"I don't think. I just keep doing. That's my part. Folks that think too much of what's a-coming, most likely won't attend to what there is."
Faith was finding out—a little of Miss Sampson, and a good deal of herself. Had she not thought too much of what might be coming? Had she not missed, perhaps, some of her own work, when that work was easier than now? And how presumptuously she had wished for "something to happen!" Was God punishing her for that?
"You just keep still, and patient—and wait," said Miss Sampson, noting the wistful look of pain. "That's your work, and after all, maybe it's the hardest kind. And I can't take it off folks' shoulders," added she to herself in an under voice; "so I needn't set up for the very toughest jobs, to be sure."
"I'll try," answered Faith, submissively, with quivering lips, "only if there should be anything that I could do—to sit up, or anything—you'll let me, won't you?"
"Of course I will," replied the nurse, cheerily. "I shan't be squeamish about asking when there's anything I really want done."
Faith moved toward the door that opened to her father's room. It was ajar. She pushed it gently open, and paused. "I may go in, mayn't I, nurse, just for a good-night look?"
The sick man heard her voice, though he did not catch her words.
"Come in, Faithie," said he, with one of his half gleams of consciousness, "I'll see you, daughter, as long as I live."
Faith's heart nearly broke at that, and she came, tearfully and silently, to the bedside, and laid her little, cool hand on her father's fevered one, and looked down on his face, worn, and suffering, and flushed—and thought within herself—it was a prayer and vow unspoken—"Oh, if God will only let him live, I will find something that I can do for him!"
And then she lifted the linen cloth that was laid over his forehead, and dipped it afresh in the bowl of ice water beside the bed, and put it gently back, and just kissed his hair softly, and went out into her own room.