"Have you heard that Miss Katherine Trent is coming here as a trained nurse?" she said, and she put down the poker, and, folding her arms, began to rock.
"You don't mean it!" said Mrs. Blamire, and her little voice just cackled. "Coming here? To this place? I do declare!" And she drew her chair up closer, being a little deaf.
"That's what she's going to do." Miss Bray took off her spectacles. "The Board can't afford to pay her a salary, but she's offered to come without one, and next week she'll start in."
"Katherine Trent always was queer," she went on, still rocking with all her might. "She can get big prices as a nurse, though she doesn't have to nurse at all, having money enough to live on without working. And why she wants to come to a place like this and fool with fifty-odd children and get no pay for it is beyond my understanding. It's her business, however, not mine, and I'm glad she's coming."
"I do declare!" And Mrs. Blamire clapped her hands like she was getting religion. "My, but I'm glad! Miss Katherine Trent coming here! And next week, you say? I do declare!" And her gladness sounded in her voice. It was a different kind from Miss Bray's. Even in the dark I could tell, for hers was thankfulness for the children. Miss Bray was glad for herself.
That was almost a year ago, and now my hair has come out and curls worse than ever. It's very thick, and it's brown—light brown.
I'm always intending to stand still in front of the glass long enough to see what I do look like, but I'm always in such a hurry I don't have time. I know my eyes are blue, for Miss Katherine said this morning they got bigger and bluer every day, and if I didn't eat more I'd be nothing but eyes. If you don't like a thing, can you eat it? You cannot. That is, in summer you can't. In winter it's a little easier.
I never have understood how Miss Katherine could have come to an Orphan Asylum to live and to eat Orphan Asylum meals when she could have eaten the best in Yorkburg. And Yorkburg's best is the best on earth. Everybody says that who's tried other places, even Miss Webb, who gets right impatient with Yorkburg's slowness and enjoyment of itself.
And Miss Katherine is living here from pure choice. That's what she is doing, and she's made living creatures of us, just like God did when He breathed on Adam and woke him up.
At the hospital she used to ask me all about the Asylum, and, never guessing why, I told her all I knew, except about Miss Bray. Miss Katherine had known the Asylum all her life, but had only been in it twice—just passing it by, not thinking. When I got better and could talk as much as I pleased, she wanted to know how many of us there were, what we did, and how we did it: what we ate, and what kind of underclothes we wore in winter, and how many times a week we bathed all over; when we got up, and what we studied, and how long we sewed each day, and how long we played, and when we went to bed—and all sorts of other things. I wondered why she wanted to know, and when I found out I could have laid right down and died from pure gladness. I didn't, though.