Encouraged by applause, she bursts into, “We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.” And is quite aware, the little rogue, of the effect she will presently produce when, upon an incredibly high note, she announces, “We will keess you.”
After this, she breaks into piety with, “Paradise, oh! Paradise.”
The little plump nurse gets up and shakes out her cloak. It is getting quite late, and they must go back to the hospital. She marshals her charges up on the terrace. They obey her just as if they were very good little boys in charge of their schoolmistress.
“Now say good-bye, and thank you. I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed yourselves. No. 20, where’s your hat? Go down and get your hat, No. 20. No; his poor leg’s tired. You go down and get it, No. 13.”
“I seen it a while ago,” No. 13 announces obligingly.
They say “good-bye” and “thank you” with the conscientiousness of their simple hearts. We shake, one after the other, those outstretched hands that grip back so cordially.
A guest of the Villino—an honoured guest, who is not only one of the most distinguished women artists of the day, but has lived all her married life within sound of the drum; who has been always inspired by the sights and scenes, the high glories and noble disasters of warfare—expresses the feeling struggling in our hearts as she retains the hand of the last of the file of blue-coats in hers: “What an honour to shake the hand of a British soldier!”
We hear them troop away through the little courtyard, laughing and talking. We think, as the small nurse said, that they have had a pleasant time.
One of the small side amusements in life is to hear other people’s reflections upon experiences that one has lived through together, and to measure the distance that lies between different points of view. It makes one realize how extraordinarily difficult it must be to obtain reliable evidence.