"But I'll know who did it; I'll know," she kept repeating.
"You're worse off than the woman with a hitch in her face," he said with a quiet smile; "you have a hitching chair. But I dare say Miss Alden will make it all right."
There was some inquiry made as to who was the author of the mischief; but without any discovery. The woman grumbled all day, that she was "dacent,—as dacent as any one in the hospital. She had had two husbands, and was as dacent as any one, and would not submit to such tratement."
When night came, she was evidently worse; but nothing would induce her to retire until the rest had done so; and then she made sure of her prize by tying her garters together, fastening one end to the chair, and the other round her neck.
When the doctor came the next day, he found her so, and with a much quickened pulse.
"Did you move the chair?" he asked softly, approaching Ruth's bed.
He had seen her eyes sparkle with merriment, and concluded her the rogue.
"Yes, sir, I did it."
"Well, you had better keep your bed at night, in future."
Little Mary, as well as the others, amused herself talking about the woman with a chair tied round her neck. They all saw how selfish she was, and how disagreeable her selfishness made her. Poor woman, she lived but a short time after this, and died lamenting that since she came to the hospital she had "lost her muff,—a fine dacent one, too."