Fig. 30.
One word more, like a postscript, for it has no real business to intrude itself here. It is only an entreaty to all nurses or those in authority in a sick-room, to wear the prettiest clothes they possess. Not the smartest, far from it; the simplest cottons, cambrics, what you will, but nice and fresh and pleasant to look at. If it is only a dressing-gown it may be a charming one. No hanging sleeves, or dangling chains, or streaming ribbons, but sufficient colour for weary eyes to rest on with pleasure. An ideal toilette for sick-room nursing would be a plain holland or cambric gown, made with absolute simplicity—long enough to be graceful without possessing a useless train—rather tight sleeves, and no frills or furbelows; a knot of colour at the throat and in the hair, or on the cap—only let your ribbons be exquisitely fresh and clean—and a nice large apron, or rather bib, with one big pocket in front. This apron may be tied back—not too tightly, please—with the same coloured ribbons, and a little change of hue now and then is a great rest and refreshment in a sick room. There are charming linen aprons now embroidered in School of Art designs of the shape I allude to, but they can be made equally well in print, or plain holland, or linen.
No garment that rustles or creaks, or makes its presence audible should ever cross the threshold, but the toilette of the nurse should always be exquisitely clean and neat, and yet as bright and pretty as possible. No sitting up at night, no anxiety or unhappiness should be an excuse for a dirty, dishevelled attendant in a sick-room. It is always possible to steal half an hour morning and evening to wash and change, and do one’s hair neatly, and the gain and comfort to the patient as well as to the nurse, is incalculable. This also would not be touched upon if my own recollections did not supply me with so many instances, where all this sort of care was considered to be absolutely worthless, and yet sick people have remarked afterwards how perfectly conscious they had been of all such shortcomings, and how such and such a tumbled cap, or shawl pinned on awry had been like a nightmare to them. Beauty itself is never more valuable than in a sick-room, and if laws could be passed on the subject, I should like to oblige all the pretty girls of my acquaintance to take it in turn to do a little nursing. I venture to say that no ball-room triumphs would ever compare with the delight their possession of God’s greatest and best gift would afford to His sick and suffering creatures. But a nurse may always make herself look pleasant and agreeable, and if she have the true nursing instinct, the ready tact and sympathy which a sick-bed needs, she may come to be regarded as “better than pretty” by her grateful patient.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SPARE ROOM.
