"I don't wish not to sympathize with you, of course," she said, after a pause, "but the fact is, nurses should detach themselves as much as possible from home-life. The nurse who really gives herself up to her splendid calling has to try to forget that she has a home. She has to remember that her first duties consist in taking care of her patients and in learning her profession."
"Then I can't be a nurse," said Effie, the color rushing into her face.
Sister Kate looked at her and shook her head.
"I am very sorry," she said, after a pause. "The fact is, I had great hopes of you—you have many of the qualifications which go to make a splendid nurse; I won't recount them here. I had, as I said, great hopes of you, but your words now make me fear that, excellent as those qualifications are, they are overbalanced."
"By what?" asked Effie.
"By sentimentality—by nervous overworry about matters which you should leave in other hands."
"I have no other hands to leave them in; the fact is, home duties must always be first with me. I've got a mother and several young brothers and sisters. I am the eldest daughter. I cannot let my mother suffer, even to indulge what has been for a long time the great dream of my life. It is very probable that I shall have to give up being a nurse."
"How can you? You are engaged here for three years."
"I must beg of the Governors of the hospital to let me off; the case is a special one—the trouble under which I am suffering is most unexpected. I fear, I greatly fear, that I shall be obliged to leave the hospital for a time."
"I am truly sorry to hear that," said Sister Kate. "Does your friend Miss Fraser know of this?"