“No, except a possible predisposition. This does not mean, however, that I advocate marriage between lepers. If children are born of such parentage, they ordinarily die young or are a prey to every disease. The point I wish to illustrate is that nervousness is the worst tyrant of the day. True, ‘Old Ninety-Nine’ was already an old man; but he might have lived many years longer only for fear, which, combined with his racial traits, made a formidable enemy indeed.
“This is a question of great importance to nurses, one with which they, more than the physician, will have to contend. A nurse is sent on a case, possibly diphtheria, one of the most fatal diseases known. When we discover the germ a cure must follow and, as in any germ disease, corresponding nervous symptoms follow from destruction of tissue. Strange!” Dr. Herschel said, looking towards Shushan, “the many discoveries now being made on the physical plane, yet they do not unlock the doors to the spiritual realm.”
“Hernando claims that they do,” said Eletheer.
This happened to be one of the rare occasions on which Dr. Herschel laughed; and he did laugh with a right good will. “Yes,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “Hernando explained his philosophy to me at some length during the last year of his stay at Shushan. As I understand him he believes that thought, like electricity and magnetism, is a force, and that it may be intelligently applied in the treatment of disease. Of course he refers to diseases of nervous origin, such as hysteria and some allied functional disorders, and in this he is quite right; but, Miss De Vere, my experience has been on other than metaphysical lines. As a nurse, yours will be also. This physical body and the material world it inhabits are our materials to work with and, at this stage of evolution at least, fate must be reckoned with. Don’t muddle your brain with these new sciences and cures. Keep on solid ground.
“Now Hernando is a splendid fellow, an ideal patient, and while I agree with him that the greater part of human ills are largely imaginary, and that it is natural for vegetable and animal life to grow from darkness to light, I am also grateful for the knowledge—and its results—revealed to us by microscopic vision into the world of micro-organisms. This is something tangible.” And rising, Dr. Herschel indicated that the interview was over.
After Eletheer left, Dr. Herschel walked rapidly back and forth, stopping occasionally to look out of first one window and then another; but the objects he saw were visible only to him. One thing he intended to do and that was to keep this girl in sight. She was possessed of the qualifications necessary for the making of an ideal nurse—a trifle visionary, perhaps; but experience would cure that—and it should be his duty to see that her aspirations in that line were realized as nearly as lay in his power. Another year at the training school would do much, and then he would do the rest.
All unconscious of these plans for her future, the object of them sped homeward. Turning a corner sharply she almost ran into Mary Genung and the latter laughingly called,—“Eletheer De Vere, do you mean that as a cut direct?”
“Certainly not, Mary, I confess to absent-mindedness. Come along home with me.”
“I’ve just been there. Your mother told me that you were at Dr. Brinton’s and that I might meet you. Let’s go after rhododendrons in the paper-mill woods. Please don’t refuse.”
“I’ve no such intention,” laughed Eletheer as she followed her companion to where, as children, they had spent many, many happy hours together. How long ago that seemed now—and she listened mechanically while her friend pointed out critically the architectural beauty of several newly erected buildings. They were passing the old Reformed Dutch Church when Mary exclaimed,—“To my mind, no structure in the city can approach this. In its chaste Corinthian lines, it is indeed a fitting monument to the religious zeal of our ancestors.”