Mrs. Tait appears to have had a premonition of the next death. When the children were reading to her out of the Bible, "just then there rushed to my heart a feeling of separation from them which I could not bear, and an intense faintness." Both she and her husband attributed this to her own illness, accentuated by weakness from the recent childbirth, but when she was told that Susan was ill she immediately felt well again, "and this came like light to my mind, 'We are in God's hands.'"
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As death moves inexorably through the children, the narrative grows more and more painful to read. "It seemed, now," she writes at one point, "as if every look of health was of untold value to us." To the modern reader, the distress is increased by the obvious helplessness of medical science. Attempts to prevent the disease spreading by removing each child from the others as she falls sick are quite ineffective; there are no drugs that will help, and all that the doctor can prescribe is something to "strengthen" the patient (usually port wine); when more distinguished doctors are brought in to consult, there is obviously no further expertise that they can bring. As each child fell ill, her hair was cut off, which may have increased her comfort, and certainly saddened the mother, but can have done little else. The ineffectualness of the palliatives makes distressing reading:
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 | | He then desired us to give her a vapour-bath by bottles filled with hot water, and wrapped in damp flannel put all about her; but alas! no relief to the fever; no moisture on the skin.
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Mrs. Tait's religious faith was intense:
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| | Craufurd said even little children were martyrs. I, putting my arms round Chatty, said, "Yes, even such little ones as Chatty died gladly, that they might go to be with Jesus." She looked up with a look I never shall forget, it was so sweet. Yes, my little lamb was ready for her Saviour's call! Before the week was half over, she was with him.
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This moment takes place before any of the children fall ill, though it was of course written afterwards. By inserting it at the beginning of her account, Mrs. Tait (with perhaps half-conscious artistry) is providing a framework for our acceptance of the ensuing tragedy.
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She cannot think about death except as a reuniting, and she speaks of it in that way to the children: when the dying May asks, "Where is Catty?"
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