The morning sunshine streamed through the lofty windows of the children’s ward, lighting up cheerfully the snowy beds and the pale faces of their little occupants, and waking Berty from her feverish, uneasy slumber. She was puzzled at first by the unfamiliar objects around; but the bandage on her forehead, with the powerless arm and aching side, brought back the remembrance of the accident, even before the kind nurse appeared with her cheerful, motherly face and pleasant greeting. This good lady’s watchful attentions, the morning bath so tenderly administered, the delicate invalid breakfast so invitingly spread upon the little tray, and the bright room where even suffering was made to look so cheerful and comely, were all so new and so delightful, that Berty thought it almost a privilege to be ill in such a place.
Afterwards, too, when breakfast was over, and the nurse propped her up with pillows, and left her to attend to other duties, Berty was very happy, though her arm and side were still very painful. She thought she could never tire of looking at the beautiful prints upon the walls, nor of watching and listening to her young companions, who seemed to be quite at home, and called to each other, from bed to bed, as merrily as any well children could do. But presently some one spoke of the Doctor, hoping he would come early; and, at the mention of that name, all Berty’s joy and contentment melted away in a moment, and she sank back upon her pillow, with a look of care and weariness upon her face which made all the children pity her very much indeed.
The old tormenting question, What to do, had come back again, and it seemed to Berty more troublesome than ever before. The Doctor had been so kind, both to her and to her little ones,—how could she bear to do him such injury as to keep his property? But he evidently knew nothing about her possessing it,—he had held it in his hand without seeming to have the least suspicion; and now she was ill she had no chance of earning anything: she could never accomplish her design in any other way.
Just in the midst of these painful thoughts, the nurse came in ushering Tim to pay her his morning visit. Tim had left home with the firm determination to make Berty do the right thing about the pocket-book, or else refuse to have anything more to do with it; but, remembering her strange conduct about it from the first, he was a little shy about beginning. So he sat down by the bed, and gave Berty a long and glowing account of the Doctor’s kindness to the children, and the great fancy they had taken to him,—a very good way of beginning, if Tim had only known it. After he had spun this subject out as long as he could, and answered all Berty’s questions about little Fritz, he came to a dead stop for a moment, and was just mustering courage to commence his lecture, when a strain of sweet music floating in seemed to fill all the hall with a cheerful solemnity.
“What is it, Tim?” asked Berty, after listening a moment.
“It’s the organ, I think,” answered Tim.
“The organ! Where?”
“Why, in the chapel, sure; don’t ye know, Berty, there’s a chapel here, a little church like, right in the middle of the building? All the halls open into it; and it’s beautiful, I tell you.”
“But it’s not Sunday, Tim.”
“No; but I think they has service every day,—leastways, I saw the people sitting there whin I wint out last night, waiting like. But it’s a feast to-day, Berty; it’s All-Saints, ye know,—the first of November. Belike they’d have service to-day, if ever. I was to go to Mass meself but for you; thin I put it off till Vespers,” answered devout Tim.