"No, no!" she exclaimed in Italian, excitedly, "I will not! I will not!"
Helen drew off her gloves and sat down upon the dingy bed beside
Ninitta, regarding her with pitying eyes.
"You shall not," she answered, in the girl's own language. "You need do nothing but what you choose."
The soft tone seemed to calm Ninitta. She allowed Helen to arrange the soiled and crumpled pillows, and yielded when her self-constituted nurse wished her to lie down again. The latter procured a bowl of water, and with her handkerchief bathed the sick girl's face, soothing her with womanly touches which waked in Edith a new feeling of sympathy and tenderness. Mrs. Greyson's white fingers, contrasting strongly with the Italian's clear dark skin, smoothed the tangled hair from the hot forehead, and all the while her rich, pure voice murmured comforting words, of little meaning in themselves, perhaps, but sweet with the sympathy and womanhood which spoke through them.
Edith meanwhile was not idle. She applied herself to hushing the boisterous children, and to bringing something like quiet out of the tumult of the crowded room. She assisted the girl with her maccaroni, gravely listening to the principles which governed its equitable distribution, with her own hands giving the grimy little children the share belonging to each. An air of comfort seemed to come over the frowsy room after Edith had quietly set a chair straight here, picked up something from the floor there, and arranged the ragged shade at the window. Even the little Italians, half barbarians as they were, felt the change, and were more subdued.
Ninitta, too, was calmed and soothed, and, with Helen's cool hand upon her hot brow, she sank presently into a drowse.
"Mrs. Fenton," Helen whispered, fanning her sleeping patient, "Ninitta cannot remain here. I must take her home with me. I think she had better run the risk of being moved than to be ill in this crowded room."
"But," remonstrated Edith, somewhat aghast at this summary procedure, "you do not even know what is the matter with her."
"No," Helen returned lightly, "but I shall probably discover."
"Not by finding it something contagious, I hope," her friend said, laying her hand upon Mrs. Greyson's forehead with a slight, caressing touch.