"Come, bring the water and fill up after me. There is twenty beds left yet. I gave the right sort of symptoms to the doctor, and he left the kind of medicine that we like best for almost the whole lot."
The young woman followed her ruthless leader into the ward, carrying the water-pitcher in her unsteady hand, for she had not reached the hardened audacity of her preceptress, and there was something in the scene to make even a debased nature tremble.
"Don't, don't take more than half; they will die before morning if we do!" she whispered, as the eyes of a patient, full of heart-rending reproach, was turned upon their work. "See, this one is so feeble."
"Poh, a little brandy, more or less, what does it signify?" cried Mrs.
Fuller.
"The wine, then leave the wine. I did not take a drop!"
"More fool, you!"
"Hush!" said the young woman, "I hear her coming. Leave the rest; we shall be found out."
"Take this and give me the water. Out of the way, now, and see that you don't drink any till I come!"
The young woman hurried out of the room, meeting Mary Fuller and little Isabel in the passage.
"They want water. I am going for more water. It is wonderful how they keep us running night and day!" she said, hoping to draw off their attention with a gratuitous falsehood.