger holding the place of Mother
Assistant, a hard-looking woman, with sharp black eyes,
which seemed to see everything at once. Sister Clare told
me she was a nun from the house at Exeter, and added that
nobody liked her except Sister Catherine, who was very
great with her.

I could see that the reins were tightened up in every way.

More work was done, and the hours of prayer and silence
were multiplied. Sister Clare also told me that the elder
nuns were much dissatisfied with having a stranger put over
them; and that after Amice's death, the whole household
had kept a nine days' fast and devotion, to expiate the sin
of having harbored an apostate. But we had little talk
together; for Mother Assistant encountering us bade us
remember the rule of particular friendships, and sent Sister
Catherine to join us, which of course put an end to all
conversation but her own. She had much to say about the
improvements in the family, and as to how it would be
impossible in future for any one to fall into such disorders
as had obtained among the younger members of the family.

I escaped as soon as I could, and went away by myself to

the corner where poor Amice lay buried. I could not be sure
of the exact place, for the ground was levelled flat and
made bare for some distance. Somebody had sowed grass
seed, which was already beginning to come up; and seeing
many lily of the valley roots lying about on the grass, I
ventured to replace them in the soil, where I hope they are
now blooming.
For a good many days after I got up, I was very feeble, and
fit for none but the lightest work. I could not even
embroider, because mine eyes were weak; so I fell back
upon making of cherry-tree and strawberry-nets against
summer; and on my knitting, which I found a great
resource. Also I took to learning by heart such Psalms as I
did not know, and whole chapters of "The Imitation of
Christ," and found great comfort therein.

'Twas drawing toward Christmas-tide, and very warm and

mild for the season. I was gathering such late flowers as
still bloomed in sheltered spots, to decorate the shrine in
the Lady Chapel, when Mother Placida came to tell me that
some one had come to see me, and I was to go to Mother
Superior's parlor without delay. A little thing sufficed to
disturb me in those days; and I was already trembling and
flurried, when I entered the parlor. The first person I saw
was my father, looking much better in health and spirits
than when I saw him last, and with him a fine, handsome
lady.

Mother Superior was present behind the grating, and looked

strangely disturbed and troubled. My father raised me in his
arms and kissed me tenderly, and then turning to the lady,
he said:

"This is my daughter Rosamond, Julia. Rosamond, this lady

is my wife and your mother, to whom I trust you will pay all
childly duty and courtesy."

It could but have been something of a shock to me to know

that my father was married again. Still if I had had warning
and a little time to consider the matter, I trust I should not
have been wanting in my duty to my honored father and his
wife. As it was, I am ashamed to say that after staring at
the lady for a moment, I dropped in a dead faint at her feet.
When I began to revive, I felt the fresh air blowing on my
face, and heard the rustle of leaves above me, but a leaden
weight seemed to press down my eyelids, so that I could
not open them. Kind hands were busy about me, and I
presently heard a decided but clear and cheery voice say,
"She is coming to herself!"

"I will leave you together!" said Mother Superior's voice, still
sounding as in a dream. Then came a warm hand laid on
mine and a kiss pressed on my forehead. At last I opened
mine eyes. They fell on a very pleasant object—a lady of
about my own mother's age, but perhaps handsomer,
though in a different way—somewhat dark, with a beautiful
color, bright brown eyes and well-marked eyebrows—the
whole visage bearing the marks of a keen, clear-sighted but
withal kindly disposition. The dress was rich, but sober and
matronly. I looked long and as it were in a kind of
bewilderment, till with a kindly smile, "Well, child, take a
good look at me!" she said. "Do I look like a monster, or the
cruel step-dames in the ballads?"

"No indeed, Madam!" I answered, feeling all the blood rush

to my face in a flood. "I am sure you look like a good-
natured gentlewoman. It was only that I was so taken by
surprise, not knowing or thinking of any such thing."

"I see—I see!" she interrupted. "Did you not know, then?
Your father sent letters more than two weeks before us."

"I have heard nothing of them," I answered.

"Poor child, no wonder you were taken aback!" said my

step-dame. "Well, Rosamond, here I am, as you see. I trust
to be able to make your father a good wife, and to supply to
you in some degree the place of the mother you have lost. I
cannot ask you to give me all at once the affection which a
child owes her mother. That would be out of all reason.
What I do ask is that you will not judge me beforehand, nor
conclude that I must needs be a tyrant because I am a
step-dame, but use your own eyes and judgment and
persuade your brother to do the same. Your mother, so far
as I have learned, was a saint. I am no saint, but a faulty
woman—yet I trust I am a Christian woman, and one who
means to do her duty."

What could I say to this, but that I would strive to do my

part, and be a dutiful and loving child to her. With that I
kissed her hand, and she my cheek, and we went to find my
father, whom we found walking the parlor in evident
perturbation, which, however, seemed to clear up as we
entered.

"Why, that's well," said he; then changing his tone, "but
what have they been doing to you, child? Why, you are but
the ghost of yourself!"

"I have been very ill, dear father," I answered. "I have had
a long fever which lasted many weeks, and from which
nobody thought I would rise again."

"And why was I not apprised thereof? You are no nun as

yet, I trow, to be cut off from your family and natural
friends. What say you, my Lady? Shall we take this faded
rose of ours home, and see if it will not revive in its native
soil?"

"Indeed, I think 'twould be a wise move," answered my

Lady. "Change of air is always reckoned good in these
cases, and, besides, I want Rosamond to help me settle
myself in my new home. What says she? Sweetheart, would
you like to go with us to Corby End?"
Oh, how my heart leaped at the thought of seeing home
once more! I could not speak, but I kissed my father's
hand.

"Her face says yes," says my step-dame, smiling.

"And are you then so ready to leave old friends for new,
Rosamond?" said Mother Superior, reproachfully. "Your
mother who gave you to this holy house would hardly have
approved such readiness to leave it."

I thought this, I must needs say, an ill-judged speech, and I

saw my step-dame's cheek flush, though she said not a
word. My father, however, answered somewhat hotly, as is
his wont when chafed in his humor:

"My daughter, Madam, is not yet professed, and is therefore

under the rule of her father."

I saw Mother Superior's eye kindle, for she too hath a spark
of temper, and I dreaded some unpleasant debate, but my
step-dame interposed, and by I know not what gentle and
honeyed words of courtesy, she managed to avert the
storm. She urged my evidently failing health, her own want
of my assistance, and the need of my seeing somewhat of
the world before making my profession; and finally, I hardly
know how, 'twas settled that I should go home for a while.

I could have sung for joy. True, I felt it would be a trial for
me to see a strange lady, be she ever so well conditioned,
in my dear mother's place, and ruling where she ruled; and
I had also some fears as to how Harry would take the
change, and I foresaw trouble with Mrs. Prudence. But all
was swallowed up in the overwhelming joy of going home.
Ever since Amice died, the house hath seemed to me like a
prison, as if I had no space to move and no air to breathe.
We were to leave that afternoon and travel by short stages,
as my weakness would permit. Before I left, I had a long
audience with Mother Superior, who mourned over me as
over a tender lamb going forth in the midst of wolves. She
gave me much council as to how I should behave—how I
should seclude myself as far as possible from all worldly
society, specially men's society, and, above all, I should
keep aloof from my cousin if any chance threw him in my
way. I was to remember always that I was the same as a
vowed and cloistered nun, and to observe always the rules
of my Heavenly Bridegroom's house, recollecting the
examples of those saints who had set at naught father and
mother, friends and children, for the sake of a religious life;
and she told me of a lady, formerly a nun in this house, who
being a widow with three children, left them to whoever
would care for them, and betook herself to the convent; and
when the eldest son, a lad of some twelve years, threw
himself across the threshold of the door with tears and
besought her not to leave them, she just stepped over his
prostrate body and went her way.

Now, I had my own thoughts on this matter. I thought the

woman a horrid wretch, nor did I believe Heaven would
smile on such an unnatural mother. Moreover, it seemed to
me, that in my father's house, I should properly be under
his rule, and that of my step-dame, his Lady. But I have
learned one thing, at least, in my convent education,
namely, to hear all and say nothing; and indeed I was
grieved to part with her who hath been a second mother to
me. So I strove to content her in all things, and she bade
me farewell with many tears and blessings. 'Twas the same
with all the mothers and sisters, save the new Mother
Assistant and Sister Catherine. These two take more on
themselves all the time, and I am much mistaken if Mother
Superior does not sometime show them that she is a
Vernon, and mistress in her own house to boot.
How delightful it was, despite my weakness, to find myself
once more on horseback, behind my father, breathing the
free air of the moor, and seeing the wide world, not shut in
by high stone walls and waving trees—meeting the kindly
glances and greetings of the serving-men, feeling myself
drawing nearer home with every step, and recognizing one
familiar tree and hill after another.

We stopped one night at the house of my Lady Gardener,

who is a kinswoman of ours. Here my step-dame would
have me go at once to bed, and I was glad to do so, for I
was very tired, being weak and unused to the motion of a
horse for so long. Lady Gardener was full of some nostrum
which she had got from a travelling friar, and which was to
cure everything in the world; but my step-dame staved off
the dose, I don't know how, and that for a wonder, without
offending our hostess; persuading her that some of her
excellent junkets and cream, with a cup of wine whey,
would be far better for me.

"'Tis not dosing you want, sweetheart!" said my step-dame,

as she came to see me eat my supper. "You are young, and
ought to be able to get well of yourself. Besides, I have no
fancy for friar's nostrums and medicines, whereof I know
nothing."

In all of which I quite agreed with her.

I was much better next day, and able to renew my journey

with good courage; and now I found I had great news to
hear, as namely, that the proud Cardinal was out of favor,
and like to be wholly disgraced; and what struck me even
more, that his Majesty had, after all this time, waked up to
the fact that he had married his brother's widow—that his
conscience—Heaven save the mark!—was disquieted
thereat, and that he was moving Heaven and earth, and
perhaps, as my step-dame said, some other place for a
divorce. My Lady was wholly on the Queen's side, and said
some very sharp things.

"But if his Majesty's conscience be engaged?" said my

father.

"Oh, his conscience—his conscience would have done better,

methinks, to have slept altogether, since it had slumbered
till the Queen grew an old woman. His conscience was easy
enough till Mistress Bullen came from France."

And here she seemed to remember my presence, for she

said no more. For mine own part her words seemed to
throw light on many things, and specially on the business of
the diamond ring which had moved the Queen so strangely.

Doubtless this was the grief which weighed so heavy on the

poor lady's heart, and for which she had sought comfort in
vain at the shrine of St. Ethelburga.

Well, we reached home in safety, and were soon settled

down in an orderly way of living, my Lady seeming
somehow to establish her sway perfectly, with very little
trouble or contention. I think she is one of those people
born to rule, to whom government comes easy.

I saw but little of the process, being taken down with a new
access of my fever, which lasted two or three weeks. Harry
told me afterward she had no trouble with anybody but
Prudence and Alice. Alice thought her dignity as a matron,
and the prospects of the baby were injured, by my father's
presuming to take a second wife. She thought he ought to
remain single for the sake of his children; though I don't
think she ever thought of remaining single for his sake.
However, she thinks that is different, and perhaps it may
be, a little.
Harry is thoroughly pleased, and when I hear from him how
matters went on—how Prue tyrannized, and the maids
rebelled, and how uncomfortable the whole household was
made, especially my father, I do not wonder. My Lady being
just what she is, I can honestly say, I am heartily glad of
her coming among us, though I can't but speculate what it
might be if my father had fancied a different kind of woman
—somebody like Sister Catherine, for instance.

Master Ellenwood was away when we came home, on a visit

to his sisters in Bristol; but he returned just when I was
getting about, and in time for the Christmas holidays. I
could see that he was shocked at first. He worshipped my
dear mother as a kind of saint, and though they did not
agree on some matters—in my spending so much time on
fine needlework, for instance, when he would fain have kept
me at my Latin—yet they never had a word of
disagreement, and they used to have many conferences on
religious and spiritual matters. But he quite agreed with
Harry and me that the change was a good one for my father
and the rest of the household, and he and my Lady were
presently good friends.

My step-dame is quite in favor of my taking up my lessons

again when my health is once more established. She says
she has known many learned ladies who were none the
worse housekeepers and managers for that, and she
instanced my young Lady Latymer, daughter of Sir Thomas
Parr, whose father gave her a most excellent education,
even to having her taught the Greek tongue. This lady is my
step-dame's great friend, and quite a pattern in the court
for her piety and discretion. My Lady says she hopes I may
some day make her acquaintance.

[So I did; but before that time came she had passed
through many strange mutations of fortune, having become
first a widow, then a Queen, then a widow again, and at last
a most unhappy wife, when she married Sir Thomas
Seymor, Lord High Admiral, and died in child-bed not long
after. She wrote many excellent pieces, both in prose and
verse, two of which, "The Complaint of a Penitent Sinner,"
and "Prayers and Meditations," I had a present from this
godly and afflicted lady's own hand.]

I was about again in time to witness the Christmas revels,

though not to take any great part in them. Alice and her
husband were here with their boy, and I think my Lady hath
quite won Alice's heart by her attention to the brat, which
took to her wonderfully. I saw my Lady's eyes soften and fill
with tears as she held the child in her arms and looked on
its little waxen face.

"Alice, my child, God hath given you a great treasure!" said

she, and presently more softly, "Methinks fathers and
mothers should have a greater and deeper sense of God's
love toward his fallen creatures than any one else. How
much must you love any one before you could give the life
of this babe for him?"

I don't think this remark struck Alice so much as it did me,

but I pondered on it many times afterward. I had often
been reminded of our Lady when I had seen a mother and
babe, but it had never occurred to me to think so much of
God's love. When I repeated the saying to Master
Ellenwood, he said:

"Your new mother is a most precious lady, Mistress

Rosamond. I believe she will be a blessing to this house."

Since the Christmas revels, our time has passed quietly

enough. I have had two or three attacks of my fever, but
not so severe, and seem gradually getting the better of it.
Prudence would fain keep me shut in my chamber, on the
lowest diet, and the strongest physic, because she says it
stands to reason that a fever needs bringing down. But to
this my Lady will by no means agree. She will have me eat
heartily, specially of cream, and take no medicine but a
certain aromatic and bitter cordial, which certainly does
strengthen me wonderfully.

I have heard not a word from the convent since I left, and
my father will by no means hear of my going back at
present. I am glad of it, for I am very happy at home, and
after what has passed, it does not seem as though I could
ever breathe under that roof again. This home life is so
sweet! I do not see how any vocation can be higher than
that of a wife and mother, blessing and profiting all about
her, as certainly my Lady does. But all homes are not like
mine, I know very well—and then that promise!

CHAPTER XXII.

April 23.
OUR people have come home, with a fine budget of news,
to be sure. First the Pope hath sent a Cardinal named
Campeggio, or some such name, to join with Cardinal
Wolsey, in a commission to try the lawfulness of the King's
marriage with the Queen, and there is to be a court held for
that purpose. Then the Cardinal's favor with the court is
said to be decidedly waning, while that of Mrs. Anne Bullen
is constantly growing. She is now made Marchioness of
Pembroke, forsooth, and her levees are attended by the
nobles of the court, as if she were already queen; and
nobody has any doubt that she will be made queen if the
marriage with her Grace can be dissolved. The viper! I
remember well the mocking tone in which she besought her
Grace not to betray her to the King! My poor, dear mistress!
No wonder she brought her troubles to the shrine of St.
Ethelburga, where I fear, however, she found little comfort.

I will never believe that was the true book of the Gospel
which Mistress Anne gave Amice. It was some work of the
devil, meant to deceive and destroy souls. And yet, when I
recall that last night with my friend, can I think all that
courage, and peace, and assurance, and triumphant joy was
the work of the devil? And if so, who is safe? And where is
Amice now? I dare not think of it! Whichever way I turn all
is confusion, doubt and dread!

The last piece of news is, that my Lord is coming home next
week, and of course Richard with him. It seems a long, and
weary journey for my Lady, with her young son, and the
roads are terribly unsafe. They must be well on their way
now. I must say an additional Hail Mary every day for their
safe arrival. It would be such a terrible misfortune if any
harm should happen to my Lady and her boy.

I don't exactly know what I am to do about meeting Dick.

Doubtless he will be in and out with Harry as usual, and of
course I must meet him. I have no excuse now for keeping
my chamber, and if I try to seclude myself, as Mother
Superior desired, I shall annoy my father and mother, cause
a break in the family, and make everybody uncomfortable. I
don't quite like to speak to my mother about it. It might
give her a false notion that there have been really some
love passages between me and Dick, and make her think it
a serious matter, which it is not.

Besides, I know just what she would say. She does not like
to think or speak of my being a nun, and indeed I think my
father is coming to mislike the notion. I believe I will let
matters take their course. Perhaps if Dick has grown the
fine court Squire that Mistress Bullen said, he will not care
to pay me any attention. I do not believe it any the more
for her saying so.

The poor Queen! My heart aches to think of her sitting alone

and forlorn, while her husband goes junketting about with
Mistress Anne. His conscience, forsooth! Methinks a retreat
—say among the monks of La Trappe for him, and the Poor
Clares, or the silent Carmelites for her, would be good for
both of them. If I had the ordering of their haircloth and
parched pease, methinks both would be of the hardest.
Father says it is so with every one in London. The women
are all for the Queen, and the men take the part of the
King, or Mistress Bullen.

This morning the men went to Biddeford with the wagons,

to bring up some goods of my father's and mother's, which
have been sent round by sea, from London. My father and
Harry went with them, to see all safe, and hearing that
there was a great chest of books among the things, Master
Ellenwood must needs go too. I was standing at the door
watching to see the last of them, when my stepmother
came to me.
"Rosamond!" said she, after she had asked after my health,
and found that I was feeling as well as usual. "There is a
certain thing, which needs to be done, and this day of your
father's absence is a good time to undertake it; but I do not
wish to move in the matter, unless you feel able to help me.
I mean the opening, airing, and ordering of your mother's
room and clothes. They must needs be attended to, or the
moths and damp will ruin them. Moreover, Alice thinks that
she should have her share of the clothes and jewels, and
maybe she is right."

(I forgot to say, in the right place, that my step-dame had

refused to occupy my mother's private apartment, but had
chosen one on the other side of the house, where she had
her dressing room, and her private closet, in which she
spent an hour every morning.)

I was moved at first, which my step-dame saw.

"I know it will be hard for you, my child," said she, "but
think what your mother would wish in the matter."

"It must be done, of course," said I, recovering myself, "and

I will help you. Dear Madam, how kind you are to me."

"And why should I not be kind, sweetheart?" she asked me,

smiling. "You are my dear home daughter, and it would sure
be an unnatural mother who did not love her child."

"And you are my dear mother," I whispered, kissing her

hand, whereat she embraced me tenderly, and we went
together to open my mother's room.

All was just as it was left the day of her funeral; even the
flowers I had gathered, lay dried, and cobwebbed on her
toilet-table.
"And where does this door lead?" asked my lady, after we
had unbarred the shutters, and opened the windows.

"That was my mother's closet," I answered, "where she

used to spend many hours, specially when my father was
away. I suppose we had better open and air that also."

And I found the key where I knew she kept it, in a box on
the chimney. We opened the door of the little turret room,
not without difficulty, for the lock was rusted and moved
stiffly, but open it we did at last. It was but a small place.
There was an altar and crucifix, of course, and before them
on the floor lay a rough hard mat, rough enough of itself,
and strewed with sharp flints to make it the harder. On the
step lay a discipline of knotted cords, mingled with wire,
and stained here and there, as if by blood. I had never
thought of my dear mother as using such penances, and my
blood ran cold at the sight of these things. I glanced at my
step-dame, and saw her face full of indignation and pity.

"Woe unto them, for they have made sorrowful the souls of
the righteous, whom God hath not made sorrowful!" she
murmured, as if she had forgotten my presence. "Woe to
the false shepherds who oppress the sheep! 'Lord, how
long, how long shall the ungodly triumph?'" Then seeming
to remember me—"Rosamond, we will leave these things as
they are, for the present, at least. Let the moles and bats
prey on them, if they will. The day may come, when we will
clear them away."

I saw she was greatly moved, as was I myself, but I could

hardly understand her expression. It seemed to be anger,
not at my mother, but for her sake. She recovered herself
presently, locked the door and gave me the key, bidding me
keep it carefully. Then we summoned Prudence and one of
the maids, and my Lady had all the hangings taken down
and brushed, the floors scrubbed and polished anew, all the
linen and garments taken from the drawers and chests,
shaken and refolded, with plenty of rose leaves and
lavender, and sweet woodroofe, and all put in the nicest
order.

"I suppose my new Madam means to take all my dear

sainted lady's clothes to herself, as she has taken all the
rest," grumbled Prue, as my Lady left us to seek some
essence of roses, which she said some one had brought her
from Turkey. "I have ever looked for such a move, but I did
not expect to see you, Mistress Rosamond, abetting her in
doing dishonor to your dear dead mother's memory."

Before I had time to answer, my Lady returned with two

little chrystal and gilded glasses, which, though tightly
closed with glass and vellum, exhaled a most delicious
perfume, as if they held the very soul of the summer roses.

"You say your mother loved roses?" she said, after I had
admired them. "We will lay one of these in her drawers, and
you shall have the other. And now tell me, Rosamond,
would you like to have this room for your own? I have
spoken on the matter to your father, and he says you may,
if you choose."

I could not help casting a glance of triumph at Prue. To my

surprise and vexation she answered sharply, before I had
time to speak:

"Mistress Rosamond is going to be a nun, and pray for her

mother's soul in the convent, instead of flaunting in the
world. She will want no room in this house, since she is to
live in the house of God."

My Lady gazed steadily at Prudence for a moment, till the

woman's sharp eyes fell before hers. Then she said very
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