“But what?” asked Beth anxiously, as the nurse hesitated.
“All babies have their ills, and little Jane cannot escape them. The rainy season is approaching and dampness is trying to infants. There will be months of moisture, and then—I shall be needed.”
“Have you been in California before?” asked Beth, impressed by Mildred’s positive assertion.
The girl hesitated a moment, looking down.
“I was born here,” she said in low, tense tones.
“Indeed! Why, I thought all the white people in California came from the east. I had no idea there could be such a thing as a white native.”
Mildred smiled with her lips. Her imperturbable eyes never smiled.
“I am only nineteen, in spite of my years of training and hard work,” she said, a touch of bitterness in her voice. “My father came here nearly thirty years ago.”
“To Southern California?”
“Yes.”