That, however, is in the fantasyland where comic-strip characters grow up.

Tonight is the night.

Indeed, nothing frightened me so much as what I heard when I first arrived about Natal sores and Natal boils. Everybody told me that ever so slight a cut or abrasion went on slowly festering […]

Minutes later, Molly found herself seated inside the stagecoach with a rather girthsome gentleman occupying the opposite bench. Grateful to be spared the experience of spending a night in Sulfur Falls, she situated her satchel—the single piece of luggage the driver, a Mr. Lewis, had said he could accommodate—on the seat beside her.