The following day was Sunday, and Nora had a headache, as was hardly surprising, after her unusual fatigue and excitement, so that it was only on the day following, that she and the little Cecilia, for whom some garments had meantime been remodelled out of old ones of Mrs. Blanchard's, were set down by the doctor at the door of the hospital.
It was a new experience for her, and she walked with some nervous dread along the whitewashed corridors, oppressed by the feeling that behind those white walls were being fought, unseen, many battles between disease and death on the one hand, and medical care and skill on the other. As she passed on, guided by the porter, she could catch glimpses, through partially open doors, of wards filled with "heavy cases"—every bed, apparently, tenanted; of others where convalescents were sitting among neat beds with snowy coverlets—pictures and plants giving an air of comfort to the place. At the end of a long passage, she found herself in a cheerful little room, with an open fire burning brightly in the grate, and her old acquaintance, Miss Spencer, Kitty Farrell's cousin, in her pretty nurse's uniform, sitting beside the bed on which lay the invalid she had come to see. The latter looked pale and weak, indeed, but seemed so different in her new surroundings and fresh white draperies, that Miss Blanchard would scarcely have recognized her. The little Cecilia threw herself upon her mother in a close, clinging embrace, which the nurse presently loosened gently, lifting her to a seat on the bed, where she could look at her mother without tiring her. The latter was evidently very weak, and scarcely cared to talk; but she looked gratefully, if shyly, at Miss Blanchard, and then lay with her beautiful dark-gray eyes, so like the child's, and half-screened by the long dark lashes, fixed on the little one beside her. The dusky hair that lay in a mass about her pale face, on the white pillow, seemed to make it paler by comparison, but also made her look even younger than Miss Blanchard had supposed her. The latter purposely made her visit very brief, but suggested that she and Miss Spencer should leave the mother and child alone, with the almost unnecessary caution "not to talk," to which neither seemed disposed. Miss Spencer led the way to the little sitting-room used by the nurses, which was then empty.
"How nice and neat it all is!" said Nora, as they sat down, her eyes coming back from their survey to rest admiringly on the serene, happy face of the young nurse. Janet or "Janie" Spencer, as her friends called her, had interested her very much in their occasional meetings. There was something about her, not easy to define, which attracted most people. She was a rather large, well-developed young woman, with her cousin Kitty's fairness of coloring, but not Kitty's exquisite delicacy of complexion and moulding. An expression of kindly good sense and good-humored benevolence seemed to shine in her clear eyes and to hover about the curves of her red lips; her calm, even manner was soothing in itself, and in her fresh picturesque uniform, Nora thought she looked like an impersonation of the divine art of healing.
"Well, how do you like your work?" asked Nora, eagerly.
"'Like' isn't the word!" was the reply. "It's intensely interesting. You get so absorbed in the interest of it that you never take time to think whether you like it or not! Of course, there are things you can't like in themselves, but you forget that, when you know that you are doing what is of real consequence. And then I think I always was cut out for a nurse. Ever since I was a child, I liked nothing so well as caring for sick people."
"We all thought it was very lovely of you to make up your mind to do it, though."
"Well, I simply couldn't go on as I was. You know there were some things I could never forget——"
Nora touched caressingly the soft hand that looked so strong and helpful, with all its softness. She had heard of the young lover whose sudden death had altered Janie Spencer's life. Presently she went on:
"That ordinary, humdrum, easy existence—so many of us girls at home, and no interests but calls and parties and novels and fancy-work—it seemed just trifling away life; and I thought if ever I could save any one who was ill as he was, how sweet it would be!—almost as if I did it for him!"
"Then it wasn't Mr. Chillingworth's preaching, after all," said Nora, vaguely disappointed.