"I'll take her in," said Mr. Alden, with his good-humored smile, as they were consulting over the difficulties in the way. But Nora demurred. He had enough of his own, and she did not want to put one more care on Mrs. Alden or Gracie. She took her sister-in-law aside for consultation, and presently returned triumphant. "Sophy says I may have her here," she said to her brother. "She's such a dear little grave creature, I don't think she'll give any trouble, and she will help to amuse Eddie and Daisy. They are almost too much for nurse, now baby's growing so lively."
"Trust Nora for finding the bright side of everything," said Dr. Blanchard, laughing. "She's a born optimist."
"Indeed, I thought I was growing pessimistic last night," said Nora. "It's horrible to find out, really, how so many people have to live!" she added, looking at Mr. Alden, with a perplexed look in her eyes, and a shadow over her usually bright face.
"And you've had no rest yet!" interposed her brother. "You must go and lie down at once. I'll see the poor woman transferred to her new quarters as safely as may be, and bring the child here; and you can go to see the mother another time."
Nora went to her dainty, quiet room—such a contrast to the one in which she had spent the night!—and, lying down on the soft luxurious bed, she tried to close her tired eyes in sleep; but it was rather a failure. A healthy young physique, accustomed to sleep only at regular hours, does not readily adapt itself to irregular rest; and heart and brain were still too much excited to encourage sleep. The aspect of the miserable little room seemed photographed on her inner sight; the oppressed breathing of the invalid, the sad glimpses into other people's lives, haunted her whenever she closed her eyes. As she lay there on her soft couch in the daintily-appointed room, with the pretty things about her with which girls like to surround themselves, and the light softly shaded to make an artificial twilight, visions rose before her of droning wheels and flashing shuttles, of long arrays of frames, such as she had seen in the factory some time before; and the thought of the girls with feelings and nerves like her own, tending, through so many weary hours, these senseless and relentless machines, oppressed her quick sensibilities like a nightmare. Then, when at last she fell into a brief, troubled slumber, she dreamed that she was following some one through mile after mile of endless corridors, all lined with that inexorable, never-ceasing machinery, tended by armies of pale, slender girls, many of them children. And whenever she desired to sit down to rest, her conductor kept beckoning her onward, and she seemed compelled to follow, on—on—would it never end! And as her companion looked round impatiently to urge her advance, she saw for the first time that it was the young man who had been her guide and escort the preceding evening. And, just then, Eddie, stealing on tip-toe into the room to see if "Auntie were awake yet," dispersed the illusion, and she awoke to a glad consciousness of liberty and restfulness, yet with a strange sense of latent pain behind it.
Nora lay still a little longer, thinking with some interest of the curious way in which the sights and sounds of waking hours interweave themselves into new and absurd combinations, when the guiding will is for the time off duty. She was naturally introspective, and had a special turn for psychological studies, in which her brother's line of thought harmonized with her own. But suddenly she was startled by sounds that stole into the quietude—sounds of a child's unrestrained, sobbing grief, intermingled with unsuccessful attempts at consolation.
CHAPTER IX.
IN THE HOSPITAL.
"Why, Eddie, is that Daisy crying? What is the matter?" she asked, starting up.