"It isn't only in the big places that people do big things," he answered.
"What about that child she referred to, Doctor?"
I told him how the little one had been taken ill, and how they had been obliged to take her to the head of the cove, over the ice, until they were able to find a place where a pick could bite into the ground. Miss Jelliffe stared at me, as I spoke, and I could see her beautiful eyes becoming shiny with gathering tears.
On the next day, as I was doing something to the plaster dressing, she came into the room, hurriedly.
"I've been out there," she said. "What a poor desolate place in which to leave one's loved ones. Won't you let me help? I think I am getting on very well with my untrained nursing. I want as much practice as I can get."
"I am bound hand and foot," complained the patient. "These women are taking all sorts of unfair advantages of me. And, by the way, Helen, I want you to go out more. You are remaining indoors so much that you are beginning to lose all your fine color."
"I look like an Indian," she protested laughing.
"Then I don't want you to get bleached out. You must go out walking more, or try some fishing, but be careful about those slippery rocks. I can play no other part now than that of a dreadful example."
"I am not going to budge from this room," declared Miss Jelliffe. "You know that you can't get along without me. Besides, there are no places that one can walk to."
"I insist that you must get plenty of fresh air," persisted her father.
"There is no fresh air here," she objected. "It is a compound of oxygen, nitrogen and fish, mostly very ripe fish. One has to breathe cod, and eat it, and quintals are the only subjects of conversation. Codfish of assorted sizes flop up in one's dreams. Last night one of them, about the length of a whale, apparently mistook me for a squid, or some such horrid thing, and was in the very act of swallowing me when I awoke. I'm afraid, Daddy dear, that the fresh air of Sweetapple Cove is a dreadful fiction. But it must be lovely outside."