"I'll lend you the money," said George, stroking his sister's hair.
He looked so affectionate and handsome, and so manly and good-humored, that it was impossible not to feel pleased with him. Mrs. Staunton's eyes quite beamed as she glanced at her eldest son.
"Now, mother, I am going to sit near you," he said. He drew his chair close to his mother, and began to talk to her in a low tone.
Effie and Lawson exchanged a few words over hospital work. He would make an enthusiastic doctor some day! he loved the profession and thought it the noblest in the world. He reminded Effie a little of her father.
The quick hours flew all too fast. Effie's time was up. She went back to the hospital with a curious sense of uneasiness, but equally also of rest and refreshment. It was nice to think that George had such a good friend as Fred Lawson.
CHAPTER XVI.
Two months passed away without any special incident. Effie's month of trial being over, she was now established at St. Joseph's as a regular probationer. Her salary of twelve pounds a year began from the day her second month commenced. All those qualities which Dorothy was quite sure that Effie possessed were coming abundantly to the fore. She had tact, she had courage, she had nerve. She was also absolutely unselfish. Self was not in the foreground with her; the work which she had to do, the work which she meant to carry through in the best possible manner, in the bravest spirit, with the most conscientious sense of duty, ever filled her mental horizon. Sister Kate began to trust Effie. She began to smile at her now and then, and to give her not quite so much floor-scrubbing and grate-polishing, and a little more work to do for the patients themselves.
The patients liked to call Effie to smooth their sheets, to turn their pillows, to give them their drinks. One or two of them, when they had an odd moment, began to make little confidences to her. She learned their histories almost at a glance. She also studied their fancies; she began to find out the exact way Mrs. Robinson liked her gruel flavored, and how Mrs. Guiers liked her pillows arranged. Effie made no fuss over the patients,—fuss and favoritism were strongly against the rules,—but notwithstanding, she was a favorite herself.