"Let me see, number ten—yes, young Toules has charge there. It is his turn in the fever ward. He has never graduated, I believe."
"And has he had no practice among fevers?"
"Oh! yes, he has been three days in number ten, and one sees a good deal of fever in three days, I can tell you."
The stranger turned away sick at heart.
"Let me," he said, in a broken voice, "let me speak with the nurse who is to take care of the person I brought here."
The clerk called to a lame pauper who was limping through the building and ordered him to summon the nurse from number ten. The old man went with difficulty up the stairs that led from the hall, and soon returned, followed by a tall dissipated-looking woman of forty, who still retained in her swollen features traces of intelligence and early refinement that redeemed them in some degree from positive brutality.
A look of fierce and settled discontent lay on this woman's features, which was aggravated by the dress of dark blue that fell scant and ill-shapen around her stately figure, and was fastened tightly over the bosom with a succession of coarse horn buttons that but half filled the yawning buttonholes.
This woman approached the stranger with a dogged and sullen air.
"Is it you that wants me?" she said, looking earnestly at him. "That man said somebody wanted to see the nurse!"
"And is this woman a nurse to the sick? Is she to have the charge of this poor lady?" questioned the stranger, turning to the clerk.