They showed me her needlework—handkerchiefs and dusters hemmed with much accuracy, and knitting more even than that of many of us who can see.
As I rose to go she took my finger and laid it upon the cabalistic signs of the "Book."
"Don't you understand it? That's my own text, as I reads when things are worse than general: 'Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' Yes, there'll be glory for me—glory for me—glory for me."
I heard the shrill, hoarse voice piping out the old revival hymn, very much out of tune, as I passed down the ward.
I had a nasty lump in my throat when I got back to the Board Room, and I can't exactly remember what I said to the Committee. I think I cleared Nurse Smith from any definite charge of cruelty, something after the fashion of the Irish jurymen: "Not guilty, but don't do it again," adding the rider that Mary Grant was blind and deaf, and if she grumbled it was not surprising.
It is possible my report was incoherent and subversive of discipline, and my feelings were not hurt because it was neither "received," nor "adopted," nor "embodied," nor "filed for future reference," but, metaphorically speaking, "lay on the table" to all eternity.
"AND, BEHOLD, THE BABE WEPT"
And, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion upon him.