In the vicinity of one of our great London Hospitals, there is a pleasant Park. Very diversified in its character: laid out most artistically in shady groves, sloping lawns of soft grass, retired rockeries where water drips among giant ferns, and lakes winding in and out between banks covered with fine trees and exotic flowers. It is one of the most charming of the many charming oases in the vast Saharah of brick and mortar. And yet the fashionable world know nothing of it save by name. It is the playground of the people, and perhaps has never been visited by any of the daughters of Mayfair, except on the one occasion, when Royalty went down into that poverty-stricken quarter of the great city, to formally open these beautiful gardens to the humblest of its subjects.
But being within easy reach of the hospital, it was a common thing for the worn-out house-surgeons, the nurses and others connected with that noble charity, to snatch a few moments of fresh air in that pleasant place, in the intervals of their labour among the sick.
It was early in November, but the autumn had been so mild, and so free from the usual blustering South Westers, that the leaves were still on the trees, and the glorious colouring of the foliage was such as to remind Canadian visitors of their own mellow Indian summer.
Two young women were walking leisurely by the path which bordered the lake. The elder of the two, who seemed to be about twenty-five, was of middle height, well filled out, dumpy she might almost be called, not over much so, however, but to that extent only that many of the other sex prefer in a woman. She was pretty, decidedly so, but not of a good prettiness; she had the sort of evil beauty that tempted the old saints, the purely carnal attractiveness.
When a man's met her eyes, he was fascinated; but the thoughts that they excited in him were of madness and lust, and not of the pure and chastening delight which the beauty of the true woman inspires.
Those eyes were large, languid, with full pupils, and lids that generally half closed over them—eyes that would not look frankly into yours, though they would voluptuously—eyes that to him who can read the tale the human features tell, betrayed the lascivious, deceitful, cruel temperament—the three qualities so often go together—and let the man that values his manhood avoid such eyes as he would the lord of hell, who, as the hermits of old believed, created them.
If the affection of such a woman be cast upon a man he is lost; for it is not the sweet flower of love that they will enjoy together, but another, a flower indeed, but a flower of hell.
The other woman was taller, slighter, much younger, and of a very different style of beauty; for this other was Mary Grimm, whereas her companion was Susan Riley.
The two would-be baby-killers were now members of an association of lady nurses, and were undergoing their training for ministry of the sick at the neighbouring hospital.
They were conversing: Susan in a flippant volatile fashion, not forgetting to cast sidelong glances of conquest through the corners of her eyes at the men that passed her, as ever eager for admiration; Mary in an earnest manner, not observing the people, and while she talked, throwing, in an absent way, crumbs of bread she had brought with her for the purpose to the tame swans and ducks that swam on the artificial water.