Trembling at the very thought, she placed her candle on the old-fashioned wash stand and sat down on the big wooden bed to try to get command of herself. What would Linda Carlton do in a case like this, she steadfastly asked herself?
“Forget it, of course,” she replied aloud in a natural tone, and the sound of her own voice, without even a tremble, gave her courage.
“I won’t even open that shutter,” she decided, “and then I shan’t have to see it!”
With this resolve, she set herself to the task of opening the other window and of making her preparations for bed. How familiar it all was! She remembered even the contents of the bureau drawers: an old doll which she had kept since her childhood, some other toys, and a few clothes. Very few indeed, for she must have been exceedingly poor.
As she wandered about the old-fashioned room, so different from the bedrooms of Linda’s friends, her eyes lighted upon the book case. Filled with strange volumes of adventure, which must have belonged to her grandfather. And then, on a bedside table, she came upon her own little Bible.
As she opened this worn black book, a picture fell out. An old-fashioned picture of an old woman—a kindly person, with a sweet smile. Helen’s heart beat fast; she seized the picture with trembling fingers. Memories flooded back to her in wild confusion, but at the center of them all was this dear woman—her old nurse—Mrs. Smalley!
“Oh, darling Nana!” she cried, ecstatically kissing the photograph, and calling the woman by the old familiar name. “Nana, you have brought back my memory to me!”
But a start of dismay followed closely upon her joy. Where was Nana now?
“Why, she’s out looking for me, of course!” she answered herself. “And she is so poor that she probably had to walk all the way to the city, and never even saw a newspaper until she got there! Oh, my poor dear Nana! She can’t walk fast! Those wretched feet of hers! And her deafness, and her failing eyesight!”
The thought of the beloved nurse’s plight took Helen’s worries away from herself entirely. She forgot how lonely, how fearful, how forsaken she was. If only she could get out of this house, and hunt the dear soul! Do something for Nana, who would gladly lay down her life for her child!