“Please pick up your cloth and lay it on the table, then move swiftly, but more silently as you go to your patient!”
She smiled as she spoke, and Marion nodded gratefully.
“I see I am much too impulsive,” she said, regretfully. “Oh, will I ever learn to discipline my emotions?”
“Of course you will,” said Miss Williams, as she passed out of the door. “You’ll learn anything that you wish to, Miss Marion Marlowe.”
It was Kittie B—— who had rung the bell. She was lying in bed, her face as white as her pillow, with a tiny red-faced infant nestling beside her.
“May I have a drink of water?” she whispered, with a faint smile. “I guess I am feverish—I’m awful thirsty.”
“Certainly you shall have it, dear,” was Marion’s prompt answer. Then it suddenly occurred to her that she had no right to promise anything.
“I’ll have to ask Miss Williams first, though, Kittie,” she said, quietly; “but I guess there is no doubt but what you can have the water.”
It was only a minute before Marion returned with the water, but the request had brought Miss Williams promptly to the bedside.
In a moment the trained nurse was feeling Kittie’s pulse. In another minute the temperature thermometer was out, and it was discovered that Kittie had a fever.