“I shall have to do that hereafter, so I accept your offer with thanks,” she replied instantly, in her relief at finding a home open to her, even though it was under the roof of a lunatic asylum.
But she had met warm hearts here, dear and true friends, and their kindness was a balm to her pain. The middle-aged superintendent was kind and fatherly, the woman physician sisterly, the two young men doctors frank and sociable, as well as all the attendants. No one passed her with cold looks, or burned her heart with cruel words. They did not seem to remember that she was under a cloud, her fair name stained by scandal. She would stay here and work among them as long as she lived.
“You may begin your new duties to-morrow. Come to me in my office early in the morning for assignment to a ward,” said Doctor St. Clair.
Then they all slipped away to their duties, and she walked alone among the beautiful flowers and trees of the wide grounds, her heart swelling with gratitude that she need not go away out into the cold world, where no one believed in her innocence, and no one loved her any more.
She could have gone down on her knees to thank the fatherly superintendent for letting her stay, only she was just a little bit frightened at his easy ways, so different from any she had been used to. She did not like for him to catch her hand and hold it so tight when he was talking to her, and look so deep into her eyes with admiration that made her blush.
She had noticed that he had the same way with others—always young and pretty ones—and only yesterday she had spoken to dashing Miss Blue about it.
“Don’t you think he is too familiar with us girls, catching our hands so tight and looking in our eyes that queer way?” naively.
Miss Blue laughed lightly.
“Oh, the doctor means no harm. He is just jolly and fatherly. He always has his little joke with me when I go in his office at night to make my report. Besides, if we were to resent his little cordialities we might lose our positions.”
“I see,” little Eva answered quickly, and now that she was engaged as an attendant, too, she thought: