"I wouldn't write him but once again, and do it all by yourself. Just say that the reason you wrote the other letter, asking how you stood with him, was that you had been thinking of leaving us altogether, but before taking the decided step of entering an hospital, you had thought it only fair to him to give him the chance to object, if he really had the objections he had led you to take for granted."
We heard a shouting and a blowing of tin horns upon the beach at this juncture. I took the oars and pulled in, seeing Belle and the boys waving their hats in the bright moonlight. My wife's face expressed the blankest astonishment when she saw who was my shipmate.
"We thought you must have fallen asleep out there. Didn't know you had company!"
Mary was still in the black books when I came down the next Saturday. Belle had a bitter complaint.
"She sat there the whole afternoon yesterday and part of the evening, writing and rewriting a letter before my very eyes. 'Are you replying to Will Axworthy?' I asked quite cordially, for I did want to have a hand in answering that letter—had some cutting sentences all ready for him. 'Yes, mawm,' said she very shortly; 'but I guess I can manage to get along by myself.'"
I did not dare own up to the advice I had given, but I saw that matters must be hastened. Having business in Chicago about that time, I visited almost every hospital in the city, telling Mary's story in my most dramatic newspaper style. I made it understood that it was very noble and self-sacrificing of the young woman, when she might live in the lap of luxury,—for thus did I unblushingly describe my own modest establishment,—to embrace a nurse's vocation and labor for the good of humanity, including herself, of course. The education—or the lack of it—was the drawback everywhere, and also the youth of the applicant, twenty-five being a more acceptable age than barely twenty-one.
But my perseverance was at last rewarded by finding the superintendent of a training school who still had some imagination left, and who became deeply interested in Mary's "tale of woe."
"Make her study her reading, spelling, and arithmetic as hard as she can for the next few months, and I'll get her in the very first opening."
The prospect roused Belle's old-time vigor, and she had spelling matches for Mary's benefit, made the girl read aloud to her, gave her dictation to write, and heard her the multiplication tables every forenoon—when she did not forget.
One delightful morning in October I had the honor of taking our protégée into Chicago and delivering her up to the lady superintendent. If she could only stand the month of probation, we flattered ourselves that she would be safe.